Collins Cove Horse Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $5From, per site
- Sites
- 11All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Collins Cove is a first-come, first-served, primitive campground. Each of the 10 camping units have a wooden picnic table, fire ring, and hitching rails. This grassy campground is shaded with hardwoods, hemlocks, and pines and offers direct access to horse trails. Centrally located garbage bins and a vault toilet are available. A creek is located adjacent to the campground as a source of water for horses, but potable water is not available. Horse owners need to have a current negative Coggins test certificate for any horse they take to a public place for recreation use in Virginia. Keep reading
Recreation
Collins Cove is in the watershed of Cripple Creek that offers fishing and wading. The camp provides access to several trails: (4614) Ewing Mountain, (4504) Mike’s Gap, (4615) Moore, (4601) Raven Cliff and (337) Highlands Horse Trail.
Natural Features
The Collins Cove area is shaded with hardwoods, hemlocks, and pines. The elevation is approximately 2,000 feet. Summer days are warm with temperatures in the upper 70’s to low 90’s, and evenings cool down typically into the 60’s. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (276) 783-5196.
What the agency tells you
Horse owners need to have a current negative Coggins test certificate for any horse that they take to a public place for recreational use in Virginia.
No drinking water available
Vault toilets
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 11 · 11 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…Centrally located garbage bins and a vault toilet are available. A creek is located adjacent to the…”
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…as a source of water for horses, but potable water is not available. Horse owners need to have a current negative…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Fishing
- Horse Camping
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:47 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $5 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.
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 15:47 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
11 sites
All 11 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. 11 of the 11 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CCHC | 001 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 002 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 003 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 004 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 005 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 006 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 007 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 008 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 009 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | 010 | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
| CCHC | S&P Single (MGMT SITE) | equestrian nonelectric | $5 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Raven Cliff Recreation AreaJefferson National Forest · 1.2 mi
Sunrise CabinMount Rogers National Recreation Area · 3.3 miHussy Mountain Horse CampMount Rogers National Recreation Area · 7.0 mi
Comer's Rock Recreation AreaMount Rogers National Recreation Area · 11 mi
Blue Springs Gap CabinJefferson National Forest · 14 mi
Stony Fork CampgroundJefferson National Forest · 14 miCollins Cove Horse Campground is located at 330 Collins Cove Road, Ivanhoe, VA approximately 18 miles south of Wytheville. From I-81: Take exit 70 or 73 at Wytheville, Virginia onto US 11 (Main Street). On the west end of Main Street US 11 turns off and Main Street becomes US 21 south. Follow US 21 south for approximately 11.5 miles to VA 619 (Saint Peters Road) at Speedwell. Turn east on VA 619 and go 7.7 miles. Turn right onto VA 642 (Pope Road), then go 0.8 mile to VA 643 (Cole Branch Road). Go 0.4 mile on this dirt and gravel road to the entrance on the left.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ivanhoe, VA
Typical weather
Typical October night 41°F, day 67°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 24°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
Collins Cove Horse Campground is in Virginia’s 9th congressional district. Its representative, H. Morgan Griffith (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →