Monarch Park
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 35All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
After being closed the past couple of years for renovations, look for Monarch Park to reopen on Friday, August 21, 2026! Monarch Park is nestled at the base of Monarch Ridge, a short drive north of Monarch Pass on Highway 50. Some campsites at the family-friendly destination are located on the banks of the South Fork Arkansas River, while others lie along a creek. Popular activities in the area include hiking the Colorado/Continental DivideTrail and fishing. Beaver ponds near the entrance to the campground make a great fishing spot for families with young children. Monarch Pass is a high mountain pass along the southern part of Colorado's Sawatch Range. The pass crosses the Continental Divide at an altitude of 11,312 feet. Keep reading
Recreation
Popular trails near Monarch Park include Waterdog Lakes, the Monarch Crest Trail and the Hunt and Boss Lakes trails. Wildflowers are abundant on these trails in late summer. The river and nearby ponds provide quality fishing for all ages. Brook trout is the most likely reward for fishing efforts.
Facilities
Vault toilets are available and one is wheelchair accessible. All sites come with picnic tables and campfire rings. No electrical or sewer hookups are available. The nearest RV dump station is at the Poncha Springs Visitor Center located at 7001 Highway 285 (near the intersection of US Highway 285 and US Highway 50) in Poncha Springs, CO.
Natural Features
The elevation is 10,500 feet, and visitors should plan for cool nighttime temperatures. Some campsites are located near the south fork of the Little Arkansas River.
Nearby Attractions
The city of Salida is only a short drive away where visitors can enjoy unique restaurants, shops, art galleries, and antique shops. The area boasts more than 100 miles of Arkansas River to raft, fish, float or kayak, as well as fifteen 14,000 ft. mountains. Visitors can choose from recreational activities like hiking, biking, ATV/UTV riding, kayaking, rafting, fishing, horseback riding, zip lining, and swimming. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
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
The hand pump is still being repaired so water is currently not available at this campground. Please bring all water needed for the duration of your stay. A No Water discount is already reflected in the campground fees nightly price.
Thunderstorms are common; take extra precautions for lightning
This is a high elevation facility, please use caution when traveling from lower elevations and be prepared for chilly evening temperature even during the summer months.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
Be bear aware; keep all food out of sight in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
Vehicles must fit on parking spur
No firearms or fireworks
No RV hookups are available
No dumping of wastewater
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. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $10.00 for a third vehicle. $10.00 fee for day use if not camping overnight.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 35
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 21 of 24 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…reward for fishing efforts. Facilities Vault toilets are available and one is wheelchair accessible. All…”
- Dump station
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Biking
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 219th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $22 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 Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
38 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 35 mapped sitesAll 38 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 35 of the 38 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| MANAGEMENT | XXX | unnamed record | 45 ft | |||
| MANAGEMENT | XXX1 | unnamed record | ||||
| MANAGEMENT | XXX2 | unnamed record | ||||
| MONA | 002 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 135 ft | 10 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 003 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 214 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 004 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 278 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 005 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 32 ft | 247 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 006 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 239 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 007 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 305 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 008 | standard nonelectric | 79 ft | 388 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 009 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 122 ft | 453 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 010 | standard nonelectric | 174 ft | 410 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 011 | standard nonelectric | 63 ft | 336 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 012 | standard nonelectric | 63 ft | 309 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 013 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 299 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 014 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 330 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 015 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 310 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 016 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 348 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 017 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 327 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 018 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 28 ft | 534 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 019 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 28 ft | 534 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 020 | standard nonelectric | 51 ft | 587 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 021 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 51 ft | 559 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 022 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 100 ft | 536 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 023 | standard nonelectric | 114 ft | 636 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 024 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 456 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 025 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 439 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 026 | standard nonelectric | 151 ft | 536 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 028 | standard nonelectric | 110 ft | 642 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 029 | standard nonelectric | 92 ft | 547 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 030 | standard nonelectric | 92 ft | 458 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 032 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 322 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 033 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 25 ft | 307 ft | $22 |
| MONA | 035 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 137 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 036 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 148 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 037 | standard nonelectric | 158 ft | 57 ft | $22 | |
| MONA | 038 | standard nonelectric | 135 ft | 121 ft | $22 | |
| MONARCH PARK | 034 | standard nonelectric | 71 ft | 236 ft | $22 |
The agency files 3 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It types every one of them MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 38 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Angel of Shavano GroupSan Isabel National Forest · 7.3 miAngel of ShavanoSan Isabel National Forest · 7.4 miFrom Poncha Springs, travel west on Highway 50 for about 15 miles, then turn left on County Road 231 and drive south to the Monarch Park Campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Garfield, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 24°F, day 50°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January 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
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Monarch Park 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 →