Stone Cellar Guard Station
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 25 of the next 30 nights; a database flag says not open read 16:10 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 15 notices
In the agency’s own words
Stone Cellar Guard Station is a remote cabin located at an elevation of 9,500 feet, just outside the boundary of La Garita Wilderness in Saguache Park in the Rio Grande National Forest. The cabin is a secluded getaway for guests seeking relaxation and recreation in south-central Colorado. Keep reading
Recreation
The area offers many opportunities for hiking in summer, hunting in the fall and cross country skiing and snowmobiling in the winter. The cabin is located in a meadow with Saguache Creek flowing through it, affording visitors excellent fishing for rainbow, cutthroat, brown and brook trout right out the back door. The cabin is adjacent to a working cow camp, where guests can witness real cowboys at work during the summer months. In the fall, this cabin makes an excellent big game hunting camp.
Facilities
Stone Cellar Guard Station is a log structure furnished with four bunk beds, with twin beds on the top and fold-out full beds on the bottom, accommodating up to 12 people. The cabin has stove, refrigerator and heater, all powered with propane. The living area has a table and chairs, couch and other furniture. The kitchen is equipped with some cooking utensils and some pots and pans. A picnic table, a fire pit and a outdoor vault toilet are also on-site. There is no electricity at the guard station, however water is available by an outside hand pump. Water is also available at the Saguache Ranger District Office during business hours from May through November. Although the cabin has some amenities, guests do need to provide their own food, sleeping bags, linens, towels, dish soap, matches, cooking gear, first aid kit, toilet paper and garbage bags.It is recommended that guests bring an additional light source in case of emergencies. Stone Cellar Campground is located approximately about a half-mile from the guard station.
Natural Features
Situated in an expansive inter-mountain grassland and located close to the Continental Divide, this cabin offers guests seeking solitude and seclusion an opportunity to experience wilderness at its best. About 35 miles of the Continental Divide lie well above timberline in the La Garita Wilderness, adjacent to the guard station. This area provides ideal habitats for large herds of elk and mule deer, and on the southern slopes lies an ancient forest of towering spruce and fir. It is a landscape of rushing streams, broad and gentle alpine meadows, beaver ponds, long talus slopes and mountain beauty.
Nearby Attractions
Visitors may want to take a day to visit Bonanza, a historical silver mining town that was booming in the 1880s. Today visitors to Bonanza can see old mines, historical buildings and old time mining equipment as they follow the Bonanza Mines Off-Highway Vehicle Tour. Maps for the tour are available at the Saguache Ranger Station.
What the agency tells you
Please contact the Saguache Ranger District prior to arriving at the cabin to check on any restrictions or conditions, such as fire or road closures, weather or storms that may affect the quality of your visit.
There is a stream crossing before getting to the guard station; recommended vehicles with AWD/4x4 and medium clearance.
The maximum stay limit on the forest is 14 days. You may be visited by a Forest Employee during your stay, for routine cabin safety check and maintenance/cleaning. If you wish to not be disturbed, a door tab will be available to use.
Everything else this campground posts · 12
All appliances run on propane. Please ensure that at least two windows are cracked open AT ALL TIMES during your stay and on departure, to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.
For safety and resource protection, do not discharge firearms and skeet shooting is prohibited within 150 yards of the cabin area boundary. Please pick up any discarded shells, casings, and targets.
Entry to the cabin is by combination lock, which will be provided in the confirmation letter or email which is sent after a reservation is made. The keypad on the door may have multiple numbers per button. The button only needs to be pressed once regardless of the assigned number, before entering the next code number.
Water is available at the guard station by outside hand pump. Water is available at the Saguache Ranger District office during business hours from Memorial Day weekend to November.
There is no electricity at the Guard Station, and there is no cell phone service available at this facility. The guard station is a non-smoking facility.
Pets are allowed at the facility, but must be under control at all times; they must not harass wildlife or livestock. Pets are not allowed to be on the furniture, including beds, couches, and chairs. Pet hair is difficult to remove and can cause allergic reactions. Be considerate of others.
Livestock are prohibited: including horses, mules, llamas, and alpacas.
All cabins are administratively used on occasion. You may encounter agency stock horses during your stay. Do not feed, pet, or try to ride the animals.
Do not leave food or trash outside the guard station; there is wildlife in the area.
Please clean the guard station before leaving and ensure the gate is locked upon departure. All garbage and food must be packed out; do not burn garbage in the fire pit or wood stove.
Drink plenty of water before arrival and during your stay to avoid altitude sickness.
During the late autumn months, you may need to snowmobile, snowshoe or ski to access the cabin.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- 1
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Little
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…A picnic table, a fire pit and a outdoor vault toilet are also on-site. There is no electricity at the…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…at the guard station, however water is available by an outside hand pump. Water is also available at…”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek, Meadow
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Hunting
- Ranger programs
- Wildlife viewing
- Winter sports
- Fall color · reported 12 days ago, 33 km away
- Peak color
Full this Saturdayread 16:10 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedClosedNot on the booking system
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 · 12
What you actually pay
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
recreation.gov availability, read 16:10 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| STONE CELLAR GUARD STATION | CABIN | cabin nonelectric | yes | 83 ft | $50 |
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
Carnero Guard StationRio Grande National Forest · 14 miCathedral CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 14 mi
Storm King CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 14 miBuffalo Pass CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 15 miHansen Mill Dispersed CampingRio Grande National Forest · 15 mi
Upper Crossing Guard StationSan Luis Valley Field Office · 15 miFrom Saguache, take Colorado Hwy 114, 34 miles northwest from Saguache, over North Pass. Take FR#804 south 4 miles to junction, east 1 mile to FR #787, then 21 miles south to the cabin, located past the Stone Cellar Campground. Note, there is a stream crossing before arriving to the cabin gate.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for City of Creede, CO
Typical weather
Typical October night 26°F, day 61°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 6°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 · 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
Stone Cellar Guard Station 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear Jeff Hurd, I’m a constituent in Colorado’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Stone Cellar Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Stone Cellar Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Stone Cellar Guard Station. 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station (Rio Grande 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear John W. Hickenlooper, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Stone Cellar Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Stone Cellar Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Stone Cellar Guard Station. 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station (Rio Grande 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado
Dear Michael F. Bennet, I’m a constituent in Colorado. I tried to camp at Stone Cellar Guard Station, Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Stone Cellar Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Stone Cellar Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Stone Cellar Guard Station. 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 Stone Cellar Guard Station (Rio Grande National Forest, Colorado) via campanac.com