Family Adventure Guide: Where to Camp, Hike, Play and Explore Part 3

Where to camp, play, hike and explore near Woodland Park, Colorado! Family Adventure Guide Part 3 of 5 in this series!

If you haven’t read Part 1, you need to do that! Oh then read Part 2!

I have searched countless times for “family friendly camping in Colorado” or “family friendly hikes in Colorado Springs” or “kid friendly off-road trails” only to turn up empty handed and nothing in my notebook of “Great Ideas.”

In this 5 part series of our Colorado Springs (And surrounding area) Family Adventure Guide, I am going to outline a good place to camp with kids, a great playground that feels safe, a family-friendly hike and an off-road trails that the kids will love!

Most of these locations (In part 2 & 3) will be in Woodland Park. Those of you that have been hanging around us for a while know that we LOVE Woodland Park & Green Mountains Falls.

Where to camp in Woodland Park

Diamond Campground is a favorite of ours. We have stayed there many times since we moved to Colorado Springs. The weather is always beautiful and we’ve rarely had to turn on our campers A/C. (We’ve also stayed in AirBNB’s in this area too while we were looking for houses a couple years ago. So yea, we really like it here)

The campground is clean, well kept and we feel safe in this area. We’ve seen many deer here and they have even walked through our camp site.

The bathroom and showers are clean. The laundry room is on a timed sign up sheet, run by the honor system.

This campground is closed in the winter. Check the dates before you plan your trip.

Amenities:

• Full hookups
• Community grill and fire pit
• Playground
• Dog Park
• Laundry
• Showers

Where to hike in Green Mountains Falls

There is a waterfall hike here that you can actually hike across the waterfall!!! YES, you read that right. You can hike across the waterfall. It’s so amazing!

Quick story on how I found this. I had an old map of the hiking trails for Green Mountain Falls. It’s not a normal trail map that you’d find at the State Park. Someone made the map the best they could. And gave directions the best they could. Then made it into a PDF and put it on the website. NOW if you go to print out the map, it doesn’t show you the trails, just the trailheads. I wish I would have saved it, because it was incredibly useful!

I was looking at the map more closely and realized that there was a dotted line that went across the waterfall. I’ve seen it before but never really thought that you could actually walk across the waterfall!!!! Well you can. And if I would have paid MORE attention to the falls, there is actually a trail marker on the other side of the falls. SMH!

David and I were taking the kids back to the waterfall and we were looking at our busted up map, when a couple stopped and asked if we had any questions about the map. She said that they’d hiked every inch of this place. I asked if you could cross the waterfall, she said yes!! So that is how we stumbled upon this gem.

Where to play in Green Mountains Falls

Green Mountain Falls has 2 playgrounds. One located near the pool and the other near the lake. The one at the lake has more playground like feel, with swings, a slide and play structure. The one near the pool is small, and only has a small play structure. There is also a basketball and tennis court, as well as a fitness court, all near the pool.

Where to explore near Woodland Park

Rainbow Falls is a great off-road trail for kids. There is section of this trail called “Little Moab” that is fun to get out and climb on, let the kids and dog run around.

This trail is busy. The video above we go there about 8ish am, made breakfast and then hit the trail. By the time we were done, the trail was starting to get super busy.

Copy and paste the GPS Coordinates for this trail into OnX, GAIA or Google Maps to get directions to the trail head. 39.13557, -105.10541

Wrapping up Part 3 of the Family Adventure Guide near Woodland Park

If you are ever near Woodland Park and want to know where to camp, hike, play and explore this amazing area. We’ve got you covered!

Seriously though, go check out Green Mountain Falls. It’s a amazing. Well, actually, never mind, you won’t like it. 😉

Check out Part 4 of the Family Adventure Guide.

Happy Trails!