Little Maud Campground
1Heads up1 fire 22 mi away
Closed for want of money or people is a choice somebody made.Ask who decided →
- Right now
- ClosedThe agency’s own sentence, quoted below
- A night
- $32When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 22In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 12 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located approximately 14 miles east of Basalt, Colorado, in the White River National Forest, Little Maud Campground is situated on Ruedi Reservoir at an elevation of 7,800 feet. Sites at this campground open up to views of the reservoir and starry nighttime skies. A mixed conifer forest hems in the shoreline and nearby peaks offer an ideal setting for guests seeking recreation and relaxation. Keep reading
Recreation
Renowned for its fly fishing, Fryingpan River flows below Ruedi Dam. Here, large rainbow, brown, cutthroat and brook trout are plentiful in an area nicknamed the "toilet bowl." The fish feed on Mysis shrimp, a small freshwater shrimp stocked in the lake. The stretch of river from the dam down to the confluence of Fryingpan and the Roaring Fork River has been designated as Gold Medal Waters by the Colorado Wildlife Commission. Special regulations in this area include fishing only with artificial flies and lures, and releasing all trout except brown trout, with a limit of two fish over 14 inches. For hikers and bikers, the Ruedi Trail, located north of the reservoir, climbs to the top of Red Table Mountain. The trailhead is located 200 feet north of the Jeep trail near the boat ramp and parking lot. This eight mile trail gains over 3,000 feet in elevation, leading hikers to a spectacular panoramic view of the area. Boating, swimming, and water skiing are all possible. Interpretive programs are popular activities.
Facilities
Little Maud Campground has 21 standard sites suitable for tents, trailers, and RVs. There is a maximum length of 35 feet for RVs. The sites are equipped with picnic tables and campfire rings. Guests also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not available.
Natural Features
In the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the 2.3 million acre White River National Forest is a place of serenity and adventure, boasting eight wilderness areas, four defined seasons, and 10 peaks surpassing 14,000 feet in elevation. Wildlife in the area abounds. Bighorn sheep navigate rocky ridges and bull elk bugle at dusk. Scenic rivers sustain populations of cutthroat, rainbow, and brown trout. Alpine regions provide habitat for pika and ptarmigan. These species, along with many others, depend on surrounding undeveloped wilderness, clean streams, and diverse forests to live.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby town of Aspen is a popular destination for visitors to the area. From downhill skiing and world-class fly fishing, to dining and resorts, there are a multitude of outdoor and indoor opportunities in this resort mountain town.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Please Note: One RV with tow per single site or one vehicle per tent site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee and collected at the campground.
All food, beverages, trash and scented items must be properly stored when not attended. Bear-proof food lockers are provided at each site and bear-proof trash receptacles are provided at the campground.
Prevent the spread of invasive species by inspecting and cleaning packs, equipment, and tires before using lake or trails.
Everything else this campground posts · 9
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (ELEVEN) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
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.
Any accepted senior passes must be entered for the discount at the time of booking for single sites only.
Click here for more information about White River National Forest.
Campers must occupy the site the first night at a campsite. This prevents booking the site for Fri-Sun and showing up on Saturday.
Campers may leave the site for 24 hours and must occupy the site otherwise. This allows a camper to say go for an overnight backpack trip in the woods for one night and come back to their campsite the next day.
Check in time is 2:00pm and Check out time is 11:00am. It is imperative that you are clear from the site at 11:00am on your check out day so the host can come prepare the site for the next event. Please don't be the group that makes the incoming group have to wait.
Customer Service Contact 801-226-3564 or Help.WhiteRiver.Sopris@AmericanLL.com
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 83 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…rings. Guests also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not available. Natural…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek, Beach
- Biking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Ranger programs
- Water sports
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 302nd darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 20 km away
- Past peak
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:42 UTC
No water for campers at Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds; Little Maud and Mollie B closed.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 10
What you actually pay
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own 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 · 5
What the agency said · 1
No water for campers at Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds; Little Maud and Mollie B closed. There is no well water at the Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds.
