On the tundra pullovers high on Trail Ridge Road, the family that left Estes Park in shorts that morning steps out into air 20 to 30 degrees colder than town and digs the jackets out of the overhead cabinets. The road covers 48 miles from Estes Park to Grand Lake, 11 of them above treeline, and crests at 12,183 feet as it crosses the Continental Divide. That crossing gives an RV week here its shape, with the first nights on the Bear Lake side, a slow day over the top, and the last nights out west by Grand Lake.
Moraine Park is the place to sleep for those east-side nights, a big campground above the open meadow it's named for, with Bear Lake Road as the next morning's drive. It has 244 sites and takes RVs and trailers up to 40 feet, room enough for any motorhome a family rents for the week, though only 49 sites carry electric hookups and most nights run on the battery and the generator. Summer camping lasts into mid-October, after which the campground shifts to winter camping.
The park's other east-side loops are shorter and more seasonal. Aspenglen takes rigs only to 30 feet and closes from late September to late May, and Glacier Basin was closed for the whole 2026 season as of September 2026. Past 30 feet, Moraine Park is the one in-park pad on this side. A couple happy with Aspenglen's shorter sites can size down to a smaller rig instead, and the Colorado campervan page runs the park as day trips.
Crossing day climbs out of the meadows and up through the trees until the forest gives way to tundra, then drops down the west side toward Grand Lake, with the pullovers as the reason to take all day about it. Old Fall River Road reaches the same alpine country by its own route, and it's the one drive a family rig sits out. The Park Service bars vehicles over 25 feet and anything pulling a trailer from it, and the road closes in early October.
Estes Park, the hookup base below the park
Plenty of families never camp inside the gates at all. They take a full-hookup site in Estes Park for the week, drive into the park each morning, and come back at night to power, water and sewer at the pad, which also covers the weeks when Moraine Park is booked out. KOA Estes Park has back-in full-hookup sites on 30 and 50 amp service, and Jellystone Park Estes and Spruce Lake RV Park are among the other RV parks in town.
Towable listings add one more way to do it. Some owners deliver a travel trailer to a reserved site in Estes Park and set it up before the family arrives, so nobody tows anything up the mountain, but that's settled listing by listing and the RV park's own rules still apply.
Front Range families who want a closer shakedown weekend first will find lake and foothill trips on the Boulder, Longmont and Fort Collins RV pages, and the Colorado RV page covers the rest of the state.
Grand Lake and Timber Creek on the west side
The west side is the slower half of the week, with Timber Creek campground inside the park on the way down and the town of Grand Lake at the end of the road. Timber Creek takes RVs and trailers to 30 feet and has no electric hookups, so it's a dry night or two for a shorter rig through the summer.
Longer motorhomes head into town. KOA Grand Lake has back-in full-hookup sites on 50 amp and a lower loop of water and electric sites that take units up to 38 feet, and Winding River Resort and Elk Creek RV and Campground are the other names around Grand Lake. Pairing a Timber Creek night with a hookup night in town keeps the west side easy before the climb back over Trail Ridge.