Brewery Creek Guard Station
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 29 of the next 30 nights read 16:38 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 16 notices
In the agency’s own words
Brewery Creek Guard Station is situated at an elevation of 9,500 feet in a densely wooded aspen grove overlooking Brewery Creek. The cabin is a few miles south of the Continental Divide on the northern end of the San Luis Valley in the Rio Grande National Forest. Built in 1935, the two room cabin was originally used by a forest ranger who oversaw the Poncha and Bonanza Districts of what was then called the Cochetopa National Forest. Today the cabin is a comfortable getaway for guests seeking relaxation and recreation in south central Colorado. Keep reading
Recreation
The area offers many opportunities for hiking and off-road vehicle adventures in summer, hunting in the fall, and cross country skiing and snowmobiling in the winter. Several hiking trails are in close proximity to the cabin, including several leading up to Antora and Antora Meadows.
Facilities
The cabin is furnished with three bunkbeds (the top is a single bed, the bottom is a fold-out futon couch that sleeps two) and can accommodate up to nine people. The cabin has stove, refrigerator and heater, all powered with propane. The kitchen is equipped with cooking utensils and some pots and pans. Picnic tables, a fire pit and a outdoor vault toilet are also on site. The guard station does not have electricity, though water is available from an outside hand pump. Water is also available at the Saguache Ranger District Office during business hours from May through November. Although the cabin has most amenities, guests do need to provide their own food, sleeping bags, linens, towels, dish soap, matches, cooking gear, first aid kit, toilet paper and garbage bags. It is recommended that guests bring an additional light source in case of emergencies.
Natural Features
The cabin offers wonderful views of Antora Peak (13,266 feet) and Windy Point (12,129 feet) towering over the valley. Active beaver dams occupy the nearby creek just below the cabin, where anglers can cast a line into the frigid waters. Elk, deer, and other wildlife are often seen in meadows adjacent to the cabin.
Nearby Attractions
Brewery Creek Guard Station is located 2 miles from Bonanza, a historical silver mining town that was booming in the 1880's. Today visitors to Bonanza can see old mines, historical buildings, and old time mining equipment as they follow the Bonanza Mines Off-Highway Vehicle Tour. Maps for the Bonanza Off-Highway Vehicle Tour are available at the Saguache Ranger Station.
What the agency tells you
Please contact the Saguache Ranger District prior to arriving at the cabin to check on any restrictions or conditions, such as fire or road closures, weather or storms that may affect the quality of your visit.
Entry to the cabin is by combination lock, which will be provided in the confirmation letter or email which is sent after a reservation is made. Note: The keypad may show multiple numbers for each button. You only need to press once for it to count, before moving on to the next code number.
The maximum stay limit on the forest is 14 days. You may be visited by a Forest Employee during your stay, for routine cabin safety check and maintenance/cleaning. If you wish to not be disturbed, a door tab will be available to use.
Everything else this campground posts · 13
This cabin has appliances that run on propane. To ensure no carbon monoxide poisoning is present, Please ensure at least two windows are cracked open AT ALL TIMES during your stay, and when you lock up on departure.
Pets are allowed at the facility, but must be under control at all times; they must not harass wildlife or livestock. Do not allow your pets on the furniture, pet hair is difficult to remove and can cause allergic reactions to others. Be considerate.
All cabins are administratively used on occasion.
For safety and resource protection, do not discharge firearms and skeet shooting is prohibited within 150 yards of the cabin area boundary.
Livestock are prohibited: including horses, mules, llamas, and alpacas.
Water is available at the guard station by outside hand pump. Water is also available at the Saguache Ranger District office during business hours from Memorial Day weekend to November.
There is no electricity at the Guard Station. No cell phone service is available at this facility.
Please clean the guard station before leaving and ensure the gate is locked upon departure.
The guard station is a non-smoking facility.
Do not leave food or trash outside the guard station; there are wildlife in the area.
All garbage and food must be packed out; do NOT burn garbage in the fire pit.
Drink plenty of water before arrival and during your stay to avoid altitude sickness.
Expect afternoon thunderstorms in the summer and below freezing temperatures in the spring and fall. During the later end of the season, you may need to snowmobile, snowshoe or ski to access the cabin.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 25 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…Picnic tables, a fire pit and a outdoor vault toilet are also on site. The guard station does not have…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…does not have electricity, though water is available from an outside hand pump. Water is also available…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Meadow
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 106th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:38 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot on the booking system
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on three midweek nights after it as well. read 16:38 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
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 · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:38 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.
| BREWERY CREEK | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 25 ft | 169 ft | $50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Ohaver LakeSan Isabel National Forest · 9.7 mi
Monarch ParkSan Isabel National Forest · 18 mi
Upper Crossing Guard StationSan Luis Valley Field Office · 19 miSalida East CampgroundRoyal Gorge Field Office · 19 miHayden CreekSan Isabel National Forest · 19 miCoaldale CampgroundSan Isabel National Forest · 20 miFrom Saguache, go north on Hwy 285 for 15 miles to Villa Grove. Take the Bonanza turnoff, County Rd LL56, on the left 0.1 mile north of Villa Grove. Stay on LL56 about 13 miles west to the "Brewery Creek " sign and make a left turn, crossing a bridge. Travel on Forest Road #880 for 1.5 miles. There are 2 boundary gates before the cabin gate, one is for private property next to the Bonanza Ranch, and the second gate is the Bureau of Land Management / Forest boundary. The cabin gate is to the right of the road beyond the second gate.
Winter access may be limited to showshoes, skis or snowmobile. During the spring snow melt, March through mid May, hiking 1.5 miles may be the only option for accessing the cabin. Seasonal road closures may also be in effect, check conditions prior to your arrival.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Bonanza, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 25°F, day 54°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -8°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 · a letter you can send
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
Brewery Creek Guard Station 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyJeff HurdU.S. Representative · Colorado’s 3rd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn W. HickenlooperU.S. Senator · Colorado
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMichael F. BennetU.S. Senator · Colorado
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado
Dear Jeff Hurd, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Brewery Creek Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Brewery Creek Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Brewery Creek Guard Station. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Brewery Creek Guard Station (San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Brewery Creek Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Brewery Creek Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Brewery Creek Guard Station. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Brewery Creek Guard Station (San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Brewery Creek Guard Station, San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Brewery Creek Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Brewery Creek Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Brewery Creek Guard Station. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Brewery Creek Guard Station (San Luis Valley Field Office, Colorado) via campanac.com