Ute Campground (CO)
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:43 UTC
- A night
- $22When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 21In the agency’s record
- Season
- May 1 – September 30Open May 1 through September 30
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 10 notices
In the agency’s own words
Ute Campground is located on US Hwy 160 across from Chimney Rock National Monument, 15 miles west of Pagosa Springs, 25 miles east of Bayfield, and 18 miles north of Arbolles, just west of the intersection with Colorado 151. Visitors enjoy quick access to Chimney Rock National Monument entrance and a centralized location to USFS trail systems, lake, and stream fishing. Keep reading
Recreation
Ute Campground is the only access to Forest Service land on Haystack Mountain. Hiking views of Chimney Rock National Monument.
Facilities
The campground is shaded with Ponderosa Pines and offers easy access to Highway 160. Sites are spaciously placed and all feature natural areas adjacent to the campsites. 21 sites offer improved primitive camping with picnic tables, fire rings, and some with additional grills. There is a Group Area with a maximum for 32 people featuring a group picnic area and 2 fire rings. There is one potable water station under pressure and two pairs of vault toilets. Maximum stay is 28 days at first come-first serve sites. 12 days maximum stay on reservation sites. Pets allowed, leashing required. No horses or pack animals allowed in the park.
Natural Features
Ute campground, named for and sharing land with the Southern Ute Nation is located along reservation borders situated at the base of Haystack Mountain facing Chimney Rock National Monument. The terrain is a hilly forest enviroment of Ponderosa pines, Gamble Oak, Rocky Mountain Juniper, Fragrant Sumac and meadows.
Nearby Attractions
The entrance to Chimney Rock National Monument is only 4 miles away on Colorado 151. It is centrally located between Turkey Springs Trail System and the Devil Mountain - Mule Mountain - Horse Mountain Trail Systems, featuring trails specific to ATV, motorcycle, mountain bike, hiking, horseback riding, along with stream fishing and a natural hot spring on the Piedra River. The Southern Ute Reservation allows access to fishing on tribal land at Lake Capote and the Piedra River with fee permits. 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. Group Sites Group Facility (including Cabins and Lookouts): A visitor who cancels a group overnight facility reservation less than 14 days before the arrival date will pay a $10.00 service fee AND forfeit the first night's use 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
All sites are overnight use. Check in 2:00pm. Check out 12:00 pm (noon)
There are no handicap accessible sites.
Pets are allowed at all sites, leashes are required. Horses and pack animals are NOT permitted.
Everything else this campground posts · 7
All sites have drive up accessibility with no hike-in. All feature fire rings and allow camp fires.
All parking spurs are gravel and are large enough to accommodate an extended cab pickup truck size (approximately 20 feet in length) and wide enough for dual rear wheels. All cargo/utility trailers must fit within the campsite parking area. ATV's and boats on trailers may NOT be off-loaded within the campground. No additional parking is provided within the facility.
NO sites have designated tent pads.
None are located near a body of water.
None feature cabins, beds, showers or boating facilities.
NO dump station.
First Come First Served (FCFS) Campsites are also available at this campground
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…station under pressure and two pairs of vault toilets. Maximum stay is 28 days at first come-first serve…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 21 of 22 campsite records
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Hot springs, Lake, River, Creek, Meadow
- Night sky · 169th darkest of 522 in CO
- Bortle 2
- Fall color · reported 9 days ago, 34 km away
- Patchy color
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:43 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 · 12
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 Ute Campground (CO) 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 · 1
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Rio Grande CampgroundRio Grande National Forest · 40 mi · walk-up
recreation.gov availability, read 16:43 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 21 mapped sitesAll 22 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. 21 of the 22 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.
| East Spur | 01 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 192 ft | 2,748 ft | $22 | |
| East Spur | 02 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 97 ft | 2,613 ft | $22 | |
| East Spur | 03 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 97 ft | 2,587 ft | $22 | |
| East Spur | 04 | standard nonelectric | 30 ft | 108 ft | 2,505 ft | $22 | |
| Lower North: Loop 1 | 07-Group | group standard nonelectric | 96 ft | 2,051 ft | $100 | ||
| Main Loop | 05 | standard nonelectric | 228 ft | 2,452 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 06 - Host | host pad | 50 amp | 2,239 ft | |||
| Main: Loop 1 | 08 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 1,987 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 09 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 1,894 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 10 | standard nonelectric | 145 ft | 1,774 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 11 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 1,942 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 12 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 1,941 ft | $22 | ||
| Main: Loop 1 | 13 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 120 ft | 1,980 ft | $22 | |
| Main: Loop 1 | 17 | standard nonelectric | 104 ft | 1,826 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper | 14 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 2,090 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper | 15 | standard nonelectric | 70 ft | 2,034 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper | 20 | standard nonelectric | 96 ft | 1,613 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper: Loop 1 | 16 | standard nonelectric | 104 ft | 1,757 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper: Loop 1 | 18 | standard nonelectric | 127 ft | 1,804 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper: Loop 1 | 19 | standard nonelectric | 152 ft | 1,648 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper: Loop 1 | 21 | standard nonelectric | 96 ft | 1,704 ft | $22 | ||
| Upper: Loop 1 | 22 | standard nonelectric | 106 ft | 1,780 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 · the phone number
Where it is
Lower PiedraSan Juan National Forest · 4.3 mi
BridgeSan Juan National Forest · 18 mi
Graham Creek CampgroundSan Juan National Forest · 19 mi
North Canyon CampgroundSan Juan National Forest · 19 mi
Pine Point (Vallecito Reservoir, CO)San Juan National Forest · 19 mi
Pine Point CampgroundSan Juan National Forest · 19 miDirections from Pagosa Springs, CO: Travel west on U.S. Hwy 160 for 18.0 miles and campground is on north side of the highway.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Pagosa Springs, CO
Typical weather
Typical May night 36°F, day 71°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical May night 36°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
Ute Campground (CO) 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 →