Cottonwood Lake - PSICC (Co)
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 41 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Facilities
The campground is situated on a gently sloping hillside surrounded by aspen trees, within walking distance to the lake. It is a popular campground for anglers and sites fill up quickly on weekends. If the campground is full, dispersed camping is permitted along road 344 half-mile west of Cottonwood Lake. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
What the agency tells you
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $10.00 for a third vehicle. $10.00 fee for day use if not camping overnight
Firewood is available for sale at camphost site at Collegiate Peaks CG for $10.00/bundle.
There is no water available at this campground. Please plan ahead and bring all water that is needed for the length of your stay.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 4
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 4 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
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, $22 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 sites · the site map
All 4 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 4 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. 1 of the 4 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Collegiate PeaksSan Isabel National Forest · 2.5 miCascade CampgroundSan Isabel National Forest · 5.5 mi
Cascade (Colorado)San Isabel National Forest · 5.6 miIron CitySan Isabel National Forest · 5.7 mi
Chalk LakeSan Isabel National Forest · 5.7 mi
Mount PrincetonSan Isabel National Forest · 6.0 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Buena Vista, 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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Cottonwood Lake - PSICC (Co) 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 →