Grand Mesa — Hotel in Collbran

Beautiful area to camp, hike and off-road. If you have a high-clearance 4x4, and want to take a trail with a combination of views, remoteness and technical sections, do the following: From Grand Mesa Scenic Byway, take 254, to 2541A, to 259, to 121, to Lakeshore drive, which will return you to the Byway. Download the area on Google maps before you go. Then you can track your location without data signal. It will take several hours. Sections of this trail are generally only taken by atv, so I had to pull downed trees out of the way, fill deep water pits with logs, maneuver around boulders in other water holes. If you love off-roading, this is a great trail, and you can find unlimited places to camp along the way. Then make your way to the west side of the Mesa and drive the rim for...

Route 50 was closed, so on our detour we went to the Lands End Observatory out of curiosity. Ended up changing our plans and spending the night camping bc it was so gorgeous. Stars are amazing. Views are amazing. Free campsites throughout the mesa. Some hike-in only but many car accessible. Relatively few hiking/biking trails on the top but the Palisades Plunge mountain bike trail starts just off the steep side of the Mesa and was an amazing ride. Observatory was an interesting historical note but the view was the real draw. Bathrooms shut when we arrived. Not as busy as other national parks. 4wd not required but roads are...

Could be a beautiful place to camp, fish and paddle but the unbelievable amount of mosquitoes left us miserable and gone as quickly as we could the very next morning. 2 different repellents didn't phase them. Depending on which campground or lake you visit it seems your experience can be very different. One campground was taken over by parties and another was barely willing to accommodate us tent campers stating only one site was available while we physically drove past several not reserved or taken but as they were bigger or nicer spots they were trying to save them. The scenery is amazing but once was enough...