Dry Lake Campground (CO)
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 15:28 UTC
- A night
- $26When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 22In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
Dry Lake Trailhead is located off County Road 60 (Buffalo Pass Road) and is near the Dry Lake Campground. This trailhead provides access to both non-motorized and motorized trails. Access for dirt bikes and other recreational vehicles on Buffalo Pass Road. This is a very high-use year-round trailhead and a gateway to exploring the aspens, sub-alpine firs, and wildflowers of the mountains of the Park Range. A vault toilet is provided at the Trailhead. Dry Lake Trailhead is managed by the Hahn’s Peak/Bears Ears Ranger District in Steamboat Springs. Keep reading
In the summer and shoulder seasons, there is access to multiple hiking trails which are also beginner through advanced mountain bike trails (Panorama, Fiddlehead, Flash of Gold, Spring Creek, Spring Roll, BTR, Soda, Buffalo Billy's, and several others) and single-track dirt-bike trails (Great White Buffalo and upper Flash of Gold). Continental Divide Trail heading south from the top of Buffalo Pass is open to ATC 50” or less. Heading north from the top of the pass users almost immediately enter Mount Zirkel Wilderness. In the winter, Dry Lake Trailhead is the primary access to the Buffalo Pass Winter Backcountry Permit Area. This area has special regulations to ensure the enjoyment of both non-motorized and motorized user. Winter users especially motorized users please pay attention to access regulations and information.
Recreation
Dry Lake campground provides a great gateway for hiking and biking.
Facilities
There are 22 campsites, 2 of which are double sites and 8 may be reserved two weeks in advance. Plus, 5 sites are first-come, first-served. Each site is spacious and equipped with a campfire ring, picnic table, bear box.
Natural Features
At an elevation of 8,277 feet, Dry lake lies in the Rocky Mountains in the heart of the Routt National Forest. The Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grassland encompass nearly three million acres from central and northeastern Wyoming to north-central Colorado. Black bear, bobcat, coyote, elk, mule deer and moose are just some of the many animals that inhabit these rich and diverse lands. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (970) 870-2299.
Nearby Attractions
There are many attractions with Steamboat Springs only a short drive away. Many more outdoor opportunities exist in the surrounding national forests and grasslands, including hiking, biking, camping, horseback and off-road vehicle riding, fishing, hunting, sightseeing and winter sports.
What the agency tells you
• No water available • This is a high elevation facility (8,000 ft); please use caution when traveling from lower elevations. • Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating. • 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
- 22
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 92 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…of the mountains of the Park Range. A vault toilet is provided at the Trailhead. Dry Lake Trailhead is…”
- Bear boxes
- Yes
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Mountain biking
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Picnicking
- Night sky · 384th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 3
Nothing to book until it reopensread 15:28 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
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.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 10
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 · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Dry Lake Campground (CO) closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 150 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Deer Creek CampgroundPike National Forest · 96 mi · 4 sites
- DexterSan Isabel National Forest · 103 mi · 4 sites
- Gates of Lodore CampgroundDinosaur National Monument · 112 mi · 21 sites
- Osprey (CO)Pike National Forest · 118 mi · 13 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 15:28 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sitesAll 22 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 22 of the 22 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. 22 of the 22 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Dry Lake | 10 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 49 ft | 1,592 ftSoda Creek | 1,401 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 11 | standard nonelectric | 83 ft | 49 ft | 1,599 ftSoda Creek | 1,368 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 12 | standard nonelectric | 76 ft | 37 ft | 1,615 ftSoda Creek | 1,330 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 13 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 1,625 ftSoda Creek | 1,304 ft | $26 | |
| Dry Lake | 14 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 43 ft | 1,698 ftSoda Creek | 1,181 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 15 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 1,712 ftSoda Creek | 1,155 ft | $26 | |
| Dry Lake | 16 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 78 ft | 1,764 ftSoda Creek | 1,083 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 17 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 78 ft | 1,792 ftSoda Creek | 1,047 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 18 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 85 ft | 1,883 ftSoda Creek | 955 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 19 | standard nonelectric | 83 ft | 1,919 ftSoda Creek | 927 ft | $26 | |
| Dry Lake | 20 | standard nonelectric | 92 ft | 83 ft | 1,907 ftSoda Creek | 955 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 21 | standard nonelectric | 130 ft | 1,963 ftSoda Creek | 945 ft | $26 | |
| Dry Lake | 22 | standard nonelectric | 67 ft | 130 ft | 2,062 ft | 837 ft | $26 |
| Dry Lake | 9 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 64 ft | 1,592 ftSoda Creek | 1,463 ft | $26 |
| 1 | standard nonelectric | 90 ft | 90 ft | 1,909 ft | 606 ft | $26 | |
| 2 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 90 ft | 1,992 ft | 696 ft | $26 | |
| 3 | standard nonelectric | 86 ft | 152 ft | 2,099 ftSoda Creek | 926 ft | $26 | |
| 4 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 1,836 ftSoda Creek | 1,106 ft | $26 | ||
| 5 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 1,789 ftSoda Creek | 1,175 ft | $26 | ||
| 6 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 78 ft | 1,723 ftSoda Creek | 1,308 ft | $26 | |
| 7 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 60 ft | 1,693 ftSoda Creek | 1,378 ft | $26 | |
| 8 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 60 ft | 1,650 ftSoda Creek | 1,438 ft | $26 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Summit Lake CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 5.3 miGranite CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 5.5 mi
Hidden Lakes CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 9.4 mi
Teal Lake Group CampsiteRoutt National Forest · 9.9 mi
Grizzly Creek Guard Station10 mi
Meadows Campground (CO)Routt National Forest · 12 miDirections from Steamboat Springs, Colorado: Travel 4 miles north of Steamboat Springs on Routt County Road #36 (Strawberry Park Rd), then 3.6 miles east on Routt County Road #38 (Buffalo Pass Rd). The campground is located to the north of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Steamboat Springs, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 25°F, day 55°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.
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
Dry Lake Campground (CO) is in Colorado’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Joe Neguse (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →