Poudre Canyon campground welcomes cannabis users for some rest and relaxation
Story and photos by John Garvey
I step out of the car and the first thing I hear is the buzzing, whistling sound of a hummingbird. The first thing I feel is something gently pawing my foot. I look down and see a ground squirrel with his front paws between the straps of my left sandal. He scurries up the outside of my pant leg before losing his grip, or nerve, about two feet up. He falls to the ground and runs off.
This is my first impression of CanyonSide Campground. It is not stressing me out so far.
Located about 25 minutes west of the Mishawaka Amphitheatre (the Mish) by car, or one hour from downtown Fort Collins, CanyonSide Campground is one of the preferred, openly weed-friendly campgrounds in Colorado. I’m here to talk with June Alexander, the owner and general manager.
‘I’m not your moral compass’
Alexander has been the general manager and sole owner of CanyonSide Campground since 2017. She was first a co-owner starting in 2001.
“When I came up here in ‘17, I guess marijuana had been legal for like four years,” she says. “And it might have come up, but I never knew it.”
A Vietnam vet who dropped in during a cross-country motorcycle road trip got Alexander thinking about her campground marijuana policy. He suffered from several chronic health conditions and tried cannabis for the first time in decades while at the campground. It worked. His planned overnight stay turned into a restorative two-week visit. “And that’s when I realized, who am I to tell a Vietnam vet you can’t smoke pot, but you’re taking all those drugs?”
Alexander saw the writing on the wall and made an official campground policy to welcome cannabis consumption at her campground, with clearly stated guardrails.
“I have no problem telling people I’m marijuana friendly, but I also don’t make a big deal about it.”
In other words, CanyonSide is not a 4/20 campground. It’s 4/20-friendly, and my strong impression is that it’s also family friendly.
“So if you’re in that cabin, that’s your space, right?” Alexander says. “You don’t have to listen to those people’s music, you know, because everybody pays. I’m like the mom, you know. Everybody pays for their space and if they decide to sit there and smoke pot or cigarettes – just don’t do it in my cabin – then we’re okay.”
People not supervising their kids. People letting their dogs off-leash. People arguing loudly. Drunks. Poor wildlife safety. Severe weather. Stoners are really far down your list of prospective problems if you’re running a campground.
In this case, as in many others, rules eliminate ambiguity. And that helps to prevent conflict.
‘Everything in life you need to know you can learn at a campground’
Campground management requires a lot of hard labor, a fair amount of diplomacy, a tolerance for relative isolation, and a fearless determination to keep people in line when they’re being dangerous or obnoxious to other campers. It’s also about perseverance, ingenuity and patience. Alexander has met a lot of campground managers, and none of them hate their job.
Alexander tells me about one instance at a campground convention when another campground owner was ribbing her about her cannabis-friendly policy.
“Do you ever have problems with drunks?” she asked.
“All the time.”
“You know how many problems I’ve had at my campground because of people smoking marijuana? Zero.”
Nobody would accuse Alexander of being soft-spoken, but she is disarming and diplomatic. Her point landed. In her years running CanyonSide Campground, she has only had one cancellation because of her cannabis policy, and it was amicable. Some people, generally parents, don’t want to be anywhere near the stuff, and Alexander respects that in the same way she respects people’s right to indulge discreetly.
Campsite and Amenities
When Alexander started going to campground conventions she quickly came to appreciate that “everyone has their niche.”
“You make it how you want to make it, right? So (CanyonSide is) not like any other campground. I’m not the same as Ed across the street (at Poudre River Resort), or Glen Echo. We all do something different.”
She’s telling me this and no more than a few seconds go by without the peculiar, sedating whir of a hummingbird flying by. Cannabis is definitely not the key thing that defines CanyonSide, either from the typical guest’s standpoint or from Alexander’s perspective.
Each of the campground’s cabins is unique, well-maintained, cheerful and rustic. Most of the bathrooms have been redone in the last five years, tiles and panels have been replaced, and Alexander has repainted a lot of rooms. But the appliances, fixtures and finishes are generally rustic. CanyonSide also has about a dozen RV sites with water, sewer and electric hookups, as well as tent camping.
It would be an equally welcoming place for a family, a wedding party or a couple of stoned concertgoers.
John Garvey is a storyteller, freelance writer, illustrator, and nerd. You can see more of his creative ventures at clippings.me/johngarvey and CreativeFollies.com.