We spent a month in this area in October 2023. The actual park we stayed at is about half way between Colorado Springs and Penrose / Cañon City. Also nearby is Florence which is the home to numerous prisons including the ADX supermax prison sometimes known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It is one of the most secure prisons in the U.S. and has housed several high profile criminals including Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber), Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Boston Marathon Bomber), and Richard Reid (the Shoe Bomber). We drove by but didn’t linger in the area!

Also nearby is the Royal Gorge near Cañon City, several roads with beautiful scenery up into the nearby Rocky Mountains (although we played it safe and didn’t try some of the more challenging ones with our dually truck), and of course Florissant, Divide, Woodland Park and Colorado Springs. We took a few road trips and hikes but mostly just hung out at our park. Just before the end of our stay, the area got it’s first winter snow and we woke up one morning to 8″ of snow. Luckily most of it was gone before we left.

Park Review – Mountaindale Cabins and RV Resort

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Location: Colorado Springs, CO
Type: Commercial Park
Check-in/Check-out times: 12:00/11:00
Site Quality / Amenities: Roads and sites are gravel which can get a bit muddy after heavy rains (or snow). Each site has a fire ring and a picnic table. The park has cabins for those wanting to stay without glamping. Available within the park is a playground, pavilions, and dog park. There are also laundry facilities, bathrooms and showers. There is a small store at the office.
Access: From CO-115 south of Colorado Springs or north of Penrose, take Barrett Rd. west to the park. That said, access to anything like food, gas etc. is at least 20 miles away.
Staff: Friendly and efficient.
Cellular/WiFi: AT&T did not work at all and Verizon just barely worked. The park had WiFi and we tried to use that but it only worked well intermittently. Ultimately, we went to the Best Buy in Colorado Springs and bought a Starlink satellite system. With that we were consistently getting 40-50Mbps or more download speeds and unlimited internet data. So far, we love it. After we get more experience with it in different locations maybe I’ll write a post on what we find.
Restaurants: El Alazan Mexican Restaurant in Florence was pretty good but Ortega’s in Cañon City was better. The Lost Cajun in Cañon City has decent Cajun food for a chain restaurant. While on our fall color drive we stopped in to Peak View BBQ in Woodland Park and it was surprisingly good. Sushi AI in Colorado Springs had decent sushi.
Nearby parks: We did not look at any other parks during our stay. There are some further south toward Penrose and further north toward Colorado Springs that might be good places to look at when we’re back in this area. Of course Cheyenne Mountain State Park is just south of Colorado Springs and it is one of our favorites although it’s difficult to get into even when you book 6 months in advance.
What we liked: We saw deer and wild turkeys in the park nearly every day. We also heard that bear are occasionally seen but we didn’t see one – not that we were disappointed. Our site, 86, was on a terrace above the rest of the park and we were a bit less crowded up there. Sites 84 through 87 are good choices.
What we didn’t like: The lack of internet and cellular service was a bit of a problem until we got the Starlink system. There was construction on CO-115 while we were there and there was a major accident on I-25 that diverted some traffic over to CO-115 causing some major headaches getting in and out of the park. Even though we like being out of major towns, this park is a bit far out of town. We got about 14″ of snow toward the end of our stay (late October) with night time temperatures getting into the single digits. It was pretty but we’d just as soon stay above 20!
Verdict: We’d love to be able to rate this park higher but with access issues and communications problems we have to lower the rating a bit. Even then, this would be a nice park to return to but possibly for only a week or two.