Springer Gulch
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:24 UTC
- A night
- $24When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 14In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Springer Gulch Campground is located in the Eleven Mile Canyon, a short walk from the South Platte River, offering sweeping mountain views at an altitude of 8,300 feet. Fly fishermen will find an abundance of trout and visitors enjoy exploring area trails. Keep reading
Recreation
Hikers can access the nearby Overlook Trail and take in breathtaking views of Eleven Mile Canyon and Eleven Mile Reservoir. On this hike, lucky visitors may catch a glimpse of golden eagles nesting in the nearby granite cliffs and crags. Trail access is from Spillway Campground.
Facilities
Springer Gulch Campground offers about 14 reservable campsites. Parking aprons are dirt and fit trailers up to 25 feet in length. Campground amenities include picnic tables, campfire rings, vault toilets, and a hand pump for drinking water.
Natural Features
Ponderosa, aspen and fir trees are scattered throughout the campground and become more dense at sites that are further up the gulch. Eleven Mile Canyon was cut by the South Platte River and is bordered by polished gray granite cliffs. The Eleven Mile Reservoir is a short senic drive away. Visitors are likely to see wildlife like elk, mule deer, foxes, and the occasional mountain lions and bears. At dusk, bats may be spotted as well. 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.
Reservations are available up to 5 days prior to arrival date. Sites not reserved 5 days before become ‘walk-up’ and are available on a ‘first come - first serve’ basis.
Two vehicles or one RV per site is included in the camping fee. $11.00 for a third vehicle.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Dogs must be on a leash or tethered at all times. Also, pets must never be left alone while you are sightseeing.
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
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
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 land.
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
Firewood is available for sale at host site for $10.00/bundle.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 14 · 4 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 28 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…include picnic tables, campfire rings, vault toilets, and a hand pump for drinking water. Natural…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER (HAND PUMP) on 13 of 15 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River
- Climbing
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 433rd darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 4
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 12 km away
- Peak color
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:24 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
“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 · 5
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Springer Gulch closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- South Meadows CampgroundPike National Forest · 20 mi
- Thunder RidgePike National Forest · 24 mi · 20 sites
- Lone Rock Campground (CO)Pike National Forest · 25 mi · 19 sites
- Platte RiverPike National Forest · 28 mi · 4 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 16:24 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
15 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 14 mapped sitesAll 15 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 14 of the 15 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| SPRINGER GULCH | 001 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 153 ft | 142 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 002 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 17 ft | 295 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 003 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 17 ft | 312 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 004 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 35 ft | 997 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 005 - Host | host pad | 28 ft | 1,139 ft | ||
| SPRINGER GULCH | 006 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 99 ft | 1,205 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 007 | tent only nonelectric | 18 ft | 53 ft | 1,250 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 008 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 53 ft | 1,249 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 009 | tent only nonelectric | 20 ft | 31 ft | 1,231 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 010 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 31 ft | 1,209 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 011 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 42 ft | 1,167 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 012 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 42 ft | 1,161 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 013 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 23 ft | 1,039 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 014 | standard nonelectric | 28 ft | 23 ft | 1,020 ft | $24 |
| SPRINGER GULCH | 015 | tent only nonelectric | 25 ft | 118 ft | 890 ft | $24 |
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.
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
Riverside (CO)Pike National Forest · 1.4 mi
Cove CampgroundPike National Forest · 2.2 mi
Spillway CampgroundPike National Forest · 2.7 mi
Riverside CampgroundPike National Forest · 3.5 mi
Blue MountainPike National Forest · 4.1 mi
Happy MeadowsPike National Forest · 6.9 miFrom Lake George, turn south off Highway 24 onto County Road 96. Follow County Road 96 turn right to the Eleven Mile Canyon entrance. Springer Gulch Campground is on the right about 6 miles from the 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
Springer Gulch 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 →