Found · unverifiedWyoming Game & Fish CommissionFree
Cow Creek Mountain PAA — Cow Creek Mountain Trail head
Drive-up · Wyoming Game & Fish · WY · 42.21980, -105.59214
We haven't personally camped here. Everything below is pulled from public land data, USGS maps and OpenStreetMap — a real place on Wyoming Game & Fish land, but not field-checked by us. Confirm road conditions, current access, stay limits and fire restrictions before you go.
FIRE BAN: WGFD flags this area as 'Fire Ban is in Effect for this Area' -- check before you plan on any open flame. ACCESS DATES: Open year round Confirm with Game and Fish before you go -- these areas commonly close seasonally for wintering wildlife. This is a designated campground on the Cow Creek Mountain Public Access Area in Albany County, land acquired or administered by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission. The area runs about 1 acres. Note what a Public Access Area is: Game and Fish describes PAAs as "permanent or long-term easements, or Wyoming Game and Fish Commission-owned land managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for allowing public access for recreational purposes." So the ground under you may belong to a private landowner or to another agency -- several PAAs sit on federal land -- while Game and Fish holds the public-access right and its rules are the ones that govern your stay. Do not be surprised by another owner's signage, and respect any posted boundary. Camping here is genuinely free and first come, first served -- and unlike neighbouring states, Wyoming does NOT make you buy a license or a habitat/entrance pass simply to be on the land or to camp. (If you intend to hunt or fish while you are there, that is a different matter: you need the appropriate Wyoming license and a conservation stamp for that activity.) The rules that bind: you may only camp in the designated spots, no more than 14 consecutive days, and you cannot leave a camp unattended more than 48 hours. After you hit the limit you have to be off that same Game and Fish land for at least 72 hours before returning. Some areas post a limit shorter than 14 days on the sign at the entrance -- if the sign says less, the sign wins. Area-specific regulations from Game and Fish: Access and parking not plowed during winter. No Fireworks. Only public land access is provided. USFS, and State Land Regulations are in effect on those lands. Amenities listed by Game and Fish for the area: Camping on neighboring Federal lands These are working wildlife areas first and campgrounds second -- they exist for habitat, so expect gravel, expect stock, and leave it cleaner than you found it. We have not visited; confirm current conditions and closures with the Wyoming Game and Fish Laramie regional office before you go.
Researched — The record is detailed and internally consistent, and the coordinates land where the managing agency says this site is.
How it was placed
FREE, no permit required, per WGFC Chapter 23 Sec. 4(a)(iii): 'Camping shall only be allowed in areas designated by Department publication or sign. No person shall camp in excess of the posted camping limit, and in no case more than fourteen (14) consecutive days, or leave a camp unattended for more than forty-eight (48) hours.' The words 'fee' and 'stamp' do not appear anywhere in Chapter 23, and 'license' appears only for long-term special-use agreements -- there is NO license/pass precondition for camping (unlike SD GFP or OK ODWC). WGFD states directly: 'Camping on WHMAs and PAAs is free and on a first-come, first-served basis' and 'The statewide camping limit is 14 days'. DESIGNATION: this is not inferred -- it is a point in WGFD's own PAA_Facilities feature service with FacilityType='Campground' and PublicView='Public' (FacilityName 'Cow Creek Mountain Trail head', area 'Cow Creek Mountain'), which is the 'Department publication' the rule requires. Coordinates are that feature's own WGS84 geometry, not a geocode. Area attributes (season, regulations, amenities) come from WGFD's PAA_Locations layer joined on area name. Source: services6.arcgis.com/cWzdqIyxbijuhPLw (PAA_Facilities / PAA_Locations), WGFD open data. Ingested 2026-07-20 19:36:19. SCOPE OF THE RULE (checked 2026-07-21 against the Chapter 23 PDF itself, wgfd.wyo.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/24576_REGULATIONS-CH-23.pdf): the chapter is titled 'REGULATION GOVERNING USES OF LANDS AND WATERS ACQUIRED OR ADMINISTERED BY THE WYOMING GAME AND FISH COMMISSION', and Sec. 3 defines acquired land as taken by the Commission 'by purchase, deed, lease, agreement, gift or devise'. The rule therefore reaches land the Commission holds by lease/agreement/easement, not only land it owns, so the free-camping authority holds on easement areas too. Land status is stated as 'acquired or administered' rather than 'owned' for that reason. This is a PAA, and WGFD defines PAAs as 'permanent or long-term easements, or Wyoming Game and Fish Commission-owned land managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department for allowing public access for recreational purposes' (wgfd.wyo.gov/public-access/public-access-areas), so the underlying land may belong to another owner. Worked example found 2026-07-21: the North Platte River-Miracle Mile PAA lies on Bureau of Reclamation land -- Reclamation's own facilities record for Kortes Reservoir/Miracle Mile (usbr.gov/gp/recreation/korrrec.html) names its Wyoming Area Office as the 'Cooperator (managing entity)'. That record independently corroborates fee=0, listing 'Area Entrance no / Campgrounds no / Picnic Areas no / Boat Launch Facilities no / Parking no / Other no'. AccessDates: 'Open year round'. AreaRegulations: 'Access and parking not plowed during winter. No Fireworks. Only public land access is provided. USFS, and State Land Regulations are in effect on those lands.'. Amenities: 'Camping on neighboring Federal lands'. FireBan: 'Fire Ban is in Effect for this Area'. NOTE REFRESHED 2026-07-21 01:39:46: this row's stay limit was recomputed after a parser fix -- WGFD states its posted camping limit in several different phrasings ('Camping limit: 5 days', 'Overnight camping (5-day limit)', '5 day camping on Commission Lands') and the original ingester matched only one of them, so some areas were described with Wyoming's 14-day statewide cap when the posted limit is shorter. Coordinates, source and provenance are unchanged.
Field check
Not verified on the ground. Nobody from here has camped it. It stays at Researched until someone does.
What we don’t know
A land record can put you within a few metres of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
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