Hidden Lakes Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $20From, per site
- Sites
- 9All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hidden Lakes is a small, tranquil campground near the base of Buffalo Pass. Sitting at 9,066 ft in elevation, Hidden Lakes offers a wide variety of outdoor activities including fishing, hiking, and OHV riding. Keep reading
Recreation
Hidden Lakes offers a large array of recreational opportunities. Fishing and watercraft activities are available within the campground and other small lakes can be found directly outside this campground. Hiking trails can be found outside the campground and by driving up Buffalo Pass (Forest Road 60) to connect on to the CDT trail. OHV trails are available outside the campground, two popular trails are Percy Lake trail and the single-track Grizzly-Helena trail beyond Teal Lake campground.
Facilities
This campground offers two toilets and trash services. Near the trash and restrooms is a small parking lot available for day use activities within the campground.
Nearby Attractions
The closest town is Walden, Colorado, about 30 miles from the campsite. Many more outdoor recreation opportunities exist in the surrounding national forests and grasslands, including hiking, biking, camping, horseback riding, OHV riding, fishing, hunting, sightseeing and winter sports. Popular sights are Rabbit Ears summit off of highway 40 and the summit of Buffalo Pass
What the agency tells you
Maximum of two vehicles allowed per site
Water is currently unavailable. Make sure to bring water with you.
Trash collection and vault toilets available throughout the season
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Maximum Stay limit is 14 days
For online payment, Please have the Rec.gov app downloaded on your phone before arrival
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 9
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
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 · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $20 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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
9 sites
All 9 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. 9 of the 9 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
Where it is
Grizzly Creek Guard Station3.6 miGranite CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 4.5 mi
Summit Lake CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 4.8 mi
Teal Lake Group CampsiteRoutt National Forest · 5.4 mi
Dumont CampgroundRoutt National Forest · 7.1 mi
Dry Lake Campground (CO)Routt National Forest · 9.4 miThe 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
Hidden Lakes Campground 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 →