Agency-listedBLMFree
Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
Drive-up · Bureau of Land Management · WY · 42.56177, -109.06189
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Bureau of Land Management lists this site. On most of their ground you can camp away from developed sites pretty much anywhere — so treat this as a known-good spot, not the only one allowed. The unit sets stay limits and how far off road and water you must be. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 8,253 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Sweetwater Guard Station CampgroundNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Sweetwater Guard Station Campground · Bureau of Land Management · WY
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- LLaundry18 mi
- ShShower18 mi
- FFuel25 mi
- GGrocery25 mi
- HHardware25 mi
- EVEV fast charger25 mi
- @Mail25 mi
- WWater34 mi
- +Urgent care45 mi
- MMechanic46 mi
- OOutfitter46 mi
- DDump46 mi
- RxPharmacy48 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 34-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 25 mi out.
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
Access
Drive-up
Land
Bureau of Land Management
Elevation
8,253 ft
Ground slope
3% · gentle
State
WY
Coordinates
42.56177, -109.06189
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Sweetwater Guard Station Campground · Bureau of Land Management · WY (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureSweetwater River · under 0.1 mi · USGS: perennial river
- Nearest townAtlantic · ~17.3 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelSafeway Fuel Station · ~24.9 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesSafeway · ~24.9 mi
- HardwareAce Hardware · ~25.0 mi
EV charging — from Sweetwater Guard Station Campground · Bureau of Land Management · WY — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger25.1 mi straight-line NE — Fremont County Pioneer Museum, Lander, WY · EV Connect · CCS · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · 3 within 50 · 11 within 100 · 33 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)68.6 mi — Rock Springs, WY - Tesla Supercharger, Rock Springs
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO95.8 mi — BATTERY PARK 2, Afton
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)24.8 mi — LANDER SENIOR EAST SIDE GUEST · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 302441 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Sweetwater Guard Station Campground · Bureau of Land Management · WY — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- RestroomSweetater Guard Station Toilet · at this camp · BLM
- RestroomSweetwater Trailhead · ~2.0 mi NW · USFS
- RestroomToilet Structure At Sweetwater Bridge Campground · ~3.0 mi S · BLM
- RestroomBlucher Creek Toilet · ~3.9 mi W · BLM
Coming out here — Sweetwater Guard Station Campground · Bureau of Land Management · WY
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Sweetwater River as a perennial river, under 0.1 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 3% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Sweetwater Guard Station Campground elsewhere
Other camps near Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Sweetwater River~0.8 mi
- Blucher Creek Campground~4.1 mi
- Fiddlers Lake~10.3 mi · fee
- Dutch Joe Campground~10.8 mi
The unit that manages Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
Sweetwater Guard Station Campground is in the Rock Springs Field Office, High Desert District, Bureau of Land Management. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
Snow, and when this opens
The nearest automatic snow station is Larsen Creek at 8,880 ft, about 2 miles away. It sits about 627 ft higher than this camp, so treat it as a guide rather than a reading for this spot. We do not repeat a depth here, because any number we stored would be stale by the time you read it — the station publishes today's.
How we know this — Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
Stay limit
14 nights (STAY LIMIT: BLM's own field, "14 days")
Source
Bureau of Land Management recreation data
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
FREE BLM campground on the Sweetwater River at the foot of the Wind River Range, with the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail on the far bank. FEE, BLM's own Fees section: "No fee, no reservations." STAY LIMIT: BLM's own field, "14 days". SITES: "The Sweetwater Guard Station Campground has 3 walk-in campsites and 8 pull-in sites featuring picnic tables and fire rings at each." FACILITIES: "a pit toilet and trash receptacles that are secured against bears with a carabineer-type clip. There are no hookups or potable water available. This free, accessible site is first come, first served." SEASONAL -- IMPORTANT: "The access road is an improved dirt road, typically well-maintained during summer months. There is no winter maintenance, and the site is typically accessible only by snowmobile during winter." NEAREST TOWN: BLM's own figures, 73 miles from Rock Springs and 69 miles from Lander. Coordinate is BLM's own published facility point from gis.blm.gov/arcgis/rest/services/recreation/BLM_Natl_Recreation_Sites_Facilities (read 2026-08-17), cross-checked against the Geographic Coordinates printed on the site's own blm.gov page. It is a facility pin, not a surveyed campsite. SOURCE: https://www.blm.gov/visit/search-details/272295/1
--- NIGHT-SHIFT REVIEW 2026-08-19 (nightshift-verified) -- APPROVED.
Re-fetched https://www.blm.gov/visit/search-details/272295/1 this fire. The page is live and still titled "Sweetwater Guard Station Campground | Wyoming". The Fees section still reads "No fee, no reservations." and the Stay Limit field still reads "14 days". The description still says "There are no hookups or potable water available. This free, accessible site is first come, first served." BLM's printed Geographic Coordinates are still 42.561772, -109.061887, matching this row to the digit. Cross-checked the same day against gis.blm.gov/arcgis/rest/services/recreation/BLM_Natl_Recreation_Sites_Facilities (layer 8, BLM Natl RIDB Facilities Camping). The published row nearest this pin is "Sweetwater River" (blm/729), 1.3 km away -- that is BLM rec-area 16803, an area pin carried at 2-decimal precision, not this campground. Kept both. Nothing this row claims has changed since it was written.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Sweetwater Guard Station Campground
When the high country opens →Winter vs summer roads →Water on public land →Power off-grid →All field notes →