Riverside (CO)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $24From, per site
- Sites
- 1918 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Riverside Campground lies across the road form South Platte River, providing a scenic base camp for fishing, hiking and rock climbing. The campground is tucked in the Eleven Mile Canyon, a delightful place to view polished granite walls surrounding the open valley of the river. Wildlife is abundant in the surrounding areas, with opportunities to see elk, mule deer, chipmunks and porcupines. Keep reading
Recreation
Hard Rock Interpretive Trail, accessible from the campground, is a 1-mile self-guided interpretive walk that leads to an impressive overlook of the canyon. The trail explores the diverse life of the region and offers a chance to see plenty of wildlife and take photos of the sweeping views. Rainbow, cutthroat and brown trout can be caught from the South Platte River. Benches along the river allow anglers to relax in comfort while waiting for fish to bite.
Facilities
Riverside Campground offers nearly 20 reservable campsites. Parking aprons are grass and gravel and can fit RVs up to 30 feet in length. Tent sites are walk-in only. Each site has a picnic table and a campfire ring. Vault toilets are onsite. Bring your own drinking water.
Natural Features
Riverside has large, open campsites at an elevation of 8,000 feet. The South Platte River flows on the other side of Route 96. Eleven Mile Canyon was carved by the river and is bordered by polished gray granite cliffs. Downriver is the Eleven Mile Reservoir, spanning 3,405 surface acres and 5 miles in length.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors enjoy the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, one of the richest and most diverse fossil deposits in the world. Petrified redwood stumps up to 14 feet wide and thousands of detailed fossils of insects and plants reveal the story of a very different, prehistoric Colorado. 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
Alert for Reservation Holders: There is a one-time fee of $11.00 to enter Eleven Mile Canyon Recreation Area in which your campground is located. You will only have to pay this fee once for the duration of your stay. An Annual Pass is available for purchase here. The fee for the 2026 Calendar Year Pass is $100.00.
Reservations are available up to 5 days prior to arrival date. Sites not reserved 5 days before become available on a ‘first come - first serve’ (FF) bases.
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $11.00 for a third vehicle.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside your vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
Dogs must be on a leash or tethered at all times. Pets must never be left alone while you are sightseeing.
This is a high elevation facility, please use caution when traveling from lower elevations
No RV hookups are available
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. Firewood is available to purchase on site, depending on any fire ban. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
ATV's and off road vehicles are prohibited in the campground and Eleven Mile Canyon
The use, sale, and possession of all forms of cannabis in the United States is illegal under federal law on federal lands.
Shooting of any type is prohibited in the campground and Eleven Mile Canyon
Check-out time is 12:00pm. Check-in time is 2:00pm
Bring your own drinking water
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 19 · 11 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 50 ft
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 18 of 19 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “Bring your own drinking water.”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Climbing
- Night sky · 430th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 14 km away
- Peak color
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 18 of the 19 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 · 13
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $24 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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
19 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 18 mapped sitesAll 19 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. 18 of the 19 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.
| RIVERSIDE | 001 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | yes | 53 ft | 137 ft | $24 |
| RIVERSIDE | 002 | tent only nonelectric | 73 ft | 210 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 56 ft | 256 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 56 ft | 295 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 61 ft | 278 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 67 ft | 247 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 007 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 53 ft | 97 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 008 | type not stated | 45 ft | ||||
| RIVERSIDE | 009 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 60 ft | 117 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 010 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 42 ft | 139 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 011 | standard nonelectric | 50 ft | 42 ft | 95 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 012 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 42 ft | 138 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 013 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 42 ft | 85 ft | $24 | |
| RIVERSIDE | 014 | tent only nonelectric | 54 ft | 151 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 015 | tent only nonelectric | 45 ft | 199 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 016 | tent only nonelectric | 45 ft | 186 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 017 | tent only nonelectric | 32 ft | 242 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 32 ft | 220 ft | $24 | ||
| RIVERSIDE | 019 | tent only nonelectric | 48 ft | 264 ft | $24 |
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
Where it is
Springer GulchPike National Forest · 1.4 mi
Cove CampgroundPike National Forest · 2.5 mi
Spillway CampgroundPike National Forest · 2.9 mi
Riverside CampgroundPike National Forest · 3.7 mi
Blue MountainPike National Forest · 4.5 mi
Pulver Mountain Group SitePike National Forest · 5.9 miFrom Lake George, turn off Highway 24 onto County Road 96. Follow the road for about one mile. Turn right at Eleven Mile Canyon entrance. Riverside Campground is located on the left side, not far from Eleven Mile Canyon entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Florissant, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 26°F, day 57°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night -1°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
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
Riverside (CO) 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 →