North Cottonwood Trailhead Dispersed Camping

Used the reviews from this site to select this area for camping. Arrived later the day on a holiday weekend, fingers crossed a spot would be open. Last spot on the road in near the trailhead was still pretty wide open and a few cars lingered. By morning woke up to our campsite in a parking lot! This trailhead is the start to mt. Harvard 14er! Moved spots to an open spot back towards the beginning of the road in, was a great choice, quiet, remote, on the river. Don’t make the mistake we made, camp in a spot much nearer the start of the road into this area!

Found a good spot easily enough. Some people throughout day hiking the trails. Night was was super quiet. It is bear country and had a visit from a momma and baby bear the first night of our stay so be prepared for visits. Dispersed camping was great. Sites weren’t close to one another. Area was beautiful with streams everywhere. Camped in middle of July and on the weekend and still not too busy. Great place.

There a lot of really good options you can just park your car at. You can also get pretty far up the trail in a standard car. I drove a Subaru Impreza (very slow) and it did great.

There is a nice creek that feeds into the lake at the bottom. There are a lot of sites going along this.

Like other places. You might hear a lot quads/atvs in the morning and pretty much all day long.

To get to the summit you definitely need a 4 wheeler. There were spots that gave our 4Runner some issues. Mostly lifted jeeps or beaters up there.