Purgatoire Campground
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $25From, per site
- Sites
- 2320 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Purgatoire Campground is nestled near the headwaters of the Purgatoire River in the beautiful Culebra Range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The primitive campground is laid out on two loops. One is a large grassy meadow with sites that accommodate equestrian campers and one that is wooded with aspen and spruce. Constructed by the Youth Conservation Corp in 1976, Purgatoire was originally named Potato Patch Campground. The river provides nice fishing and a trailhead attracts hikers and horseback riders. Keep reading
Recreation
The North Fork Trail # 1309 is located on the north end of the campground and offers non-motorized access to hikers, cyclists, and horseback riders. The 5-mile trail delights with mountain vistas and shade from forested terrain. The river, which is creek-sized at these upper reaches, provides opportunities for anglers to cast for trout.
Facilities
Campsites come with campfire rings, picnic tables and vault toilets. Equestrian sites can fit large horse trailers. Drinking water is from a hand pump and parking aprons are grass and gravel. Trash service is provided.
Natural Features
The campground is in an aspen and conifer forest near the North Fork River at an elevation of 9,800 feet. The river, also known as the Purgatoire River, flows 196 miles to the confluence of the Arkansas River. Pike-San Isabel National Forest includes over a million acres of wilderness and over half of Colorado's mountain peaks that reach above 14,000 feet. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (719) 489-2034.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby towns of Stonewall and Cuchara offer shopping and restaurants.
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
This Campground has a limit of 8 people; either 2 tents and 2 vehicles OR 1 RV in each campsite.
Be bear aware: Lock food and cooking utensils in vehicles, keep a clean campsite.
Hay and feed pellets must be certified weed-free for use on National Forest.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Fireworks prohibited. No discharging of firearms within the campground.
This facility also has first-come, first-served campsites.
For more information on the 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.
Due to the remoteness of the campground, real time information is not available. Contact the San Carlos Ranger District for further information at (719) 269-8500.
Two vehicles included in the camping fee. $10 for additional vehicles.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 23 · 6 equestrian
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 45 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…with campfire rings, picnic tables and vault toilets. Equestrian sites can fit large horse trailers.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…sites can fit large horse trailers. Drinking water is from a hand pump and parking aprons are grass…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River, Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 72nd darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 15 km away
- Patchy color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 20 of the 23 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
“$10 for additional vehicles.” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own agency notice
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $25 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 · 7
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
23 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 20 mapped sitesAll 23 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. 20 of the 23 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.
| PURGATOIRE | 01 | type not stated | 25 ft | 171 ft | ||
| PURGATOIRE | 02 | standard nonelectric | 21 ft | 147 ft | 142 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 03 | type not stated | 22 ft | 102 ft | ||
| PURGATOIRE | 04 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 147 ft | 83 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 05 | type not stated | 40 ft | 410 ft | ||
| PURGATOIRE | 06 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 89 ft | 526 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 07 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 100 ft | 673 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 08 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 108 ft | 664 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 09 | rv nonelectric | 25 ft | 89 ft | 578 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 10 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 114 ft | 414 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 11 | equestrian nonelectric | 35 ft | 96 ft | 318 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 12 | equestrian nonelectric | 35 ft | 52 ft | 364 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 13 | equestrian nonelectric | 45 ft | 52 ft | 405 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 14 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 72 ft | 451 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 15 | equestrian nonelectric | 40 ft | 72 ft | 439 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 16 | equestrian nonelectric | 22 ft | 25 ft | 408 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 17 | equestrian nonelectric | 25 ft | 25 ft | 383 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 18 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 51 ft | 345 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 19 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 77 ft | 219 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 20 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 77 ft | 186 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 21 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 40 ft | 190 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 22 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 40 ft | 182 ft | $25 |
| PURGATOIRE | 23 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 96 ft | 222 ft | $25 |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Blue Lake Campground - San Isabel NF (CO)San Isabel National Forest · 4.5 mi
Bear Lake Campground (CO)San Isabel National Forest · 5.3 miCordova PassSan Isabel National Forest · 8.1 miMcCrystal CampgroundCarson Other · 33 mi
Cimarron CampgroundCarson Other · 34 miZapata Falls CampgroundSan Luis Valley Field Office · 35 miFrom La Veta, Colorado, take State Route 12 south for 25.3 miles to Purgatoire campground sign. Turn right onto gravel Route 34. Go 0.2 miles to "T" intersection. Turn right and drive 4 miles on rough gravel road to campground.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Stonewall Gap, CO
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.
Who answers for this land
Purgatoire 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 →