Circle Park Campground
1Heads up1 fire 34 mi away
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $18.50From, per site
- Sites
- 10All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Circle Park Campground is located about 15 miles west of Buffalo, Wyoming, on the east side of scenic Cloud Peak Skyway, near the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area. Part of the Bighorn National Forest, the area offers a wide variety of activities, including hiking, fishing, scenic driving and a number of historic sites. The administering organization is Rustic Freedom / Gallatin Canyon Campgrounds; e-mail: support@rusticfreedom.com Recreation Scenic off-road driving is available on nearby Elgin Park, Pole Creek and Crazy Woman Canyon Roads. Hiking and mountain biking are allowed on these roads as well. Keep reading
High Park Lookout, a short hike east of Meadowlark Lake, is an old fire lookout offering panoramic views of the area. There is fishing at nearby streams and lakes including Tie Hack Reservoir, a non-motorized lake, and Meadowlark Lake for rainbow, cutthroat, brown, and brook trout. Many additional hiking trails are available in the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
Facilities
The campground offers several single-family sites each equipped with a picnic table and campfire ring with grill. Vault toilets, drinking water from a hand pump, fire wood sales, and trash collection are provided. The nearest dump station is 27 miles away on Powder River Pass.
Natural Features
The campground sits at the edge of a meadow tucked in a dense forest of lodgepole pine and aspen with widely spaced sites. Circle Park Trailhead leading into the Cloud Peak Wilderness is nearby. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (307) 431-7446.
Nearby Attractions
The adjacent Cloud Peak Skyway provides for scenic driving. Many additional hiking trails are available in the Cloud Peak Wilderness. Fishing is popular in the campground and nearby streams and Tie Hack Reservoir.
Charges & Cancellations
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This cancellation processing fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
What the agency tells you
The administering organization reserves the right to substitute sites without prior notice.
Reservations must be made at least 4 days in advance.
Two non-towed vehicles allowed per site. The first vehicle is included in the basic fee; the second vehicle will be charged an extra $9.00 fee at the campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Firewood may be purchased from the camp host.
Click here for more information on the Bighorn National Forest
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 10
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…table and campfire ring with grill. Vault toilets, drinking water from a hand pump, fire wood sales,…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…campfire ring with grill. Vault toilets, drinking water from a hand pump, fire wood sales, and trash…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- Store
- Nearby
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Backpacking
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Mountain biking
- Scenic drives
- Stargazing
- Water access
- Night sky · 149th darkest of 248 in WY
- Bortle 2
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 · 15
What you actually pay
“the second vehicle will be charged an extra $9.00/day fee at the campground.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $18.50 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.
“Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee.” · this campground’s own 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 · 7
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
10 sites
All 10 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. 10 of the 10 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 01 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 02 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 03 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 04 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 05 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 06 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 07 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 08 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 09 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18.50 |
| CIRCLE PARK CAMPGROUND | 10 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | $18.50 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Hettinger Group AreaBighorn National Forest · 2.2 mi
South Fork (Wyoming)Bighorn National Forest · 2.3 mi
Tie HackBighorn National Forest · 2.4 mi
Middle ForkBighorn National Forest · 2.4 mi
Hunter CampgroundBighorn National Forest · 3.6 mi
Sheep Mountain Fire LookoutBighorn National Forest · 6.5 miFrom Buffalo, WY, take US Hwy 16 west for 13.4 miles to FS Road 20 (Circle Park Road), turn right, go 2.1 miles.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buffalo, WY
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
Circle Park Campground 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 →