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Campgrounds on the Upper Poudre Where you don’t need a Reservation

No Reservation? Six Upper Poudre Campgrounds Where You Can Still Just Show Up

Here is the thing nobody tells you about camping up the Cache la Poudre on a summer weekend: the campground everybody has heard of is the one you cannot get into. Chambers Lake takes reservations, and by Friday afternoon it is gone.

The six campgrounds on this list do not take reservations at all. Every one of them is first-come, first-served. You drive up, you find an empty site, you put your money in the envelope on the post. That is the entire system.

Which means there is no booking window to miss and nothing to plan six months out. It also means the Upper Poudre Canyon still rewards the oldest trick there is — getting in the car early and driving.

They run from mile 39 up to the top of the canyon, climbing from 7,700 feet to over 10,000. They get smaller and more stripped-down the higher you go. And the single thing that decides where you can actually land is the length of what you are towing.

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Will my Gear Fit?

Pick your campground by the size of your rig

This is the practical filter, and it is the one the official pages bury. Sites up here were cut decades ago for cars and canvas, not for fifth wheels. Work down this list until you hit your length.

If you are pulling anything substantial, Tunnel is your campground and the rest of this list is scenery. If you are in a tent, the whole canyon is open to you.

  • Walk-in tents only, and a long carry — Grandview (10,220 ft, 12 miles up Long Draw Road)
  • Tents and one short spur — Big South (8,440 ft, one RV site and three tent sites)
  • Up to about 30 feet — Sleeping Elephant; we personally think 30 is tight.
  • About 30 feet — Aspen Glen
  • 35 to 45 feet — Big Bend
  • 25 to 70 feet — Tunnel (the only one up here built for a big rig)

You can still have a fire up here. Just not a wood one.

Stage 2 fire restrictions are in effect across the Canyon Lakes Ranger District through December 31, 2026. No wood fires, no charcoal — including in the permanent metal fire rings at every campground on this list. That is the rule people break by accident, because the ring is sitting right there at the site looking like an invitation.

What the order does still allow is a device fueled by bottled gas or liquid fuel with a valve you can shut off, set in an area cleared of anything flammable for three feet around it.

A propane fire pit qualifies. So does the marshmallow roast.

That is exactly why we started carrying LavaBox portable campfires. It is a legal fire under Stage 2, it lights in a second, it shuts off the moment you close the valve, and it leaves the site the way you found it. If you are heading up the canyon this summer and you want your kids around a fire, that is how you do it without risking a citation — or a canyon.

Restrictions change. Check what is in effect before you drive.

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The six campgrounds, East to West from Kinikinnick to Long Draw Reservoir

01

Big Bend Campground — mile 39, 7,700 feet

The first one you reach and, on a Friday evening with no plan, the second place we would send you.

Eight sites, three of them walk-in tent sites, right up against the Cache la Poudre. Potable water, vault toilets, and a bear locker at every site — which not every campground on this list can say. Spurs run 35 to 45 feet, so this is the first place a real trailer fits.

It is also the upstream end of the river’s Wild Trout stretch. From Big Bend downstream, it is artificial flies and lures only and everything goes back in the water. Check the current CPW brochure before you fish it, because those boundaries get adjusted.
$23 a night, first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

02

Sleeping Elephant Campground — mile 43, 7,800 feet

Fifteen sites in open ponderosa and aspen, named for the 9,145-foot mountain across the highway that genuinely does look like a sleeping elephant once somebody points it out.
One thing to know before you commit: you cannot get to the river here. The Poudre runs on the far side of the highway and it is largely private ground. If your plan is to fall asleep to moving water, this is not the one — go up to Aspen Glen.
What it does have is real shade, which is not nothing up here. The slopes above camp still show the Cameron Peak burn — standing dead, bare rock — but down in the campground the aspens came through and the sites are dappled and green. Site 9 sits back under the aspens with a big gravel pad and room to spread out.
Spurs run 15 to 30 feet. The Forest Service is blunt that this is an older facility and will not accommodate larger RVs. Potable water by hand pump when it is working, vault toilets, and bear country signage on the board at the entrance.
$23 a night, first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

