DE BEQUE — The most noticeable thing at Kampa Lampa campground is so noticeable it would be misleading not to mention it.
It’s the long black strip of pavement rippling just beyond the Colorado River with massive trucks rumbling across it. So many trucks that if you’re counting, it’s easy to lose track. Best to insert the ear plugs owners Kathy and John Haas provide campers, because semis barrel down Interstate 70 all night.
But if you’re rafting down the most accessible stretches of the Colorado River inside Colorado — from the Pumphouse to Radium section or through Ruby Horsethief Canyon — “you’re going to be dealing with the train running all night.”
Inviting people to raft and camp along I-70 “is about setting expectations,” says Ken Murphy, founder and CEO of Adventure Outdoors, a consortium of family-run outdoor recreation businesses that partners with Kampa Lampa.
If you can put up with the sounds of traffic from I-70, which parallels the Colorado from Parachute to Fruita, Kampa Lampa offers you something pretty great. A leisurely float on the West’s most storied river with a catered dinner at a campground with character and charm.
It’s either a glampsite with a yurt, queen-size bed, lights, generator, cooler, cook kit, picnic table, propane fire and Wi-Fi, or a campsite where you can set up your own version of “Gilligan’s Island.”
The stars shine when the sun sets, the air blooms with the scent of sagebrush and the river rolls past at a steady clip.
Kampa Lampa is a rare oasis during a record year for drought, a campground for rafters, kayakers and floaters that is insulated from the statewide emergency that is threatening much of the river tourism industry in Colorado.
Float by yourself in a duckie, on a paddle board or in a kayak. Or go with a group, like the Colorado Eagles hockey team did last summer. Or call Murphy, and let his guides give you “a true taste of desert boating” along red-dirt shores that blur into forest corridors and the colorful Book Cliffs to the north and green slopes of Battlement Mesa to the south. When you get to Kampa Lampa, which opened in 2023, the guides will whip up a chef-style meal with ingredients provided by the owners.
What Parachute and the town of De Beque get out of the new partnership that formed this year between Murphy, who also chairs the Colorado Tourism Board, and the Haases is river tourism to help beef up the region’s economic development, which has lagged behind more touristy parts of the state.
But not for long, says Murphy.
“I compare De Beque to Fruita 20 years ago. We’ve just got to grow it and get it on the map.”
A lesson in river plumbing
Whatever you think about boating along I-70, Colorado’s historic drought is a bigger concern.
When you go to the De Beque website, the first thing that pops up is a blue banner calling for mandatory restrictions on domestic and irrigation water systems. Kathy Haas says most municipalities and ditch companies in the Middle Colorado Watershed have implemented drought plans, with the rare exception.
But David Costlow, executive director of the Colorado River Outfitters Association, says as bad as the drought is, it’s not “that bad” for rafting the Colorado, which differs from other rivers.
The water that was running past Kampa Lampa when The Colorado Sun interviewed Costlow in late May “will be higher in three weeks and higher in six weeks,” he said, because there will be calls on water rights below the campground as the summer progresses, and the water comes from releases on reservoirs above it.
Colorado’s record-low snowfall won’t devastate outfitters whose boating seasons rely on free-flowing rivers, Costlow added, “because after droughts in 2002 and 2012, we’ve gotten better at handling low water by doing things like buying smaller boats.”
Smaller rafts carry fewer people, “and with lighter loads they can go through narrower chutes,” he said. “So let’s say instead of having a boat of seven or eight people and a guide, an outfitter will run a smaller boat with maybe six and a guide. Less weight means you can run lower water and still have a good fun time.”
That’s what Clear Creek Rafting Company in Idaho Springs is doing, general manager Dale Drake says. Their main shift: reclassifying or downgrading sections they normally bill as “advanced” to “intermediate” because lower flows mean smaller rapids with less risk. They’re also limited to half-day trips because the river’s too low to safely navigate in places for full days. But the customers are still coming. On Thursday, bookings were starting to pick up. And low flows weren’t to blame for lower earlier summer bookings. It was cooler temps, Drake said.
More rafts on the water does mean paying more guides. But Murphy said “we’re still running, we’re still having a good time, and I’d rather have six in a boat than zero.”
A unicorn in the desert
Kampa Lampa doesn’t worry about water levels as much as river outfitters because it is a a campground, and as long as there’s enough water in the Middle Colorado for a beginner float, people can get there by boat.
But last year they wanted to expand the business by letting people drive to camp — which is possible with a quick turn off the De Beque exit. So they started down the long legal road of getting commercial access on an easement through adjacent properties, a rocky plan that’s still unfolding.
Kathy Haas is pretty sure the neighbors aren’t too keen on Kampa Lampa, given how a De Beque old-timer called her up and basically told her as much. But so far they’re keeping the gas on the easement project.
When Kampa Lampa opened in 2023, Kathy says bookings were word of mouth, and rafting companies “were kind of hesitant.” Then they called Murphy “who has his hands in everything,” she said, “and he was like ‘it’s not if, it’s when, I’ll connect with you,’” because he knows how popular river trips are in other parts of the state and has a hunch the stretch from Parachute-to-De Beque boat ramp is the next bit of untapped rafting.
Murphy already improved business for De Beque and Parachute, by stocking the boathouse at the put-in in Parachute with top-end inner tubes, duckies, standup paddleboards and rafts people can rent to go self-guided. And if he’s successful launching his Western Colorado Overnight Rafting Trip from Parachute to Kampa Lampa to the De Beque boat ramp, he’ll add a nice chunk of change to the tax base, considering that trip runs $2,200 per raft with up to six people.
It’s too early to tell what the full impact of the partnership will be on De Beque (estimated population of 475), or Parachute (estimated population of 1,400). But both towns have indicated they want to grow by applying for funding through the Department of Local Affairs and the Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
OEDIT spokesperson Alissa Johnson said De Beque received $12,000 for wayfinding and signage for the town’s six businesses in 2020 and 2025, and Parachute applied for and received a $10,000 grant to “enhance visitor experience” with a visitor’s guide.
Currently, De Beque’s town website promotes guest ranches, jet boat rides, OHV and bicycle trails and wild horses, but no river trips.
In late May, Murphy said he wasn’t expecting summer reservations to be very strong, “because it’s a new section, and we’re dealing with a little bit of water issues.” But he’s expecting things to pick up throughout the summer and into the fall when the river still tends to flow and “the weather in Western Colorado is so gorgeous.”