Buffalo Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $28From, per site
- Sites
- 37All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Buffalo Campground is one of two facilities within the Buffalo Creek Recreation Area, about an hour's drive southwest of Denver, Colorado. Visitors enjoy a variety of recreational opportunities, including hiking, mountain biking and trout fishing. Keep reading
Recreation
The Buffalo Creek Recreation Area is home to a 40-mile trail system most popular with mountain bikers, but hikers and horseback riders enjoy the area as well. Several trailheads are within walking distance of the campground. The Lost Creek Wilderness Area can be accessed via the Colorado Trail, which stretches nearly 500 miles from Denver to Durango. Buffalo Creek is a popular fishing stream for brook trout.
Facilities
The campground offers single-family sites, some of which are designated for tent camping only. Each site is equipped with accessible picnic tables and campfire rings with grills. Vault toilets are provided. No hookups are available.
Natural Features
The campground is situated near Buffalo Creek at an elevation of 7,400 feet in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Summer temperatures are mild and range from 75-80 degrees during the day to 55-65 degrees at night.
Nearby Attractions
The drive along County Road 126 southwest from Pine Junction affords magnificent views of the valleys below. Pikes Peak, at 14,110 feet, can be seen in the distance and other prominent rock formations present themselves throughout the scenic drive. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
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
No water available. Bring all the water you will need for your stay.
Be bear aware; keep all food out of sight 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
Everything else this campground posts · 3
The campground has first-come, first-served sites
Click here for more information on Pike and San Isabel National Forests
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 37 · 2 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…tables and campfire rings with grills. Vault toilets are provided. No hookups are available. Natural…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 495th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 32 km away
- No change
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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, $28 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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
37 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 37 mapped sitesAll 37 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 37 of the 37 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 37 of the 37 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| BUFF | 001 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 104 ft | 478 ft | 1,959 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 003 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 72 ft | 619 ft | 1,754 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 004 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 37 ft | 691 ft | 1,734 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 005 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 18 ft | 718 ft | 1,753 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 006 | standard nonelectric | 15 ft | 18 ft | 701 ft | 1,765 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 007 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 17 ft | 770 ft | 1,810 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 008 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 17 ft | 755 ft | 1,807 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 009 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 73 ft | 806 ft | 1,863 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 010 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 37 ft | 827 ft | 1,947 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 011 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 24 ft | 820 ft | 1,983 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 24 ft | 840 ft | 1,995 ft | $28 | |
| BUFF | 013 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 48 ft | 853 ft | 2,045 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 014 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 17 ft | 841 ft | 2,092 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 015 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 17 ft | 854 ft | 2,103 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 016 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 17 ft | 823 ft | 2,245 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 017 | tent only nonelectric | 17 ft | 837 ft | 2,236 ft | $28 | |
| BUFF | 018 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 17 ft | 806 ft | 2,347 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 019 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 17 ft | 818 ft | 2,362 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 020 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 24 ft | 800 ft | 2,426 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 021 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 24 ft | 778 ft | 2,429 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 022 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 48 ft | 780 ft | 2,482 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 023 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 48 ft | 734 ft | 2,478 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 024 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 46 ft | 677 ft | 2,555 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 025 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 46 ft | 631 ft | 2,533 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 026 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 61 ft | 554 ft | 2,469 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 027 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 61 ft | 505 ft | 2,420 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 028 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 74 ft | 431 ft | 2,314 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 029 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 129 ft | 416 ft | 2,187 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 030 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 61 ft | 565 ft | 1,982 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 031 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 25 ft | 560 ft | 2,042 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 032 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 25 ft | 585 ft | 2,035 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 033 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 41 ft | 610 ft | 2,090 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 034 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 41 ft | 598 ft | 2,130 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 035 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 60 ft | 602 ft | 2,189 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 036 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 71 ft | 573 ft | 2,316 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 037 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 73 ft | 550 ft | 2,241 ft | $28 |
| BUFF | 038 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 71 ft | 504 ft | 2,330 ft | $28 |
25 of 37 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Meadows Group CampgroundPike National Forest · 1.0 miGreen Mountain CampgroundPike National Forest · 1.7 mi
Kelsey CampgroundPike National Forest · 3.8 miKelsey CampgroundPike National Forest · 4.2 miPlatte RiverPike National Forest · 7.2 mi
OuzelPike National Forest · 7.7 miFrom Denver, travel southwest on Highway 285. Turn south on Jefferson County Road 126 and travel 15 miles. Turn right on Forest Road 550 and drive 5 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Aspen Park, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 64°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°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
Buffalo Campground 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 →