U.S. Forest Service · Grand Mesa National Forest · CO
Big Creek Campground - Grand Valley RD
1Heads up1 fire 29 mi away
Wildfire
Dry Creek fire · 29 mi away · 316 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 13, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 13, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading; a database flag says not open
- A night
- $18From, per site
- Season
- June 26Opens June 26. No closing date published.
10,140 ftElevation
346 ftWater · Big Creek Reservoir Number 1
11.5 miN of Cedaredge, CO
10%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 233rd darkest of 522 in CO
Opens June 26. No closing date published.Today
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
The Big Creek Campground is near town of Collbran, CO. There is hiking, OHV trails, fishing and jeep roads are nearby. Most of the camp sites are shady with a maximum spur length 33 feet.
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 17 km away
- Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (17 km) · Oct 5, 2026
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $18 with nothing added. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
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.
BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe record
A night$18Per site, fromthe agency’s fee record
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 9
What you actually pay
The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night, from$18
Night per camping unit$18
Firewood bundle$10
Day for day use/picnic .$6
If occupying a campsite for day use/picnic, the $6 per day fee is applicable from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m..
If still occupying a campsite after 2 p.m., the $18 fee for per night camping unit will apply, less any day use fees already paid.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
One night, fromDerived$18
A weekend, Friday and Saturday, fromDerived$36
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($18), and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
Sign price: Derived by CAMPANAC from the U.S. Forest Service fee record: a stated per-night amount only · Sep 7, 2026
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Also near hereBig Creek (CO)Grand Mesa National Forest · 0.1 miWeir and JohnsonGrand Mesa National Forest · 3.0 miCrag CrestGrand Mesa National Forest · 3.5 miCrag Crest Campground - Grand Valley RDGrand Mesa National Forest · 3.5 miCottonwood Lake (CO)Grand Mesa National Forest · 4.3 miWard LakeGrand Mesa National Forest · 5.7 mi
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
Overnight25°Clear
Saturday45°Sunny
Saturday Night28°Partly Cloudy1% rain
Sunday44°Partly Sunny4% rain
NWS forecast for Collbran, CO
Source: National Weather Service, GJT forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
Roadless
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Big Creek Campground - Grand Valley RD 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Today falls inside the season the agency publishes, and it has posted nothing else. That reading is ours. The U.S. Forest Service’s own database, though, flags it not open with no reason or date; the flag is named under How we know all this.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (17 km) · Oct 5, 2026
Reported by: iNaturalist fall color observations, reported peak color · Oct 5, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Collbran, CO, 11.4 mi SSE. Straight line.