Backpacking Campsites in the Dunes or Forest
5Heads uppark alerts
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 27All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
The most popular and unique backpacking option is camping in the 30-square-mile dunefield, beyond the major dune ridgeline (about 1.5 mile hike minimum over dunes). Enjoy wide open views of the starry sky or a bright moonlit night. Designated sites are also available in the trees of the foothills, or camping is available in higher forests of Great Sand Dunes National Preserve. Reserve national park backpacking permits for the dunes or foothills through recreation.gov
Facilities
- Toilets
- None. Pack out what you bring in
- Drinking water
- Yes
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 10
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 4
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Pinon Flats CampgroundGreat Sand Dunes National Park · 2.8 mi
Medano Pass Primitive Road CampsitesGreat Sand Dunes National Preserve · 2.8 mi
Duncan CabinRio Grande National Forest · 8.0 mi
Zapata Falls CampgroundSan Luis Valley Field Office · 11 miZapata Falls CampgroundSan Luis Valley Field Office · 11 miNorth Crestone Creek CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 19 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Crestone, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 11°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Backpacking Campsites in the Dunes or Forest is in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Jeff Hurd (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →