Crescent Mining Camp
1Heads up1 fire 17 mi away
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:26 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Cabin campers can escape the city - and escape modern day amenities - by staying at the fully rustic, historic Crescent Mining Camp cabins. The cabins offer a true old fashioned taste of life on the mine in the 19th century, with no electricity or running water. Visitors can focus on the sounds of nature and the incredible views of the Rocky Mountains from its creekside location. The mining camp was built in the 1890s during the boom of mining and milling in Clear Creek Canyon. Miners sought mostly gold and silver, and attracted about 50,000 residents in the valley that is now rather remote. Keep reading
The cabins are adjacent to a road heavily used by off-highway vehicles (OHV) but have a private drive with a locking gate. Crescent Mining camp is a good location for OHV enthusiasts, but not visitors seeking quiet and solitude Recreation Off-road vehicle trails begin near the site of the cabins and hiking trailheads are within several miles. The most popular trails lead into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, which boasts nine mountain peaks over 14,000 feet.
Facilities
There are four cabins at Crescent, but only cabins Numbered 1 and 2 (one and two) are available for reservations. The two cabins are rented together; one cabin sleeps two, the other sleeps four. Visitors must bring furniture such as cots, portable tables and chairs; in addition, tent and RV camping is permitted for those who rent the site. No water, heat, electricity, or trash service is provided. Guests should bring plenty of water. Creek water may be boiled and treated for consumption. Other items to pack include cook stove, bedding, food, lanterns, matches, cooking utensils, dish soap, bring firewood or an axe to collect (dead/down trees only), and a first aid kit.
Natural Features
Crescent Mining Camp is located within the Leadville Ranger District, which is home to the Sawatch Range, the highest mountain range in Colorado. These rugged, glaciated mountains form the crest of the Continental Divide. Mount Elbert, at 14,443 feet, is Colorado's highest peak and 1 of 10 "fourteeners" located on the District. At an elevation of approximately 10,000 feet, Crescent Mining Camp sits at the base of Ervin Peak in Clear Creek Canyon. It is on the outskirts of the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. Clear Creek passes near the cabins and the Clear Creek Reservoir and the Arkansas River Valley are 9 miles east.
Nearby Attractions
The nearest spot for pay phones and a grocery store is in Buena Vista, about an hour's drive. Visitors can head to Clear Creek Reservoir, about 9 miles east, for fishing and boating. Fish species include brook trout, brown trout and tiger muskie. A few miles further is the Arkansas River, in a section where whitewater rafting is popular.
What the agency tells you
Advanced reservations are ALWAYS required. Walk-ups are not available.
Entry to the gate, cabin and toilet is by combination lock provided in confirmation letter
Please contact ranger district prior to arrival for updated restrictions and weather conditions
Everything else this campground posts · 6
No water available; bring enough for drinking, cooking and washing
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in-pack it out' facility
Pets are allowed.
No cell phone coverage; nearest pay phone is over 10 miles away
Accessibility: Cabins are not barrier-free.
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
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…permitted for those who rent the site. No water, heat, electricity, or trash service is provided.…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River, Creek
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 35 km away
- Peak color
Full this Saturdayread 16:26 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on four midweek nights after it as well. read 16:26 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 · 12
What you actually pay
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 16:26 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CRESCENT MINING | 1 & 2 | cabin nonelectric | 205 ftClear Creek | $50 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Dawson CabinSan Isabel National Forest · 3.4 miParry PeakSan Isabel National Forest · 5.2 miTwin Peaks CampgroundSan Isabel National Forest · 5.2 miTwin Peaks (CO)San Isabel National Forest · 5.2 miWhitestar CampgroundSan Isabel National Forest · 7.1 mi
White StarSan Isabel National Forest · 7.3 miFrom Buena Vista, Colorado, head north about 17 miles on Highway 24. Turn left on County Road 390 heading west. Drive about 9 miles and turn south on the cabin access drive which is gated; the cabins will be visible immediately on the right. There are 4 cabins; the rentable cabins are the first two and will be clearly marked with 1 and 2.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Twin Lakes, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 26°F, day 53°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 5°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 · a letter you can send
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
Crescent Mining Camp 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyBrittany PettersenU.S. Representative · Colorado’s 7th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn W. HickenlooperU.S. Senator · Colorado
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMichael F. BennetU.S. Senator · Colorado
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado
Dear Brittany Pettersen, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 7th district. I tried to camp at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Crescent Mining Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Crescent Mining Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Crescent Mining Camp. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Crescent Mining Camp (San Isabel National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Crescent Mining Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Crescent Mining Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Crescent Mining Camp. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Crescent Mining Camp (San Isabel National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Crescent Mining Camp, San Isabel National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Crescent Mining Camp are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Crescent Mining Camp keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Crescent Mining Camp. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Crescent Mining Camp (San Isabel National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com