Zapata Falls Campground

Stayed at campsite 5. Very nice, with good views of the valley below. There was enough space for 2 tents and a "living room", shade trees, and I appreciate the bear box. The area is pretty stripped of dry wood for fire gathering purposes. Very close to the road, but less close than some of the other sites. Being walking distance to the Falls was nice!

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Beautiful views and sunset! Cassie, the host, was super friendly and helpful. We will be back!

The camp host was great -- knowledgeable and friendly. The site was clean and had a great view! Campsites were nicely spaced. Overall, a great experience!

Bery peaceful site. We enjoyed a lot. It would be really nice if they fix the access road.

A great site commanding best viewing the sunset. Also you can find good shades around tent site below the parking area.

Loved our site (#19) which had a beautiful sunset over the valley. Camp hostess (Brandy sp?) came by and was awesome and provided bottled non-potable water to extinguish the campfire. Pit toilets were clean.

Pros: Zapata Falls itself! Views. Proximity to S Zapata Creek Valley & Ellingwood Point for the fit & ambitious.

Cons: Hot. Exposed (little shade). No water.

Zapata Falls is so beautiful! WAY under-hyped because even reserving a site at this campground I did not know learn or see anything about how great these falls were going to be. Very big fan now, and I also fell in love with the S Zapata Creek Valley for its kind of smaller (narrower) size and beautiful forests and meadows and how lonely it is compared to the routes for so many other 14ers during the summer.

Fair warning: for the falls, the *only* way you are safely seeing them is by getting your feet wet. Other option might be to try to hope from slippery rock to slippery rock and die trying. But a Lot of people don't seem to understand this and still make the decent hike up to the falls only to let those in their party with appropriate shoes actually go see the beautiful falls while they don't know what they miss. My Keens with some wool socks and my trekking poles or my dad's hand were enough to help me get back there safely.

Hiking up the valley all the way to the lake is quite the commitment and not really for people who are not in shape unless they want to start really early in the morning (dawn). It's a 5 mile hike during which you gain ~3500'. For those going on to do Ellingwood Point, know that the C2 Couloir is going to be a major scramble and would be safest only if no one is above you (rockslides of varying sizes seem nearly inevitable).

To deal with the heat and lack of solid shade, we had a canopy set up. Also helped with some rainstorms that came through. If you're fortunate enough to have a Lifetime Interagency Pass you can travel up the road to Great Sand Dunes NP to get some water for free, but be sure you have decent storage capacities. A 5 gallon water cube helped us get through 2-3 days at a time. The cmpgrnd provided some not-potable water for fire extinguishing which was helpful.

The campground has a spectacular view and was well kept. The walk to the falls was well worth it and not long.
The only bad part of the stay was finding campers squatting on my site. They did leave my site after an hour. Local Law Enforcement was very helpful.

This was a near-perfect site. Staying here let us do the falls early morning, so we had them to ourselves, no bugs, great views, and nicely spread out from other campers. Easy walks to toilets from all sites. Ideal.