Grand Lake Town Beach is the sandy swimming beach inside Gene Stover Lakefront Park, a town-owned park on the north shore of Grand Lake in the town of the same name. It sits on Lake Avenue one block south of Grand Avenue, the town's main street, between the Headwaters Marina docks to the west and the Grand Lake Marina to the east. You walk from the sidewalk across a strip of lawn and straight onto the sand, so there is no trail and no hike involved. A small free parking lot and street parking along Lake Avenue serve the park, but spaces fill fast on summer weekends, and plenty of people park elsewhere in town and walk down.

There is no entry fee. The park belongs to the Town of Grand Lake and is open to anyone, resident or not. Besides the beach it has turf lawn, two picnic pavilions that can be reserved, grills, public restrooms, a kayak and paddleboard launch, and a long L-shaped dock that swimmers use for jumping in. In summer the town ropes off a swimming area in the shallows off the sand. The town's descriptions of the park say nothing about lifeguards, so plan on watching your own kids. A wooden boardwalk runs along the waterfront past the marinas, and an ice cream stand and cafes are a short stroll away.

The water is the main thing to know about. Grand Lake sits at about 8,367 feet, and its two natural feeders, the North Inlet and East Inlet, run down out of Rocky Mountain National Park from snowfields along the Continental Divide. Even in July and August the lake stays cold enough that most people wade, take a quick plunge off the dock, and get back out to warm up on the sand. Afternoon thunderstorms roll over the peaks most summer days, and the lake is busy with motorboats, sailboats and rental pontoons, so stay inside the roped area. Swimming season is really mid-June through August. In winter the same shoreline is used for ice skating and snowmobiling once the lake freezes.

Grand Lake is the largest and deepest natural lake in Colorado, about 507 acres, held in place by a glacial moraine left at the end of the last ice age. The Ute people called it Spirit Lake. Rocky Mountain National Park wraps around the lake on three sides, and its western entrance is about a mile from town. The lake is also part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project: water pumped up from Lake Granby flows back through Shadow Mountain Lake into Grand Lake and then east under the park through the 13.1-mile Alva B. Adams Tunnel, which opened in 1947.

The town itself grew up in the 1880s as a supply point for mining camps in the upper Colorado River valley and was the Grand County seat from 1882 to 1888. The Kauffman House, a log hotel built in 1892, still stands on Pitkin Street as a museum, and the private Grand Lake Yacht Club, founded in 1902, claims to be the highest registered yacht club in the world. The lakefront park was renamed for Gene Stover, who served 20 years as mayor, from 1984 to 2004, and oversaw its transformation from a dirt lot into the landscaped park and beach that is there today.