Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Austin, CO

This was our first trip with our new trailer, and the first night camping with it. The office was closed, so we went on to our site. Someone was hooking up as we approached, but quickly left when we confirmed we had it reserved.
We were pleasantly surprised to find that the site had water. The site was very clean, shaded and long enough that we could stay hooked up to the trailer.
The restrooms were very clean, as were the playground and dog park. We did hear a lot of road noise while outside, but not in the trailer.
Overall, it’s a great little place that’s well maintained!

This is an occasional quick hit for us, close to where we live. NO OPEN WOOD FIRES due to natural tinder-box ecosystem. Excellent plumbed restrooms. Very quiet, great variety of high desert wildlife, including deer, bighorn sheep, and small critters. This is an easy stop for I-70 travelers, so reservations are advisable. Be aware of gate fees, and steep grades into and out of the CNM. For an extra thrill, leave "the back way" and see the rest of the park. Visitor's Center is excellent. And please watch your kids and pets! Massive drop-offs are literally everywhere.

This campground is on NPS land, so there is a fee ($16 in season+ water/$8 off season no water) that can be paid at the nearby ranger's station on the honor system. All 13 sites are in a single loop at the end of the road on the North Rim and are all first come first served. Pinyon and juniper offer shade and some visual privacy, however sites are all close so there is little audible privacy. Pets are OK if leashed. There are nice sized BearSaver boxes at each site, plus a fire ring and large picnic table. Vault toilets and potable water are both in the center of the camping loop, where you can also find other tables and lots of shade. Chasm trail begins near the end of the loop and there are great views of the canyon a short distance from all sites. Beware: drought year, so lots of yellow jackets - they swarm vehicles in search of water! Also, water is a limited resource brought in by truck to this canyon, don't be wasteful :)

We did a hike in camp site. We crossed the river and hiked up. They have little wheel barrels that you can take your stuff up with. The site was spacious. Plenty big for having some fun. They don't allow anything on the trees, no hammocks, no hanging trash bags, no pets tied to trees, nothing. They do provide a solid bear cabinet to keep food in. The views are astounding! We ended up biking what we thought was a bike trail, turned out it was not so we tackled stairs on our bikes but the views were well worth it. There was a playground and several fishing ponds in addition to the river. There was a bear when we were there. It crossed the river but we didn't see it we were told by the ranger. Definitely use the bear cabinet. Interestingly, the ranger told us (which we weren't very bear savvy) that even the clothes you cook in should go in the bear cabinet. Don't take any of that in to your tent. They can smell it and may greet you during the night. Great place to be.

Campground Review

This campground is tucked back a little ways. We had to go through a cattle gate, it's not always closed but this trip it was. Rule of thumb, leave it how you found it, but there are two campgrounds back there so it's ok to open the gate and go through. The road is narrow and a bit bumpy, at times a higher clearance vehicle is nice but I think I've seen cars back there too. The campground is right on the river, there is a boat ramp, however the water has always been pretty low when we've been to this area. This is our first time in this campground, we've stayed farther down the way before. Once you get there, there are plenty of campsites. We have never seen more then 2 campers there (us and one other this trip) but there are a good 12 or so campsites. Maybe more. They have fire pits, most have grills. Plenty of space. A couple were a little tighter but I've never seen it full so you usually have pick of the sites. They aren't numbered but if you head down the first turn to the right and make the loop, we stayed right after the loop on the other side. It was a huge site, had a small trail that went down to the river where my kids and dogs played. They found frogs and snakes and enjoyed cooling off. While there are poisonous snakes possibly around, this was a small rat snake. Looked to be some good fishing spots, a couple eddies and big rocks that fish could be hanging out behind, but we didn't have poles along.

The mosquitos can be quite bad. During the super heat of the day they were there but not overwhelming, but by the time it started to cool slightly, they came out in full force! In fact, they are the reason for the dropped star and for our early turn in for the night.

