Elkhorn Campground
- Right now
- OpenInside the published season, our reading
- A night
- $16From, per site
- Sites
- 8All of them booked ahead
- Season
- June 1Opens June 1. No closing date published.
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Elkhorn Campground is located 20 miles northeast of Loa, Utah, on the scenic Thousand Lake Mountain at an elevation of approximately 9300 feet. Visitors enjoy exploring local trails on foot, bike or off-road vehicle. View Elkhorn Campground Map Recreation Miles of trails, including the Great Western Trail, crisscross the area, offering excellent hiking, biking and off-roading opportunities. Numerous sparkling alpine lakes provide great fishing and scenery. Keep reading
Facilities
The campground contains one group site and a pavilion that can accommodate up to 75 people, with large tables, grills, Dutch oven cooking surfaces and a fire ring with benches. Vault toilets are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel. Elkhorn Ranger Station is just across a meadow from the site. Drinking water has been shut down for the season Natural Features A thick stand of aspen, pine, and spruce trees covers the campground, offering pleasant shade. Summer wildflowers are abundant in the surrounding meadow.
What the agency tells you
This campground has both reservable and first come, first served sites
Off-road vehicles are allowed only for entering and exiting the campground
Click here for more info about the Fishlake National Forest
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 8 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 70 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…surfaces and a fire ring with benches. Vault toilets are provided. Roads and parking spurs are gravel.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…is just across a meadow from the site. Drinking water has been shut down for the season Natural Features…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Meadow
- Biking
- Hiking
- Visitor center
- Night sky · 53rd darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 2 days ago, 27 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
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.
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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $16 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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
8 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 7 mapped sitesAll 8 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 7 of the 8 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. 8 of the 8 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 119 ft | 1.1 mi | 228 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 95 ft | 1.1 mi | 177 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | 56 ft | 1.1 mi | 58 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 44 ft | 56 ft | 1.1 mi | 99 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 005 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 94 ft | 1.1 mi | 112 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 95 ft | 1.1 mi | 97 ft | $16 |
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $16 | |||
| ELKHORN CAMPGROUND | G1 | group standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 188 ft | 1.1 mi | 160 ft | $60 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Primitive campsites at Cathedral CampgroundCapitol Reef National Park · 4.9 mi
Sunglow CampgroundFishlake National Forest · 9.1 mi
Bowery CreekFishlake National Forest · 14 mi
Paiute CampgroundFishlake National Forest · 15 mi
Bowery Creek CampgroundFishlake National Forest · 15 mi
MackinawFishlake National Forest · 15 miFrom Loa, Utah, travel northeast on U-72 for 12 miles. Turn east on Forest Road 206 and travel 8 miles to the campground. The dirt road is narrow, steep and single-lane in some places.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Fremont, UT
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
Elkhorn Campground is in Utah’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Celeste Maloy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →