Blue Mountain
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $24From, per site
- Sites
- 2120 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Blue Mountain Campground sits between Eleven Mile Canyon with the South Platte River to the north and the peak of Blue Mountain to the south, creating an impressive location for recreation and diverse scenery. The campground is primitive and quiet, creating a peaceful outdoor experience for guests. Hiking, biking, rock climbing in the canyon and trout fishing in the river are popular pastimes. Keep reading
Recreation
Hard Rock Interpretive Trail, accessible from the campground, is a 1-mile self-guided interpretive trail that leads to an impressive overlook of Eleven Mile Canyon. The trail explores the diverse life of the region and offers a chance to see plenty of wildlife and take photos of the sweeping views. Rainbow, cutthroat and brown trout can be caught from the South Platte River. Benches and Picnic Areas along the river allow anglers to relax in comfort waiting for a fish to bite.
Facilities
Blue Mountain offers more than 20 reservable campsites. Parking aprons are dirt and gravel and there are two vault toilets. Drinking water from a water pump. Each site comes with a picnic table, camp fire ring, and enough space to park two vehicles.
Natural Features
The campground, at 8,200 feet, sits on a hill a half-mile from the South Platte River. Campsites are nicely spaced on a single loop among scattered ponderosa pine. 3,405-acre Eleven Mile Reservoir feeds into the South Platte River that carves through the Eleven Mile Canyon. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
Nearby Attractions
Visit the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, one of the richest and most diverse fossil deposits in the world. Petrified redwood stumps up to 14 feet wide and thousands of detailed fossils of insects and plants reveal the story of a very different, prehistoric Colorado.
Charges & Cancellations
Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a campsite. Cancellations for a one-night reservation will forfeit the entire amount paid and will not be subject to an additional service fee. No-Shows A no-show visitor is one who does not arrive at a campground and does not cancel the reservation by check-out time on the day after the scheduled arrival date. Staff will hold a campsite until check-out time on the day following the arrival date. No-shows are assessed $20.00 service fee and forfeit the first night's rate, taxes and applicable add-on for a campsite. Refunds Visitors may submit a refund request through their Recreation.gov profile within 7 days of the end date of their reservation. Refunds will not be issued after the 7 days has ended. Refunds for debit or credit card payments will be issued as a credit to the original bank or credit card used to pay. For check or cash purchases, Recreation.gov will mail a Treasury check for refunds of cash, check, or money order payments to the address associated with the reservation. Treasury check refunds may take up to 6-8 weeks to arrive. In the event of an emergency closure, the Recreation.gov team or facility manager will refund all fees and will attempt to notify you using the contact information within the Recreation.gov visitor profile.
What the agency tells you
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
This is a high elevation facility, please use caution when traveling from lower elevations
No RV hookups are available
Everything else this campground posts · 10
For more information on Pike and San Isabel National Forests, click here
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Firewood is available to purchase on site, depending on any fire ban. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
ATV's and off road motorcycles are prohibited in the campground
The use, sale, and possession of all forms of cannabis in the United States is illegal under federal law on federal lands.
Shooting of any type is prohibited in campground
Reservations are available up to 5 days prior to arrival date. Sites not reserved 5 days before become available on a ‘first come - first serve’ (FF) bases.
Dogs must be on a leash or tethered at all times.
Check-out time is 12:00pm. Check-in time is 2:00pm
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $11.00 for a third vehicle. $11.00 fee for day use if not camping overnight.
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21 · 2 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- 9
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 20 of 21 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (HAND PUMP) on 20 of 21 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River
- Biking
- Climbing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 454th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 10 days ago, 8.4 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 20 of the 21 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $24 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
“Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a cam…” · this campground’s own no-show terms
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 · 6
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
21 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 20 mapped sitesAll 21 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 20 of the 21 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 001 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 221 ft | 3,264 ft | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 002 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 68 ft | 3,452 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 003 | type not stated | 35 ft | 3,476 ftSouth Platte River | |||
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 68 ft | 3,457 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 134 ft | 3,429 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 006 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 29 ft | 3,489 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 007 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | yes | 29 ft | 3,513 ftSouth Platte River | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 008 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 112 ft | 3,620 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 009 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 53 ft | 3,715 ftSouth Platte River | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | yes | 53 ft | 3,677 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 011 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | yes | 96 ft | 3,658 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 012 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | yes | 110 ft | 3,698 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 013 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 110 ft | 3,724 ft | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 014 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 25 ft | 3,714 ft | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 015 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | yes | 25 ft | 3,689 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 016 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | yes | 93 ft | 3,596 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 017 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | yes | 112 ft | 3,525 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 018 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | yes | 112 ft | 3,466 ft | $24 |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 019 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 118 ft | 3,392 ft | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 020 | standard nonelectric | 16 ft | 46 ft | 3,224 ft | $24 | |
| BLUE MOUNTAIN | 021 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | yes | 46 ft | 3,211 ft | $24 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Riverside CampgroundPike National Forest · 0.7 mi
Happy MeadowsPike National Forest · 3.6 mi
Springer GulchPike National Forest · 4.1 mi
Riverside (CO)Pike National Forest · 4.5 mi
Round MountainPike National Forest · 6.1 mi
Cove CampgroundPike National Forest · 6.4 miFrom Lake George, Colorado, turn off of Highway 24 onto County Road 96. Follow the road for about a 1 1/2 miles towards Eleven Mile Canyon. The campground is just up the way on the right hand side just past the entrance of Eleven Mile Canyon on County Road 61.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Florissant, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 23°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 5°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
Blue Mountain is in Colorado’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Brittany Pettersen (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →