Bureau of Land Management · Cody Field Office · WY

Cottonwood Creek Campground

1Heads up1 fire 43 mi away
Wildfire
Pk fire · 43 mi away · 1,645 acres · 85% contained · updated Oct 11, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 4,790 ft · 0% tree cover · Bortle 2 sky
4,790 ftElevation
5,113 ftWater · an unnamed stream
14.9 miE of Lovell, WY
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 162nd darkest of 248 in WY

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

The Cottonwood Creek Campground and Day-Use site are located near the Cottonwood Creek Trailhead. The campground features an interpretive kiosk, five campsites with fire rings, picnic tables toilet facility, four horse corrals, a horse watering trough and food storage boxes. The highly scenic trail is suitable for hiking and horseback riding (advanced riders). Cottonwood Canyon has steep, vertical cliffs. The elevation at the mouth of the canyon is 4,800 feet with the top of the canyon wall at 7,200 feet. At the upper end of the trail, the elevation at the creek is 7,000 feet and the top of the canyon wall is 7,900 feet.

Around the campground

On the water
Creek
Environmental Education
Hiking
Horseback riding
Wildlife viewing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Every line of the receipt · 3

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today52°Sunny
Tonight44°Mostly Clear
Saturday62°Sunny
Saturday Night43°Mostly Clear

NWS forecast for Lovell, WY

Typical weather

Typical October night 32°F, day 59°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical January night 7°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°0°

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.

Measured at: LOVELL, WY (USC00485770), 16 miles away and 943 ft lower

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Devils Canyon37,416 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Who answers for this land

Harriet Hageman, official portrait

Cottonwood Creek 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Bureau of Land Management publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Cell signal: the BLM’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.