Spillway Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $22From, per site
- Sites
- 22All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Spillway Campground is perched along the South Platte River near the base of the dam of Eleven Mile Reservoir. Adventurists and families alike will find things to do here. Birding is excellent, as is hiking. Rock climbers enjoy the solid rocky cliffs of the canyon and fly fishermen find abundant catches in the river. Keep reading
Recreation
Hike the Overlook Trail for breathtaking views of Eleven Mile Canyon and Reservoir. Occasionally, Golden Eagles can be viewed nesting in the nearby granite cliffs and crags. Springtime brings higher chances of spotting Bald Eagles. Visitors enjoy fishing by shore or canoe. Rainbow and brown trout, kokanee salmon and pike are among the species anglers are likely to find.
Facilities
Spillway Campground offers about 23 reservable campsites. Parking aprons are gravel and can fit a maximum trailer length of 25 feet. Amenities include vault toilets, picnic tables, hand pump for drinking water, and campfire rings.
Natural Features
The campground, at altitude 8,500 feet, is located at the edge of Eleven Mile Canyon, furthest from the canyon entrance. Some campsites are shaded by scattered spruce and ponderosa pine. Spillway is the closest campground to the Eleven Mile Reservoir, which spans 3,405 surface acres and 5 miles in length. Eleven Mile Canyon was cut by the South Platte River and is bordered by polished gray granite cliffs. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (661) 702-1420.
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.
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 at this location. The fee for the 2026 Calendar Year Pass is $100.00.
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. Also, pets must never be left alone while you are sightseeing.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
This is a high elevation facility, please use caution when traveling from lower elevations
For more information on Pike and San Isabel National Forests, click here
ATV's and off road vehicles are prohibited in the campground and Eleven Mile Canyon
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.
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
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $11.00 for a third vehicle.
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22 · 13 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 19 of 20 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 22 of 23 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…include vault toilets, picnic tables, hand pump for drinking water, and campfire rings. Natural…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Climbing
- Night sky · 414th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 16 km away
- Peak color
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.
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, $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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
23 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sites2 sites share one published coordinate and are left out of the rankings.
All 23 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 23 of the 23 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 22 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.
| SPILLWAY | 001 - Host | host pad | 40 ft | 216 ft | 48 ft | ||
| SPILLWAY | 002 | tent only nonelectric | 87 ft | 220 ft | 53 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 003 | tent only nonelectric | 17 ft | 203 ft | 132 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 004 | tent only nonelectric | 12 ft | 208 ft | 149 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 005 | tent only nonelectric | 8 ft | 205 ft | 159 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 006 | tent only nonelectric | 8 ft | 204 ft | 167 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 007 | standard nonelectric | 32 ft | 52 ft | 181 ft | 211 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 008 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 122 ft | 206 ft | 58 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 009 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 280 ft | 193 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 278 ft | 191 ft | $22 | |
| SPILLWAY | 011 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 16 ft | 240 ft | 219 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 012 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 16 ft | 226 ft | 217 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 013 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 20 ft | 206 ft | 210 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 014 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 122 ft | 138 ft | 87 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 016 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 35 ft | 139 ft | 219 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 017 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 35 ft | 133 ft | 250 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 018 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 73 ft | 102 ft | 335 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 019 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 38 ft | 101 ft | 264 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 020 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 38 ft | 92 ft | 230 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 021 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 24 ft | 103 ft | 160 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 022 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 24 ft | 94 ft | 144 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 023 | standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 11 ft | 137 ft | 42 ft | $22 |
| SPILLWAY | 024 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 11 ft | 126 ft | 52 ft | $22 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It names it a host pad. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Cove CampgroundPike National Forest · 0.5 mi
Springer GulchPike National Forest · 2.7 mi
Riverside (CO)Pike National Forest · 2.9 mi
Riverside CampgroundPike National Forest · 6.2 mi
Blue MountainPike National Forest · 6.9 mi
Pulver Mountain Group SitePike National Forest · 8.3 miFrom Lake George, Colorado, turn off of Highway 24 onto County Road 96. Follow the road for about one mile turn right to the Eleven Mile Canyon entrance. Spillway Campground is the last campground which is about 9 miles up Eleven Mile Canyon near the dam.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Guffey, 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
Spillway 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 →