U.S. Forest Service · White River National Forest · CO
Meadow Lake Campground
1Heads up1 fire 26 mi away
Wildfire
Dry Creek fire · 26 mi away · 316 acres · 100% contained · updated Oct 13, 2026
Fires: NIFC/IRWIN via MTJP wildfire tracker · Oct 13, 2026
First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
9,590 ftElevation
1,000 ftWater · Meadow Creek Lake
15.3 miN of New Castle, CO
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 186th darkest of 522 in CO
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Meadow Lake Campground is located 35 miles north of New Castle via the Buford-New Castle Road (County/Forest Road 245). The campground offers 10 campsites, all of which are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. These campsites are suitable for tent camping and small trailers, with parking spurs of up to 16 feet in length. Facilities at the campground include picnic tables, fire grates, trash disposal, secure food storage, and a vault toilet. The campground includes several handicap accessible sites. This is a fee use area. Meadow Lake Campground is located just north of Meadow Lake. Keep reading
The campground is also a short distance from the Meadow Lake Picnic Area . The Picnic Area includes picnic tables, fire rings, a dock, boat launch, and restroom. The day use fee for the Picnic Area is waived for campground guests. Meadow Lake itself is located in a popular area for fishing, hunting, and OHV riding. The campground also provides an easy staging area for accessing numerous non-motorized trails in the southwest Flat Tops. Typical open season dates are May 28 to October 25.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…disposal, secure food storage, and a vault toilet. The campground includes several handicap…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Water, toilets and showers: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Meadow
Source: Stated in the agency description · Aug 23, 2026
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
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.
Runs itAmerican Land & LeisureA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Servicethe operator link
Every line of the receipt · 3
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.
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
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: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Coordinate39.81722, -107.54278
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near hereMeadow Ridge CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 0.5 miSouth Fork Campground & TrailheadWhite River National Forest · 3.5 miDeep Lake CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 14 mi
Marvine CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 15 mi
North Fork CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 17 miNorth Fork CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 18 mi
Marvine CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 15 miNorth Fork CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 17 miNorth Fork CampgroundWhite River National Forest · 18 miSource: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
This Afternoon51°Sunny
Tonight32°Mostly Clear
Sunday49°Mostly Sunny1% rain
Sunday Night32°Partly Cloudy13% rain
NWS forecast for Carbonate, CO
Source: National Weather Service, GJT forecast office · Oct 17, 2026
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.
Source: USFS Inventoried Roadless Areas via MTJP Roadless Map · Jul 29, 2026
Who answers for this land
Meadow Lake 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 →
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
Tree cover: NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC), one 30 m cell at this coordinate · Sep 9, 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: Carbonate, CO, 11.2 mi WNW. Straight line.