Bow River Ranger Station
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 15:45 UTC
- Sites
- 1In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Bow River Ranger Station (sleeps 10) is an all electric cabin featuring one full bath equipped with one shower, a double sink and toilet, and a 1/2 bath with a toilet and sink. The cabin boasts a large kitchen equipped with basic pots, pans, dishes and silverware, a small living room, and two bedrooms. The first bedroom provides two bunk beds, and the second bedroom offers two bunkbeds and two twin beds. Outside you will find a vault toilet and an outdoor seating area complete with a fire ring and picnic tables. The facility is handicap accessible including a ramp for entrance to the front door. Guests are expected to clean the facility before leaving. No trash service. Please practice pack in and pack out your trash. Cell phone coverage is fair depending on you carrier. Host is located on site. Keep reading
Recreation
The Upper Medicine Bow River flows past the back yard and provides fishing and wildlife viewing.
Facilities
The Bow River Ranger Station (sleeps 10) is an all electric cabin featuring one full bath equipped with one shower, a double sink and toilet, and a 1/2 bath with a toilet and sink. The cabin boasts a large kitchen equipped with basic pots, pans, dishes and silverware, a small living room, and two bedrooms. The first bedroom provides two bunk beds, and the second bedroom offers two bunkbeds and two twin beds. Outside you will find a vault toilet and an outdoor seating area complete with a fire ring and picnic tables. The facility is handicap accessible including a ramp for entrance to the front door. Guests are expected to clean the facility before leaving. No trash service. Please pack in and pack out your trash. Cell phone coverage is fair depending on you carrier. Host is located on site Natural Features The house sits on the national forest boundary where sagebrush meets the forest.
Nearby Attractions
Medicine Bow River, Turpin Reservoir, Sand Lake and Bow River Campground are all nearby.
What the agency tells you
The water is potable but sometimes discolored. We suggest you bring bottled water for cooking and drinking.
No pets are allowed within the building. Pets must be on leash or lead and must be cleaned up after outside. Saddle or pack animals may not be kept within the administrative area of Bow River Ranger Station.
Additional campers, tents or trailers cannot be set up at this facility.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 1 electric
- Accessible sites
- 1
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…two twin beds. Outside you will find a vault toilet and an outdoor seating area complete with a fire…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River
Nothing to book until it reopensread 15:45 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
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
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Bow River Ranger Station closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 150 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Friend Park CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 69 mi · 11 sites
- Campbell Creek CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 70 mi · 6 sites
- Curtis Gulch CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 73 mi · 6 sites
- Esterbrook CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 83 mi · 12 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 15:45 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| BOW RIVER RANGER STATION | 001 | cabin electric | yes | 592 ft | $135 |
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 · the phone number
Where it is
Bow River Campground (WY)Medicine Bow National Forest · 1.3 mi
Deep Creek Campground, Medicine Bow-RouttMedicine Bow National Forest · 7.6 miDeep Creek CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 7.6 miLincoln Park CampgroundMedicine Bow National Forest · 12 mi
Lincoln Park Campground (WY)Medicine Bow National Forest · 12 miFrom Interstate 80: Take exit 255 south to the town of Elk Mountain. From Elk Mountain continue south on Carbon County Road 101 for 13 miles to the Forest Boundary. This cabin rests in a meadow at the Forest boundary and can be seen from the road.
From Saratoga: Take Highway 130 to Forest Service Road 100 for 16 miles to Forest Service Road 101 for 2 miles and you will arrive at your destination on the lefthand side.
From Centennial: Take Highway 130 to Forest Service Road 101 for 28 miles. You will arrive at your destination on the lefthand side.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Arlington, WY
Typical weather
Typical October night 23°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 7°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
Bow River Ranger Station is in Wyoming’s at-large congressional district. Its representative, Harriet Hageman (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →