Camping near Rio Grande National Forest, CO

Great location between Durango and Santa Fe, just south of Pagosa Springs. Forest Service road, well maintained. I stopped at about 8300 feet. Great site nestled in pine grove with gambrel oak. Several of the sites are pull through so easy to come in with a trailer. Nice view of snow capped mountains to the west. There is no one here. Road continues up to Navajo Peak. There is sign of cat activity, relatively recent scat and elk femur.

We stayed here for a chilly winter night and had a lovely time. The campground is clean, quiet, and well taken care of. Close to the river, reservoir, and great adventure access.

And signage says you can camp here so long as you’re “self contained”. I take this to mean, in your vehicle or a rooftop tent. No fire pits or anything like that, but there are pit toilets!

We spent a few nights here and will gladly go back!!! We were able to set up by a stream with a nice fire ring. There are NO facilities so be prepared. Clean up your trash and please don’t take glass bottles. There is also reservoir where several guys were ice fishing. They were at the day camping area where there were toilets. There are paid camping areas but they were all closed while we were there.

We arrived in the dark and left in the dark in late December 2024.  The pull-off was flat and about 150ft from highway 160.  There was a gate near our spot that was closed, presumably for the winter.  Although we could hear road traffic it didn't keep us awake. There was about 4" of snow on the road.

Had no issues, pretty close to town, highly recommend. T-mobile works from here

There were about 4 spots clustered together right after the second bridge (a little over 2 miles from the main road). i took the right fork after that towards the rainbow springs trailhead and didn’t find anything else, but there might be more spots if you take the left fork after the second bridge instead. at the end of october the paid campground you pass by is closed for the season, no water and vault toilets are locked

area is pretty rocky so i would be careful with a ground tent. We stayed in our van and it was great.

Parked on edge of flat in trees close to creek. Nice ambient noise. Fire rings, metal and stone. Plenty of room. Two vault toilets were clean plenty if TP. Lots of trails, bridge over creek, lakes are near by foot.

Easy drive up 160 from Pagosa. Pitched the tent in the afternoon and headed to town for a soak.

Room for a couple cars and several tents. Not PERFECTLY flat for the tent-folk.

View is killer - we hit it at about peak color.

Stop here just for and sleep stop overnight. Road is well maintained. Several places to pull off the side of the road or actual sites too. We have a 35' 5th wheel and had no problems menivering the area. Nice lake with a parking lot at the end the turn around at if you wish to take the road all the way to the end.

Unfortunately the gates go this campground were locked!

snow on ground 9/22/2024 no cell  wet roads

We had site 22 which is away from the stream. Quite steep front to back. Level side to side. We were at our limit of ability to level the TT. Almost every site is big and well spaced. The whole area is treed with TALL lodgepoll pines with a few TALL ponderosa pines as well. Absolutely stunning. If you need solar, this is not the place. Otherwise it’s lovely.

No water sources within walking distance. The lake is aways away. It's a pull off on the dirt road that's big enough to fit a small camper on the side of a cliff with high exposure. No cover for thunderstorms.

I stayed here for one night and was pleasantly surprised. It’s surrounded by tall Lodgepole pines that offer awesome shade and privacy from neighbors. Bathrooms were clean. Camp hosts were friendly. It sounds like there is a lot of bear activity so tent camping could be a concern. There were mostly RVs.

Down a dirt road, you get to where you make a turn, and immediately you’ll start seeing unimproved site. The better sites appear to be closest to that turn, but if you keep driving you’ll find plenty of sites not within earshot of anyone else.

One think I noticed with ATT service you’ll get 2, sometimes 3 bars by my location (below). As I drove the road I was seeing mostly 1-2 bars.

Bring your own everything and enjoy the peaceful and quiet!

Grate spot on the river No cell service Someone has left trash

Nice quiet area outside of Pagosa Springs. Lots of flat spaces, road is bumpy with some potholes, but not bad at all for BLM. 1-2 bars of Verizon LTE depending on where you are. We parked fairly fair up the road, no traffic.