Happy Meadows
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $24–$29Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 7All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Happy Meadows Campground is situated along the South Platte River near the Eleven Mile Reservoir and Eleven Mile Canyon. Excellent fishing, tubing, and hiking await visitors. Eleven Mile Canyon is rich in natural resources and historic significance. Originally called Granite Canyon, the towering gray walls rise 500 feet above the river. Keep reading
Recreation
World-class trout fishing is a major attraction on the South Platte. Visitors can also venture to Florissant Fossil Beds to view fossils and petrified redwoods. Eleven Mile Canyon and the Tarryall Valley offer scenic drives with impressive views.
Facilities
Happy Meadows offers seven reservable RV campsites. Each site has a picnic table and a camp fire ring. Drinking water from a water pump and a vault toilet is available.
Natural Features
Campsites are a short walk to the lovely South Platte, a major tributary of the Platte River that runs through Colorado and Nebraska. As part of Pike Forest, Happy Meadows enjoys abundant and varied wildlife, seven peaks above 14,000 feet, called fourteeners, and miles of great trails. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
Nearby Attractions
The town of Lake George is just 3 miles away, offering a general store, fish tackle and bait shop, and cabin rentals.
Charges & Cancellations
Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a campsite. Cancellations for a one-night reservation will forfeit the entire amount paid and will not be subject to an additional service fee. No-Shows A no-show visitor is one who does not arrive at a campground and does not cancel the reservation by check-out time on the day after the scheduled arrival date. Staff will hold a campsite until check-out time on the day following the arrival date. No-shows are assessed $20.00 service fee and forfeit the first night's rate, taxes and applicable add-on for a campsite. Refunds Visitors may submit a refund request through their Recreation.gov profile within 7 days of the end date of their reservation. Refunds will not be issued after the 7 days has ended. Refunds for debit or credit card payments will be issued as a credit to the original bank or credit card used to pay. For check or cash purchases, Recreation.gov will mail a Treasury check for refunds of cash, check, or money order payments to the address associated with the reservation. Treasury check refunds may take up to 6-8 weeks to arrive. In the event of an emergency closure, the Recreation.gov team or facility manager will refund all fees and will attempt to notify you using the contact information within the Recreation.gov visitor profile.
What the agency tells you
Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'PACK IN - PACK OUT' facility
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
This is a high elevation facility, please use caution when traveling from lower elevations
Everything else this campground posts · 12
No RV hookups are available
Limit two vehicles with a maximum of 8 people per site
For more information on Pike and San Isabel National Forests, click here
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing organisms by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Firewood is available to purchase on site, depending on any fire ban. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
ATV's and off road vehicles are prohibited in the campground
The use, sale, and possession of all forms of cannabis in the United States is illegal under federal law on federal land.
Shooting of any type is prohibited in the campground
Reservations are available up to 5 days prior to arrival date. Sites not reserved 5 days before become available on a ‘first come - first serve’ (FF) bases.
Dogs must be on a leash or tethered at all times.
Check-out time is 12:00pm. Check-in time is 2:00pm
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $11.00 for a third vehicle. $11.00 fee for day use if not camping overnight.
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 7
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- 7
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…Drinking water from a water pump and a vault toilet is available. Natural Features Campsites are a…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…has a picnic table and a camp fire ring. Drinking water from a water pump and a vault toilet is available.…”
- Store
- Nearby
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Tubing
- Night sky · 453rd darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 10 days ago, 13 km away
- Peak 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 · 19
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $24–$29 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.
“Cancellations Individual Campsites: Cancellations up to 2 days before a reservation start date incur a $10.00 cancellation fee. A visitor who cancels a reservation the day before or on the day of arrival will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use fee including tax and applicable add-on for a cam…” · this campground’s own no-show terms
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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
8 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 7 mapped sitesAll 8 records
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 001 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 80 ft | 54 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 002 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | yes | 80 ft | 50 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 003 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | yes | 75 ft | 124 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 004 - Host | host pad | 40 ft | yes | ||
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 005 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | yes | 75 ft | 141 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 006 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | yes | 63 ft | 73 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 007 | standard nonelectric | 22 ft | yes | 63 ft | 49 ft |
| HAPPY MEADOWS | 008 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | yes | 115 ft | 58 ft |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
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
Where it is
Blue MountainPike National Forest · 3.6 mi
Riverside CampgroundPike National Forest · 3.7 mi
Round MountainPike National Forest · 3.9 mi
Pulver Mountain Group SitePike National Forest · 5.9 mi
Riverside (CO)Pike National Forest · 6.4 mi
Springer GulchPike National Forest · 6.9 miFrom Denver and Colorado Springs, take I-25 to Highwy 24 west toward Woodland Park. At Lake George on US-24, turn north on County Road 77, also known as the Tarryall road. Travel about a mile and turn east on County Road 112. Continue on County Road 112 turning right at dead end. The campground will be on the right after about a mile.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Florissant, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 23°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December 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
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
Happy Meadows 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 →