Shepherds Rim Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 17 nights read 16:43 UTC
- A night
- $22–$23Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 1615 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Surrounded by mountains and nestled near the wilderness, the Shepherds Rim Campground at Trappers Lake has 15 scenic campsites. Located at 9,720 feet in elevation, visitors can locate this campground on the right side of the road as you travel south from the Trappers Lake Outlet area. Keep reading
Recreation
Trappers Lake is known as the Cradle of Wilderness. At approximately 302 surface acres, the lake contains a strain of native cutthroat trout and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife operates a spawn collection station at the Cabin Creek inlet during May and June. Trappers Lake lies completely within the Flat Tops Wilderness; motorized boats and wheeled carts for boat transport are prohibited.
Facilities
Shepherds Rim Campground has 16 sites suitable for tents, trailers and RVs. The sites are equipped with picnic tables and campfire rings. Guests also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not available. There is an RV dump station within the Trappers Lake complex.
Natural Features
In the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the 2.3 million acre White River National Forest is a place of serenity and adventure, boasting eight wilderness areas, four defined seasons, and 10 peaks surpassing 14,000 feet in elevation. Wildlife in the area abounds. Bighorn sheep navigate rocky ridges and bull elk bugle at dusk. Scenic rivers sustain populations of cutthroat, rainbow, and brown trout. Alpine regions provide habitat for pika and ptarmigan. These species, along with many others, depend on surrounding undeveloped wilderness, clean streams, and diverse forests to live. Shepherds Rim Campground at Trappers Lake is located adjacent to the Flat Tops Wilderness, offering a natural environment with many pothole lakes, surrounding glacier carved mountains, and access to trails and wilderness areas. Wildlife frequent the area and moose, elk, deer, marmots, pine marten, and an abundance of birds may be seen.
Nearby Attractions
Fishing Access: Trappers Lake, Little Trappers Lake, Wall Lake, Fraser Creek, Lake of the Woods Trail Access: Little Trappers Trail #1814, Carhart Trail #1815, Trappers Lake Trail #1816, Wall Lake Trail #1818, Island Lakes Trail #1842, Chinese Wall Trail #1803, Deer Lake Trail #2021, South Derby Trail #1857, Himes Peak Trail #1877 Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (801) 226-3564.
Charges & Cancellations
Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
What the agency tells you
Please Note: One RV with tow per single site or one vehicle per tent site. Most sites can accommodate 1 extra vehicle that is not included with the reservation fee. Extra vehicle will be charged a per night fee and collected at the campground.
All food, beverages, trash and scented items must be properly stored when not attended. Bear-proof food lockers are provided at each site and bear-proof trash receptacles are provided at the campground.
Prevent the spread of invasive species by inspecting and cleaning packs, equipment, and tires before using lake or trails. Certified weed-free hay is required for any livestock.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (ELEVEN) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
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.
Any accepted senior passes must be entered for the discount at the time of booking for single sites only.
Click Here for more information about White River National Forest.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 16 · 1 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 54 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…rings. Guests also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…also have access to vault toilets and drinking water, but electrical hook-ups are not available. There…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Creek
- Backpacking
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Stargazing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 92nd darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:43 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosed
Every one of the 14 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 15 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 16:43 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
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 rates for this season, $22–$23 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.
“Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.” · this campground’s own 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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:43 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
16 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 15 mapped sitesAll 16 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. 15 of the 16 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 001 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 116 ft | 633 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 002 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 19 ft | 535 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 003 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 19 ft | 520 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 004 | standard nonelectric | 24 ft | 37 ft | 439 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 005 | standard nonelectric | 26 ft | 37 ft | 441 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 006 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 84 ft | 328 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 007 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 41 ft | 342 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 008 | standard nonelectric | 34 ft | 41 ft | 328 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 009 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 44 ft | 362 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 010 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 44 ft | 405 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 011 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 58 ft | 462 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 012 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 58 ft | 518 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 013 | tent only nonelectric | 13 ft | 46 ft | 565 ft | $22 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 014 | type not stated | 35 ft | |||
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 015 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 89 ft | 622 ft | $23 |
| SHEPHERDS RIM CAMPGROUND | 016 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 46 ft | 561 ft | $23 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
From Meeker, take Colorado Highway 13 east for 1 mile, then turn right on Rio Blanco County Road 8 and follow this for 39 miles to Trappers Lake Road #205. Turn south on Trappers Lake Road #205, and continue for 10 miles just past the Outlet Trailhead. The Shepherds Rim Campground is on the right.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Carbonate, CO
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
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
Shepherds Rim 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 →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyJeff HurdU.S. Representative · Colorado’s 3rd district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn W. HickenlooperU.S. Senator · Colorado
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMichael F. BennetU.S. Senator · Colorado
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado
Dear Jeff Hurd, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 16 campsites the agency files at Shepherds Rim Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Shepherds Rim Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Shepherds Rim Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Shepherds Rim Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 16 campsites the agency files at Shepherds Rim Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Shepherds Rim Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Shepherds Rim Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Shepherds Rim Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Shepherds Rim Campground, White River National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 16 campsites the agency files at Shepherds Rim Campground, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 14 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Shepherds Rim Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Shepherds Rim Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Shepherds Rim Campground (White River National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com