O. C. Mugrage Campground and Radium Hot Springs

The second part of our Colorado loop took us from Matchless Campground on Turquoise Lake near Leadville to O.C. Mugrage Campground near Kremmling. Part of the trip was on Interstate 70. We really dislike driving on Interstate 70. The highway is curvy and goes up and down a lot and has a million crazed truckers trying to get their loads from A to B as fast as possible. It's a hairy drive and we try to avoid it when possible.

O.C Mugrage is a small free campground that has no facilities other then one vault toilet (which was surprisingly clean). It has about 8 or so sites. It's in the Radium State Wildlife Area. There are rock fire pits spread across the area. 


There was a small, older class C there. It might be a pain to get a big Class A in, but it could probably be done with some effort. There is a nice creek through the area. A trail to Radium Hot Springs begins on a very steep hill from the campground. It's about a 20 minute hike to the springs. Hot spring location: 39.959908, -106.540713. You can hear trains as they go by, but it's not super loud. We enjoyed hearing them. There are some beautiful trees and grass. 

We enjoyed our overnight here and the soak at the hot springs. The hot springs are very popular with rafters and there are hike-in campsites just above the hot springs. The road in to the CG (New Trough Road [CR 1] is well graded because there appears to be fracking trucks traveling the area. CR-11 is good also.). There was no cell coverage on Verizon. Pack your trash out - people trash the hot springs and if it keeps up, the forest service will take action and ruin it for everyone.

O.C. Mugrage signs.

Our campsite. It was near a creek.

Beautiful trees here.

Trail to Radium Hot Springs. The first 100 feet are very steep with loose rocks. 

Greg standing just above the Hot Springs.

There is a shoot from the top you must scrabble down to reach the Hot Springs.

Headed down.

One of the other soakers.

Radium Hot Springs on the Colorado River.

Two soakers paddled to the Hot Springs.

Karen and Greg in Radium Hot Springs, Colorado.

Looking down at the Hot Springs from the cliff above. Some folks jump into the river from here. Seems dangerous to us.

We were so mellowed out from our Soak that we forgot to do another video.

Next Up: We head for Steamboat Springs and Strawberry Hot Springs.

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