Exploring Pueblo, Colorado
April 1, 2025
It’s not an April Fool’s Day joke, Pueblo is really neat! Don and I spent last Friday through Sunday in Pueblo, exploring around and camping at Lake Pueblo State Park and visiting areas like City Park, downtown, some of the breweries, and along the river walk. Pueblo offers a small town feel with a population a little over 110,000. We enjoyed camping at Lake Pueblo State Park in our new camper! It was our inaugural trip to make sure everything worked (and see what else we need to add to the list -ha).
Happy Campers!
Lake Pueblo State Park was great! We stayed at the Arkansas Point campground and were able to take advantage of the electrical hookups. Our campsite had a nice view of the marina and south shore area. We also had several trails accessible right from the campground that were multi-use for hiking, biking, trail running, and even horseback riding. The campground had spacious sites with built in fire pits and sheltered picnic tables. We did wish the sites offered full hookups and had more bathrooms open (only 1 of 3 were open at the time). The visitor center had a nice selection of gifts and necessary items, along with the ability to purchase your state parks passes and licenses and fire wood. There was a lot of visitor parking and marina space for boaters. The park also boasts over 60 miles of shoreline around the lake, and nearly all of it is hike-able.
There were also several fun birds to watch while we were camping! My favorite being the Curve-billed Thrasher and Canyon Towhee. There were tons of Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, Eurasian Collared Doves, European Starlings, and House Sparrows and Finches. It was lovely hearing the birds singing every day, and with hardly any air traffic, it was really quite peaceful. Beyond the birds, we did see a new species of squirrel (for me), called a Spotted Ground Squirrel. It was also great to see the Osprey were back and catching lots of fish!
On our last day in Pueblo, we decided to go find the Mexican Duck that had been reported on eBird the last couple days. We had also tried to find the Crested Caracara, but no luck on that one. Maybe we would get a chance to see the duck. We stopped by City Park near the Pueblo Zoo and actually did get to see the duck, along with several other species of ducks, including the beautiful Wood Ducks! They are always so shy for me, so I was really happy to get some closer photos. City Park also has a Double-crested Cormorant colony and resident Ospreys.
We finished out our time in Pueblo by visiting the historic Walter Brewery (established in 1889!) and Brues Alehouse. We also enjoyed the river walk. After we left Pueblo, we made one final stop at Fountain Creek Nature Center in Fountain. What an amazing place to get lost in nature! I look forward to stopping there again in the near future. Oh, and don’t forget to check out Olde Town Coffee Shop if you visit!
I hope you enjoyed reading a bit about our quick trip to Pueblo. If you have any questions about camping at the state park or exploring the surrounding area, please reach out!
A Curve-billed Thrasher singing for us at camp