1Heads up1 fire 12 mi away
Wildfire
Willow fire · 12 mi away · 7,359 acres · 92% contained · updated Oct 13, 2026
ReservableOut of season; the next season isn't published.
Book on recreation.govWe make nothing when you book
Right now
OpenThe agency lists it open
A night
$26From, per site
Sites
41 on recreation.gov
Season
Year-roundOpen year-round
Drawn from the record · 9,230 ft · 0% tree cover · Twin Lakes within reach · Bortle 3 sky
9,230 ftElevation
408 ftWater · Twin Lakes
10.1 miS of Leadville, CO
0%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 301st darkest of 522 in CO
Open year-roundToday

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

Dexter Campground is located on the northern shore of Twin Lakes Reservoir, adjacent to the Dexter Point Boating Site. The campground offers 11 tent-only sites and 8 large RV sites. Facilities include picnic tables, fire rings, and vault toilets. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.

What the agency tells you

Rule

There is No Water available at this campground, please bring all water necessary for your entire stay including water to extinguish your campfire to be "dead cold". Thank you!

Rule

Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.

Rule

Two (2) vehicles are included with each campsite reservation. RVs and their tow vehicle, as well as vehicles towing camper trailers, are considered one vehicle when they arrive as a single unit. Vehicles beyond that would be subject to the additional vehicle fee ($11.00/night) collected at the campground upon arrival. Boat/ATV trailers are considered an additional vehicle and will be charged the extra vehicle fee per night. Please note that all vehicles must fit in the parking spur. Please no parking on the grass.

Tents and rigs

Sites
4
Hookups
None
Accessible sites
None listed
Source: Recreation.gov campsite records · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…include picnic tables, fire rings, and vault toilets. Contact Info For facility specific information,…”

Around the campground

On the water
Reservoir, Lake
Fall color · reported 6 days ago, 26 km away
Peak color
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (26 km) · Oct 10, 2026

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.

Booking windowOut of seasonOut of season, no booking. The last reservable season the agency published ended September 2, 2024, and it hasn't published the next one.recreation.gov
A night$26plus $8 to reserve, once per bookingthe agency’s rate schedule
A weekend$60DerivedFriday and Saturday, everything includedours, from the lines above
If plans change$10 to cancel$10 to change a reservationrecreation.gov’s schedule
Runs itRocky Mountain Recreation CompanyA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Service (parent: ExplorUS)the operator link
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.

Free forever, no booking kickbacks.
Book on recreation.gov

We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.

Every line of the receipt · 13

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
A night$26
ScanPay 1$26
These are next season’s rates, May 21, 2027 to Sep 18, 2027. The campground is between seasons now.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Reservation fee, booked online$8
One fee per reservation, however many nights you book, and it’s non-refundable. $9 if you book by phone, $3 in person.
Pass discounts only apply to the recreation (or use) fee for the facility. Other charges such as electricity or water hookups, reservation or other fees are not eligible for a discount.
What this campground addsits own record
Extra vehicle$11

“Vehicles beyond that would be subject to the additional vehicle fee ($11.00/night) collected at the campground upon arrival.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice

What a stay costs
One nightDerived$34
A weekend, Friday and SaturdayDerived$60

Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $26 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.

If your plans changerecreation.gov
Change fee, moving to dates outside your booking$10
Cancellation fee$10
Cancelling the day before, or the day of$10 + your first night
No-show$20 + your first night

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 · 6

rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

The sites

4 sites · the site map

All 4 sites

1 of 4 sites located
Standard1
Aerial · Esri World Imagery
Up to

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

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

This Afternoon55°Sunny
Tonight23°Mostly Clear
Saturday65°Sunny
Saturday Night25°Mostly Clear1% rain

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.

80°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: TWIN LAKES RSVR, CO (USC00058501), 2 miles away and at about the same elevation

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Bull Hill2,527 acres · 7 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Mount Hope18,285 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
North Jones Hill18,259 acres · 10 mi · inventoried roadless area

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

Who answers for this land

Brittany Pettersen, official portrait

Dexter 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it open right now.
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (26 km) · Oct 10, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’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.
Nearest place of any size: Twin Lakes, CO, 0.3 mi SSW (a census designated place). Straight line.