If you’ve abandoned the dream of rafting the Colorado River because it’s too hard to get a permit or multiday boating sounds intimidating, linger a little longer in your REM stage because a new boat-in campground is coming to the Colorado this August. 

By early fall, boaters will be able to put in at the Parachute boat ramp off Interstate 70, paddle 10 miles on the Colorado River and, for $40-$50 per campsite or $10 per person, pull into a primitive campground where visitors can spend the night before taking out in the town of De Beque, another mile or so down river. 

Be warned, though: At “Kampa Lampa,” guests will have to bring their own sleeping gear, food, fire pan, groover (a portable toilet) and other accouterments of rafting. By next summer, groovers, fire pans, picnic tables and designated tent sites will be available — “plus swag with the Kampa Lampa logo and the words ‘ding-dong’ on the back,” said Kathy Haas, adding the name has no relation to the song “Shama Lama Ding Dong” from the movie “Animal House.”

Campground designation was a year in the making. Haas, a real estate agent, said she found the site while searching Zillow in 2021. When she saw this property she thought, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. When I took my husband to see it, he had this look on his face that made my daughter ask if he was mad. But I said, ‘I don’t care. I’m buying it.'” 

Read more at ColoradoSun.com.