There is currently a stage one fire restriction, it still allows campfires in established rings and for the grill usage. Just make sure your fire is fully out before you leave it.

There is plenty of shade to be had and hammock use would be possible. You just have to battle the mosquitos. Which leads in to my product review…

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time - today I am testing Green Goo's Bug Be Gone. I am always skeptical of "natural" bug sprays, very few of them work. I was pleasantly surprised that this stuff worked. My husband had nothing on and I had the green goo on and the mosquitos eventually drove him to spray while they did not land on me. Also, being all natural it is safe for people as well as pets. So we sprayed down both our dogs. Our younger, slightly more apprehensive dog wasn't too sure about the sound or the smell but our older dog didn't have a problem with it. It seemed to keep the bugs at bay for the dogs and they weren't itching as the night went on. Definitely would recommend this product.

I just started my RVing adventure. Completely new to RVing let alone full-time RVing. James Robb is a nice quiet campground. It has two ponds and only a few minutes walk to the Colorado river. The water near by made it wonderful to walk my dogs in 90-100 degree weather. Camp hosts are friendly

Pretty campground with grass at the sites, a river a short walk away (there's a good portion of the campground with riverside sites, but limited for larger rigs). We were up by the highway, so the traffic was loud and the neighbors were fairly close. Not too terrible, and nothing a fan couldn't drown out at night. Could not park our tow vehicle at our site, but got a spot nearby across the road. We had some long term neighbors that let their dogs poop around our hookups, so the day we left was a nightmare. But that's not the campground's fault. They just need to enforce dog cleanup a little more maybe.

Our family camped at Black Canyon last July and LOVED IT. I wish we would have stayed more than just a few days. We had deer around our campsite (we had to have our dog on a leash because at that time of year the deer have babies and get fiesty. The deer at our campsite didn’t mind our dog and just seemed curious.) The views on our hikes were breathtaking and we even saw a little bear! There are hikes for all ages, many as you drive around the top are short walks to the edge to look at the views. I also recommend going to the visitors center while you are there.

Facilities were good. Not many trees. Lots of kids. There is a herd of antelope so dogs must be leashed.

Ccampground is small, but hot spring are awesome. Hotsprings are included in price. Dogs aloud at campground but not in the pool area.

Nice campground with minimal tree cover, clean bathrooms with running water. Dump station and access to the lake by foot or by boat. One electric loop that is generally fairly full, the rest are non-electric and sparsely populated.

We stayed 10 days here, 7 in electric sites, 3 in non-electric sites. The views are incredible. A lot of wind as you're sort of in a valley between mountains and everything pushes through.

The main issue here is this place has a serious rodent issue. There are, with no exaggeration, thousands of chipmunks and field mice in this area moving in and around campsites. Even when completely closed up and self-contained, they tend to crawl into the underbelly of the vehicles/RVs or slip into tents. They'll crawl in and around tents. If you have dogs (and thus dog food), or near by someone who does, that also seems to be an issue.

In 10 days there we had two chipmunks and a mouse get into our RV, and heard several other tent campers and RV campers complain about the same problem. Clearly a lot of these guys are being fed or just picking up scraps as none of them have any fear of dogs or humans.

Would rate this campground higher if not for the serious rodent problem. 5/5 for access, scenery, power accessibility, clean bathrooms. 1/5 for serious rodent issue.

I love this campground. It is close enough to Crested Butte to head in for dinner or supplies, but far enough away not to feel like you’re in town. When we were there (July) the lake was crowded and the campground was full. I don’t know that I have seen that many SUP boarders in one place outside of Austin. I did see a few folks fishing but I can’t imagine they had much luck considering the amount of recreational activities happening. While the lake was full, the hiking trails were empty. The trail off the lower parking lot follows the creek down the mountain and had several nice waterfalls. I had spotty service at this site but it seemed like other campers had better luck. The sites were very nice. They are big, with lots of trees and space between sites.