U.S. Forest Service · posted Sep 9, 2026
Open within 60 miles · 1
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- DexterSan Isabel National Forest · 33 mi · 4 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 16:42 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 21 mapped sitesAll 22 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. 21 of the 22 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| LITTLE MAUD | 01 | type not stated | 28 ft | 83 ft | ||
| LITTLE MAUD | 02 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 21 ft | 102 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 03 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 21 ft | 90 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 04 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 105 ft | 134 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 05 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 40 ft | 129 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 06 | standard nonelectric | 17 ft | 40 ft | 133 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 07 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 63 ft | 114 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 08 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 23 ft | 136 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 09 | standard nonelectric | 47 ft | 23 ft | 157 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 10 | standard nonelectric | 49 ft | 38 ft | 174 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 11 | standard nonelectric | 43 ft | 54 ft | 237 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 12 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 48 ft | 289 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 13 | standard nonelectric | 82 ft | 48 ft | 338 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 14 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 85 ft | 402 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 15 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 51 ft | 462 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 16 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 51 ft | 464 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 17 | standard nonelectric | 48 ft | 53 ft | 480 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 18 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 69 ft | 428 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 19 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 16 ft | 358 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 20 | standard nonelectric | 83 ft | 16 ft | 362 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 21 | standard nonelectric | 37 ft | 67 ft | 243 ft | $32 |
| LITTLE MAUD | 22 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 67 ft | 184 ft | $32 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mollie B_white RiverWhite River National Forest · 0.0 mi
Ruedi Marina CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 0.3 mi
Little Mattie CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 0.3 mi
Dearhamer CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 4.2 mi
Chapman Campground and GroupWhite River National Forest · 11 miElk Wallow CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 11 miTake I-70 west of Denver to Glenwood Springs Exit 116, Highway 82 to Basalt. At Basalt, take Frying Pan Road 15 miles to the Ruedi Complex Entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Woody Creek, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 9°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 · a letter you can send
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Little Maud Campground 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
Filed as maintenance from the agency’s own words “No water”. That reading is ours. The draft to the agency asks what closed Little Maud Campground, what reopening it would cost and what date they’re working towards. The draft to Congress asks them to put the same question in writing and to fund the answer.
- 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 found out at the gate, or a week before the trip. 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 find out what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost, and to treat the deferred-maintenance line as the thing that decides it.
Subject Little Maud Campground is closed (White River National Forest, Colorado)
Dear Jeff Hurd, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 3rd district. I went to camp at Little Maud Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado and found it closed. The notice says: "No water for campers at Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds; Little Maud and Mollie B closed. There is no well water at the Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds." (https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/whiteriver/alerts/no-water-campers-ruedi-reservoir-campgrounds-little-maud-and-mollie-b-closed, read Oct 16, 2026) That’s a maintenance closure, which makes it a budget question before it’s anything else. A campground doesn’t need this work because of bad luck. It needs it because the work was deferred until it couldn’t be deferred any longer. Please ask the U.S. Forest Service, in writing, what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost and where that work sits on their own list. And when their budget comes to a vote, treat the recreation and deferred-maintenance lines as the thing that decides whether these 22 campsites are open next season. 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 Little Maud Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to find out what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost, and to treat the deferred-maintenance line as the thing that decides it.
Subject Little Maud Campground is closed (White River National Forest, Colorado)
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I went to camp at Little Maud Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado and found it closed. The notice says: "No water for campers at Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds; Little Maud and Mollie B closed. There is no well water at the Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds." (https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/whiteriver/alerts/no-water-campers-ruedi-reservoir-campgrounds-little-maud-and-mollie-b-closed, read Oct 16, 2026) That’s a maintenance closure, which makes it a budget question before it’s anything else. A campground doesn’t need this work because of bad luck. It needs it because the work was deferred until it couldn’t be deferred any longer. Please ask the U.S. Forest Service, in writing, what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost and where that work sits on their own list. And when their budget comes to a vote, treat the recreation and deferred-maintenance lines as the thing that decides whether these 22 campsites are open next season. 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 Little Maud Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to find out what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost, and to treat the deferred-maintenance line as the thing that decides it.
Subject Little Maud Campground is closed (White River National Forest, Colorado)
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I went to camp at Little Maud Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado and found it closed. The notice says: "No water for campers at Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds; Little Maud and Mollie B closed. There is no well water at the Ruedi Reservoir Campgrounds." (https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/whiteriver/alerts/no-water-campers-ruedi-reservoir-campgrounds-little-maud-and-mollie-b-closed, read Oct 16, 2026) That’s a maintenance closure, which makes it a budget question before it’s anything else. A campground doesn’t need this work because of bad luck. It needs it because the work was deferred until it couldn’t be deferred any longer. Please ask the U.S. Forest Service, in writing, what reopening Little Maud Campground would cost and where that work sits on their own list. And when their budget comes to a vote, treat the recreation and deferred-maintenance lines as the thing that decides whether these 22 campsites are open next season. 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 Little Maud Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com