Scab Creek Small Vehicle Campground

Has all the things that work for me. High elevation (8150ft) to escape the heat and access to hiking trails into the high country NF above. This is a BLM campground with 14 sites all FF, all are FREE and have a 14d limit. No camp host present. No trash dumpsters but there is a vault toilet and a hand pump well water pump. Each site has a table and fire ring. Cell reception is 1-2 bars LTE for TMobile, ATT and Verizon. Campground on my visit was completely empty, week before 4 of July. This campground is noted as the "small vehicles campground" on the BLM map boards, but the sites here are large enough for most small to mid TTs and RVs. No livestock trailers are allowed...they are to use the "livestock large vehicle campground" over by the livestock staging area. Vegetation at this campground is aspen/lodgepole with some larger Douglas firs here and there. Access from the hwy out of Boulder includes 8.5 mi of graded gravel in excellent condition.

We visited Scab Creek Campground during the 2017 Eclipse. This area offers an abundance of hiking trails, backcountry lakes, and granite rock climbing. We hiked into the Scab Creek Buttress and did some trad climbing. Oh, yeah, and the Eclipse was amazing!

This is a FREE campground! There are about 10 sites that are well spaced. There is one group campsite. We chose site 4 for our visit and I think it is the only site without a nice elevated fire pit with grill. Boo. It did have a rock fire ring that needed some TLC before it was usable. (I did take photos of the fire pit/grills from the other sites) Each site had a nice sturdy picnic table, some heavy wooden and some were nicer cement. There is a pump for potable water. It looks like a fire has gone through the campground several years ago, a lot of new growth, but not a lot of big trees at the far end of the campground. There is a separate horse area with paddocks for your animals about 1/2 mile from the campground. I believe you can camp there as well. There is a large parking area at the trail head.

Solitude camping is great here. Big RVs can not get up here and sites are a decent distance apart. Love being able to hang the hammock and relax. The only reason not a 5 star review is because the trail was in rough shape. Everyone is very polite and beautiful place. Will definitely be back.