CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · Pike National Forest · CO

Kelsey Campground

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Drawn from the record · 8,040 ft · 22% tree cover · Bortle 4 sky
8,040 ftElevation
1.3 miWater · Gunbarrel Creek
12.3 miSW of Roxborough Park, CO
22%Tree cover
Bortle 4Night sky · 496th darkest of 522 in CO

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

Kelsey Campground is far enough from town that there is no corner store while being close enough that the drive to and from home is part of an enjoyable getaway. Southwest of Denver at an elevation of 8,000 feet, Kelsey Campground offers a wonderful opportunity for individuals or families to enjoy the great outdoors. Nearby is a scenic overlook, trails and river fishing. Summer temperatures range from 75-80 degrees during the day to a pleasant 55-65 degrees at night. All dates are weather dependent. Visitors may expect full service from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. The area also has an extended season when services such as water, trash or a host may not be available in the fall and spring.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Around the campground

On the water
River
Fall color · reported 11 days ago, 33 km away
No change
Source: Stated in the agency description
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 6, 2026

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itRocky Mountain Recreation CompanyA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Service (parent: ExplorUS)the operator link
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 8

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Fee per site for overnight camping .$28
Two (2) vehicles or one (1) RV per site is included in the camping fee.
For a third vehicle .$11
Day use fee if not camping overnight .$11
Fees are payable by cash, check or money order.
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate39.30493, -105.26693

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight35°Clear
Saturday68°Sunny
Saturday Night39°Clear
Sunday65°Mostly Sunny

NWS forecast for Westcreek, CO

Source: National Weather Service, BOU forecast office · Oct 17, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 25°F, day 59°F.

Coldest month of the year: typical December night 9°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

90°32°0°

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.

Measured at: BAILEY, CO (USC00050454), 13 miles away and 288 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

Roadless country, and what’s coming for it

Roadless
Oxyoke8,767 acres · 3 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Green Mountain10,239 acres · 3 mi · inventoried roadless area
Roadless
Campbell Mountain23,734 acres · 8 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026

Who answers for this land

Brittany Pettersen, official portrait

Kelsey Campground 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.88 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 522 rated federal campgrounds in Colorado · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Fall color: More Than Just Parks foliage tracker, joined to this campground by distance (33 km) · Oct 6, 2026
Reported by: USA National Phenology Network (Nature's Notebook), reported no change · Oct 6, 2026
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Westcreek, CO, 11 mi NNW (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026