Rapids on the Poudre River at the Big South Trail on Hwy 14 west of Rustic, Colorado

03

Big South Campground — mile 47, 8,440 feet

The smallest and the most stripped-down, and the one people fall in love with.
Four sites total: one that takes a short RV and three tent sites. The carry from the parking to the tent sites is short — call it ten to twenty feet, not a backpacking trip. There is no water here at all, so bring every drop you intend to use. Vault toilet, and that is the amenity list.
Two of the four sites look directly over the water. The best of them sits on a bluff above the rapids, and it is genuinely gorgeous. We could not photograph it — somebody was camped there, and you do not stick a camera into a stranger’s weekend.
The ridge behind camp is solid standing dead from the Cameron Peak Fire, and the regrowth coming up underneath it is thick, green and waist-high. It is one of the clearest places in the canyon to see both halves of that story at once.
You are also parked at the Big South Trailhead. The trail runs 10.4 miles one way, enters the Comanche Peak Wilderness a half mile in, and follows the river most of the way. It crosses the Poudre, and that crossing ranges from easy to genuinely dangerous depending on runoff and what Long Draw Reservoir is releasing. There is still fire-killed timber down across sections of it. Inside the wilderness it is stoves only — no campfires at all, Stage 2 or not.
$23 a night, first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

04

Aspen Glen Campground — mile 49, 8,660 feet

If you pull up the canyon on a Friday with nothing booked, this is where we would send you first.
Nine sites tucked into aspen, conifer and open meadow on the north side of the highway, and the reason to come is Joe Wright Creek. It runs fast and loud over boulders a few steps away, through white aspen trunks and dense willow with fireweed blooming pink along the bank in late summer.
From most of the sites you can see the water, not just hear it. And you do hear it — all night. The sites themselves are shady and genuinely private, screened from each other rather than lined up in a row, which is rarer up here than it should be.
This is our favourite campground in the Upper Poudre. If we had one night and no reservation, this is where we would go.
If you are bringing kids, this is the one. The campground has open meadow around the sites, so there is somewhere to actually turn them loose — and the whole time they are out there, you are still hearing the creek from your chair. Joe Wright is a smaller, quieter proposition than the main Poudre – cold snowmelt running loud over boulders, close enough to hear from your chair without being a river you spend the weekend worrying about. Add potable water on site and only nine sites to keep track of, and it is the easiest night up here with a family.
Potable water, vault toilets, and a tent pad, fire grate and picnic table at every site. Spurs to about 30 feet. Typically open May 22 through September 27, and the fee drops 25% once the water is shut off for the season.
The Blue Lake Trailhead is right here, though be realistic about what you are walking into — the Forest Service notes the trail burned heavily in 2020.
$23 a night, first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

Two moose browsing in willows below a burn-scarred hillside in Northwest Larimer County, Colorado

05

Tunnel Campground — 7 miles up Laramie River Road

The insurance policy. When the canyon is full on a holiday weekend and everything below is taken, this is the one that still has a site.
Forty-nine of them, at 8,600 feet in lodgepole, with a bear locker at every single site, potable water and vault toilets. Spurs run 25 to 70 feet, which makes it the only campground in this part of the country that comfortably takes a big rig.
Getting there: Highway 14 to about mile 50, then north on County Road 103, and the entrance is roughly seven miles up on the west side. Note that this puts you past Chambers Lake and off the main canyon — it is the one on this list that is not on Highway 14.
Laramie River Road is worth the drive on its own. It is an official Colorado Birding Trail site and it is serious moose country — we have seen them from the road. It is also a seasonal road, with access generally running July 1 through November 30, so it is not a winter option. Confirm the gate with Larimer County Road & Bridge before you count on it in the shoulder seasons.
$28 a night — the only one up here that is not $23 — first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

