By:
Submission
Free camping (dispersed) is allowed on most national forest lands except in highly developed areas - such as trailheads, campgrounds and picnic sites - and in some of our most visited places. Be sure to check for regulations in advance and look for signs in the area to indicate if camping is allowed.
Some areas allow camping in designated sites only.
Know Before You Go
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/arp/alerts-notices/?cid=fseprd613831
Check the weather and road closures before heading up.
Follow Leave No Trace principles. There are no facilities or trash receptacles. Pack out what you pack in.
Make sure camping is allowed. Many lands within the national forest boundary are private or otherwise owned. Check that you’re on National Forest lands: maps.
Don't stay too long. Camping is limited to 14 days within any continuous 30-day period at any location within the same 20-mile radius. See Order
Plan on building a campfire? Campfire restrictions can occur any time of year. Check for fire restrictions and if you build a campfire, know how to extinguish it.
Open 6/25 with plenty of spots! It was $14 for us and fires were allowed in the pits!
Clean well maintained. Only had porta potty, but they were clean and no odor. River ran through it. The best sites are in the back.
We met Barry, what a great guy! He invited us to his campfire at night and told us many stories from his past as a cyclist. He inspired me to continue riding and showed me his philosophy to live in the Colorado Mountains.
Clean, fairly spaced out sites, only porta potties, river runs next to the whole campground. Nice and calm at night, but you can hear the trucks from the highway and the gravel yard pretty early.
Open Sept 21st 2021. Very chill! There are 20 sites and we’re the 4th group to pull in on a Wednesday evening. We have a little cove around site #15 all to ourselves! There’s enough cell service with our boosting antenna to get both AT&T and Verizon with a few bars each. Enough to work on our laptops which is awesome in these mountains! We like to dry camp a ton in our conversion van and didn’t want to risk looking for dispersed sites right before sundown on a work night so, this hit the spot perfectly!
