Elwood Cabin
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 26 of the next 30 nights read 16:27 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 17 notices
In the agency’s own words
Elwood Cabin sits in a saddle along the San Juan Mountains overlooking an open meadow, offering guests a unique lodging opportunity. The cabin was built in 1911 by the Mountain States Telephone Company as a "line shack" to support crews maintaining the transcontinental telephone line. Remnants of this old telephone line are still found along Iron Creek to the southeast. The cabin was also used as a Forest Service Station from 1950 until 1962, serving as living quarters for Forest Service employees who worked on numerous projects in the area. Although the phone line has been abandoned, today the cabin is a high-altitude getaway for guests seeking relaxation and recreation in south-central Colorado. During summer months the cabin can be accessed by motorized travel. During winter months access to the cabin is by snowmobiles, cross country skiing or snow shoeing. Keep reading
Recreation
The area around Elwood cabin offers a variety of recreational opportunities year-round. Summertime brings excellent scenic tour opportunities in and around the Summitville area as well as exploration of several historical mining sites. Anglers have a spectacular backdrop to fishing streams such as Iron Creek or Treasure Creek. Nearby Platoro Reservoir, which feeds the Conejos River, provides excellent fishing for trout and salmon. Great hiking can be found around the area, as it spans both the Rio Grande and San Juan National Forests, as well as the South San Juan Wilderness. In winter, the Elwood cabin area can be blanketed with as much as ten feet of snow, requiring preparation and knowledge of winter travel. Snowmobiling, skiing and snowshoeing are popular activities in the area.
Facilities
The one room log cabin is furnished with two bunk beds with single beds on the top and on the bottom of each bunk, accommodating up to four individuals total for the cabin. The cabin has a wood stove for heat, propane lighting and a propane stove. The kitchen is equipped with a table and chairs, cooking utensils, pots and pans and a fire extinguisher. Firewood is available in the adjoining shed. An outdoor vault toilet is also on-site. Guests must provide a sufficient supply of water for cooking, cleaning and washing. Guests are also encouraged to bring an additional light source in case of emergencies. Although the cabin has some amenities, guests do need to provide their own food, sleeping bags, linens, towels, dish soap, matches, first aid kit, avalanche equipment, toilet paper and garbage bags.
Natural Features
High in the San Juan Mountains at an elevation of 11,000 feet, this cabin provides guests with views of nearby peaks, meadows filled with wildflowers and alpine forests. While staying at such a high elevation guests will notice how light plays differently on the landscape and stars blanket the sky on clear cold evenings. Elk, deer, and other wildlife are often seen in meadows adjacent to the cabin. Bear, marmot and chipmunks also call the area home.
Nearby Attractions
Summitville is a nearby ghost town where gold was first discovered in 1870, then mined until the early 1990s. When contaminants leaked off-site and flowed into the local watershed the government forced it to shut down. Now a water treatment plant is on the site as part of a federal clean up program.
What the agency tells you
PRIOR TO BOOKING YOUR STAY at Elwood Cabin on the Rio Grande National Forest , Please CAREFULLY READ the three IMPORTANT!!! bullets below!!! This cabin may have unique access challenges.
IMPORTANT!!! Call for a Current Conditions ESTIMATE Before Booking: Before booking your stay at Elwood Cabin, please contact the Conejos Peak Ranger District at 719-274-8971 Monday-Friday 0800 - 1630MST (excluding federal holidays) for a conditions report estimate, including potential road conditions for your anticipated stay. All information provided is a best estimate based on the most recent reports of conditions and does not account for external factors such as late spring weather changes or slow snow melt areas. It is the renter’s responsibility to determine whether they wish to attempt travel to the cabin via automobile without definitive knowledge of current road conditions. Refunds will only be considered if the facility is inaccessible due to an administrative closure of the road or the facility, and/or if the cancellation request occurs 14 days prior to the first day of the scheduled rental period.
IMPORTANT!!! Spring/Early Summer Access May Require Non‑Vehicle Travel: From late spring through possibly June each year, the road to Elwood Cabin may be plowed up to two miles away from the cabin. However, the last one or more miles might still require access by snowmobile, hiking, skiing, or snowshoes due to large snow berms blocking vehicle passage. Refunds will only be considered if the facility is inaccessible due to an administrative closure of the road or the facility, and/or if cancellation request occurs 14 days prior to the first day of scheduled rental period.
Everything else this campground posts · 14
IMPORTANT!!! Winter Access is Remote and Challenging: Due to its remoteness and high elevation, Elwood Cabin is typically not accessible by automobile vehicles during the winter months. The only access is by a 22 mile snowmobile trip or by skiing or snowshoeing in that distance. Refunds will only be considered if the facility is inaccessible due to an administrative closure of the road or the facility, and/or if cancellation request occurs 14 days prior to the first day of scheduled rental period.
Water not available at this facility
Guests should be aware of potential avalanche danger depending on time of year and conditions when traveling to this location.
Dress appropriately for winter conditions and pack enough food to last for at least 48 hours
Access to the cabin is by a combination lock; call the Conejos Peak Ranger District at (719) 274-8971 one week before your stay to get the access combination
Please contact the Ranger District prior to arriving at the cabin to check on any restrictions or conditions, such as fire or road closures, weather or storms that may affect the quality of your visit
Do not leave food or trash outside the cabin; there are bears in the area
All garbage and food must be packed out
The cabin is a no-smoking facility
Please clean cabin upon departure. Do not leave items you brought with you. Items not provided by the USFS will be disposed of.
Make sure cabin is locked upon departure
Drink plenty of water before arrival and during your stay to avoid altitude sickness
Expect afternoon thunderstorms in the summer and below freezing temperatures in the spring, winter and fall
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
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…in the adjoining shed. An outdoor vault toilet is also on-site. Guests must provide a sufficient…”
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River, Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Night sky · 55th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:27 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday, and on two midweek nights after it as well. read 16:27 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 16:27 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.
| ELWOOD | 5106 | cabin nonelectric | 50 ft | 730 ft | $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
Stunner CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 4.0 miMix Lake CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 6.2 mi
Platoro Cabin 1Rio Grande National Forest · 7.0 mi
Platoro Cabin 2Rio Grande National Forest · 7.0 miTucker Ponds CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 9.1 mi
Off Cow Camp CabinRio Grande National Forest · 11 miFrom Del Norte, take U.S. Highway 160 west to South Fork. Continue west on U.S. Highway
160 for 8 miles to Park Creek Road. Travel 15 miles on Park Creek Road to Summitville
Road. Turn right on FSR 380, the cabin is about 2 miles on the left.
From the junction of FSR 250 in the Alamosa Canyon and FSR 380, follow FSR 380 about 8 miles, the cabin is on the right.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for South Fork, CO
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
Elwood Cabin is in Colorado’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Jeff Hurd (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. 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 moneyJeff HurdU.S. Representative · Colorado’s 3rd 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 Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear Jeff Hurd, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Elwood Cabin 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. Elwood Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Elwood Cabin. 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 Elwood Cabin (Rio Grande 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 Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Elwood Cabin 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. Elwood Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Elwood Cabin. 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 Elwood Cabin (Rio Grande 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 Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Elwood Cabin, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Elwood Cabin 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. Elwood Cabin keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Elwood Cabin. 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 Elwood Cabin (Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com