U.S. Forest Service · San Isabel National Forest · CO
North Fork Campground
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
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
11,450 ftElevation
433 ftWater · North Fork South Arkansas River
16.5 miSW of Buena Vista, CO
0%Tree cover
Bortle 2Night sky · 199th darkest of 522 in CO
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This campground is the highest elevation campground on the Salida Ranger District. The elevation is 11,000 feet and the campsites are situated on the north shore of the North Fork Reservoir. The road to the campground is very rough and not recommended for vehicles towing trailers. High clearance vehicles are a requirement for reaching this campground. No trash service.
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir
- Fishing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · 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 itRocky Mountain Recreation CompanyA private concessionaire under permit from U.S. Forest Service (parent: ExplorUS)the 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
Coordinate38.61160, -106.31923
The mapSee it on the map
The driveDirections ↗
The agency’s pageOfficial page ↗
Where it is
Also near hereNorth Fork Campground (Salida, CO)San Isabel National Forest · 0.1 miAngel of ShavanoSan Isabel National Forest · 5.7 mi
Angel of Shavano GroupSan Isabel National Forest · 5.7 miMiddle Quartz Campground - Gunnison RDGunnison National Forest · 5.8 mi
Monarch ParkSan Isabel National Forest · 6.6 miIron CitySan Isabel National Forest · 6.7 mi
Angel of Shavano GroupSan Isabel National Forest · 5.7 miMiddle Quartz Campground - Gunnison RDGunnison National Forest · 5.8 miMonarch ParkSan Isabel National Forest · 6.6 miIron CitySan Isabel National Forest · 6.7 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 Afternoon40°Sunny
Tonight26°Clear
Saturday50°Sunny
Saturday Night30°Mostly Clear1% rain
NWS forecast for Garfield, CO
Source: National Weather Service, PUB forecast office · Oct 16, 2026
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
Roadless
Roadless
Roadless
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 3, 2026
Who answers for this land
North Fork 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 →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: U.S. Forest Service’s own recreation database flags it not open and publishes no reason and no date. That’s a flag, not a notice.
Listed not open: USFS EDW Recreation Opportunities, openstatus field: a not-open flag in a database, with no reason and no date published; read there since Sep 9, 2026. A flag, not a notice, so this page doesn’t call it a closure. · Oct 16, 2026
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: Garfield, CO, 4.3 mi NNW (a census designated place). Straight line.