Dispersed camping in Colorado
290 known and designated sites on federal land here, 15 of them Forest Service and 275 BLM. That is what the agencies have digitized, and it is not everywhere you may legally camp.
Before you go
the part of this page that matters most- It is legal in most places, and not in every place.
Dispersed camping is camping outside a developed campground, on land the public owns. The BLM allows it on most of its land unless an area is posted closed or carries a specific restriction, and most national forests allow it outside developed sites. One forest order or one field office rule can close a whole drainage for a season, and a posted sign beats anything on this page.
- The Motor Vehicle Use Map decides where you can drive.
A national forest publishes an MVUM saying which roads are open, to which vehicles, in which months, and where you may pull off a road to camp. The corridors here are read from the Forest Service’s own MVUM data and carry the date we read it. Districts reissue these maps, so a corridor drawn from an older reading is a picture of an older rule.
- Fourteen days, then move.
The BLM limits dispersed camping to about 14 days in any 28-day period and asks you to move on afterwards, often 25 to 30 miles; stay limits vary by state and field office, and most forest districts set something similar. Keep vehicles on designated roads and trails, camp in a spot already used within about 150 feet of a route, stay 200 feet from lakes and streams, and pack everything out.
- Call the district office.
Fire restrictions, road washouts and seasonal gates move faster than any dataset, including this one. Every row below that carries the agency’s own page for the place links to it, and that page carries the office and the phone number.
- Public land only.
Everything here is on national forest or BLM ground. Rest areas, truck stops and store parking lots are not public lands, the rules there belong to somebody else, and they are not on this map.
Site records read Aug 26, 2026. 43 CFR 8360 is the BLM’s own regulation.
Where they are in Colorado
290 mappedThe register · 290
grouped by the unit that administers themThis is a register of known and designated sites, not a national inventory. It holds the places two agencies have digitized as points and the road corridors one forest has digitized as lines. Dispersed camping is legal in a great many places that appear nowhere in it, and a place that appears in it can still be closed today.
Hartman Rocks SRMA41 sites
41 sites, and the agency’s record says the same thing about every one of them: primitive site, no fee, not reservable, and one page for the lot. The names are river miles and bank sides, which is how the agency numbers them.
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 1
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 10
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 11
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 12
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 13
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 14
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 15
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 16
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 17
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 18
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 2
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 20
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 21
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 22
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 23
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 24
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 25
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 26
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 27
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 28
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 29
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 3
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 30
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 31
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 32
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 33
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 34
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 35
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 36
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 37
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 38
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 39
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 4
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 40
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 41
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 5
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 6
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 7
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 8
- Hartman Dispersed Campsite 9
Gunnison Gorge NCA35 sites
Upper Colorado River SRMA26 sites
26 sites, and the agency’s record says the same thing about every one of them: primitive site, no fee, not reservable, and one page for the lot. The names are river miles and bank sides, which is how the agency numbers them.
- Beaver Island Campsite
- Benches #1 Campsite
- Benches #2 Campsite
- Benches #3 Campsite
- Blacktail Campsite
- Cabin River Campsite Site
- Cable Campsite
- Cedars Campsite
- Cliffview Campsite
- Cottonwood # 2 Campsite
- Cottonwood #1 Campsite
- Cottonwood #3 Campsite
- Cottonwood Island
- Last Chance Campsite
- Lester's Ledge Campsite
- Lone Tree Campsite
- Many Trees Campsite
- Mary's Wall Campsite
- Piney Campsite
- Ponderosa Campsite
- Pyrite
- Red Rock Campsite
- Scotty's Bench Campsite
- Toadflax Island Campsite
- Ueberfluss Campsite
- Willow Campsite
Medicine Bow-Routt NFs and Thunder Basin NG4 sites
$10 per site. Must pay with exact cash or by check. Credit cards are not accepted. Payment instructions are on kiosk.
Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests Pawnee NG3 sites
White River National Forest3 sites
Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Fore2 sites
Pike-San Isabel National Forests1 site
Rio Grande National Forest1 site
San Juan National Forest1 site
Bureau of Land Management, unit not recorded173 sites
and 113 more in the same record, every one of them on the map above.
Other states
Dispersed camping across the country, the rules, and every state we hold a record for.