06

Grandview Campground — 12 miles up Long Draw Road

The outlier, and the one that asks the most of you.
Grandview sits at 10,220 feet, which makes it the highest campground on this list by more than 1,500 feet, in high subalpine lodgepole with meadow and singletrack running out from it. It feels nothing like the canyon-floor campgrounds — thinner air, different trees, colder nights, bigger silence.
It is also strictly walk-in. No RVs, no exceptions, and no pulling up to your site — the carry from the parking runs anywhere from 200 to 600 feet depending on which one you get. That is a real haul with a cooler at 10,220 feet, and it is the single thing to know before you commit. Pack like you are backpacking a short distance, not like you are car camping.
Getting to it means turning south off Highway 14 at about mile 51 onto Long Draw Road and driving twelve miles of rough dirt. Budget forty-five minutes from the highway, and go in with a vehicle you trust and a full tank. This is a commitment, not a detour.
And now the reason to do it anyway.
If it is just the two of you — no kids, no schedule, nobody who needs a bathroom at two in the morning — Grandview is the best night on this list and it is not close. At 10,220 feet you are above most of what blocks the sky. The sunsets go long and stay lit, the sunrises come up over open subalpine country with nothing in the way, and the quiet at that elevation is a different kind of quiet. The carry that makes it hard for a family is exactly what keeps it empty for a couple.
Pack light, go up on a Friday, and give yourselves the whole weekend.
Nine sites, potable water, vault toilets. $25 a night, first-come, first-served (2026 rates).

What to know before you drive up

Whitewater cascading over Poudre Falls through a rocky, pine-lined gorge on the Cache la Poudre River

What to know before you drive up

There is no cell service at any campground on this list. None of them. Download your maps, tell someone your plan, and expect to be genuinely out of contact until you come back down the canyon. For a lot of people that is the actual reason to go.

A few more things worth knowing:

  • Bring water for Big South. There is none there.
  • Bear lockers exist at Big Bend, Sleeping Elephant and Tunnel. Do not assume one at the others — store food in your vehicle.
  • Fees run $23 at most of these, $25 at Grandview, $28 at Tunnel. Bring cash for the envelope.
  • Season is roughly late May through late September, though only Aspen Glen publishes firm dates (May 22 to September 27). Snow decides the rest.
  • Arrive early on Friday. First-come means exactly what it says, and the good sites go first.
  • Sites are 8 people maximum, tents must fit the pads, and dogs stay on a hand-held leash.
  • Stage 2 fire restrictions are in effect. Bring a propane fire pit or plan on a cold camp.

Frequently asked questions

The Upper Poudre is one of the last stretches of Colorado where showing up still works. No app, no booking fee, no calendar alarm set for six months out. Just a canyon, a truck, and whatever sites are open when you get there.

Go early, take water, leave the wood at home, and let us know which one you got.

Upper Poudre No-Reservations Gallery

The Upper Poudre is one of the last stretches of Colorado where just showing up still works. No app, no booking fee, no calendar alarm set for six months out. Just a canyon, a truck, and whatever sites are open when you get there.
Go early, take water, leave the wood at home, and let us know which one you got.

Whitewater cascading through the rocks of the Cache la Poudre River along the scenic byway
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Pink and purple asters blooming at the base of aspen trees in a forest in Northwest Larimer County, Colorado
Asters scattered through the aspens.
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Shaded Campsite with metal fire ring at Sleeping Elephant
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Poudre Falls tumbling through a granite gorge under towering clouds along Highway 14 in the Upper Poudre Canyon
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Faye & Chris
Author: Faye & Chris

We're Faye and Chris, and we live up here in the Rocky Mountains of Larimer County. Everything on this site comes from actually being out in it — Chris is the driver, and Faye is the writer/photographer. Between us we built the Larimer Wilds apps so other people can find this wild mountain country too. We're not a tourism board and nobody pays us to say any of this. We're two people who love, hike, bike and ride Northwest Larimer County and would rather help you do it right than watch you learn it the hard way.

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