Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests

104 camps mapped · 51 free · 28 fee · 25 unpriced · tap a dot for its page

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Camp here — Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests

104 camps mapped in this forest, 51 of them free. Tap one for its topo and aerial, the weather, the water, and how far you will be from fuel and a shower.

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Where dispersed camping is listed — Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests

The Forest Service lists dispersed camping as an activity at these 11 places. That is the agency saying it is allowed somewhere in the area — not a campsite we have mapped, and not a spot we can put a pin on. Read their page, then check the district for the rules that apply on the day.

Commissary Trailhead
Commissary Trailhead is a former campground area that provides parking for hikers and hunters during the summer and fall.
the Forest Service page for it →
Dark Canyon Trailhead (Dispersed)
The Dark Canyon Trailhead is located in the Erickson Springs Recreation Area, adjacent to Erickson Springs Campground. This trailhead accesses Dark Canyon Trail #830 which enters Raggeds Wilderness where Wilderness Regulations…
the Forest Service page for it →
Grand Mesa
Largest flat top mountain in the world. Fish Your National Forests: This site can be accessed by Passenger Car; Fish available include: Trout; Types of fishing available include: Wade, Motorized boat, Float tube, Fly, Ice; ADA…
the Forest Service page for it →
Horse Ranch Park (Dispersed)-Paonia RD
Horse Ranch Park is a large meadow about 4.5 miles west of the summit of Kebler Pass. It is on the northeast side of Kebler Pass Road, Gunnison County Road 12, and is the Trail Head for the Dark Canyon Trail #830, the Dyke Creek…
the Forest Service page for it →
Needle Creek Reservoir Camping Area
Elevation: 8830' Needle Creek Reservoir lies between Highways 50 and 114 in the Cochetopa Hills along the headwaters of Needle Creek. This reservoir was constructed in 1962 for irrigation water storage. Its low elevation, 8,830…
the Forest Service page for it →
Overland Reservoir (Dispersed)-Paonia RD
Overland Reservoir lies approximately 22 miles north of Paonia near the divide between the Grand Mesa National Forest and the Gunnison National Forest. This area offers a very beautiful setting, with the deep blue reservoir,…
the Forest Service page for it →
Priest Lake Designated Camping Area - Norwood RD
Priest Lake Dispersed Camping Area is a popular spot with nine designated camping sites. A vault restroom is on site. Limited fishing is available at Priest Lake, while the nearby Galloping Goose Trail offers hiking. horseback…
the Forest Service page for it →
Soap Creek
Various recreation sites in the Soap Creek Area
the Forest Service page for it →
Soap Creek Corral / Coal Mesa Horse Camp
Dispersed camping is available at the horse corrals located adjacent to the Soap Creek Campground. This campground provides access to the southern trails of the West Elk Wilderness.
the Forest Service page for it →
Throughline/Coal Creek TH (Dispersed)-Paonia RD
The Throughline Trail #860 is a major route through the West Elk Wilderness to the Smith Fork country near Crawford. The Trailhead provides opportunities for dispersed camping with enough room for horse trailer camping. There are…
the Forest Service page for it →
Twin Lake Dispersed Area - Grand Valley RD
10,300-foot elevation.
the Forest Service page for it →

Where the camps cluster

The place

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests -- everyone just calls them the GMUG -- sprawl across more than three million acres of western Colorado, three separate forests managed together from a single supervisor's office in Delta. It's a landscape of huge contrasts: the flat-topped basalt tableland of Grand Mesa rising to around 10,000-11,000 feet above the Colorado River valley, the rolling aspen high country and West Elk peaks around Gunnison and Crested Butte, and the rugged, mineral-stained San Juan Mountains to the south, where the land climbs past 14,000 feet. Between the plateaus and the peaks you'll find hundreds of alpine lakes, deep river canyons, and some of the darkest, quietest country left in the Rockies.

History

The three forests were stitched together over time: Grand Mesa and Uncompahgre were paired up in 1954, and the Gunnison was folded in in 1973, giving today's GMUG unit run out of Delta. Long before any of that, this was Ute homeland -- specifically the country of the Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) Ute bands, who lived and hunted across these valleys, plateaus, and the San Juan front for generations before they were pushed out to reservations in the late 1800s. The name 'Uncompahgre' is a Ute word, usually glossed as something like 'dirty water' or 'red water' -- a nod to the mineral springs that stain the ground near Ouray. Then came the silver and gold rushes: the San Juans on the south end of the forests were torn up by hard-rock mining in the late 1800s, and gateway towns like Ouray and Lake City still carry that boom-and-bust history in their old buildings and the mine roads climbing above them.

Wildlife & plants

This is big-game country. Elk and mule deer move through it in large numbers -- the region holds some of Colorado's strongest elk herds -- along with black bears, mountain lions you'll almost never see, and bighorn sheep on the high rocky slopes. Moose are a real presence here too, especially up on Grand Mesa, where a herd took hold after reintroductions in the 2000s. The hundreds of lakes and streams are trout water -- rainbow, brook, brown, and native cutthroat. The forests layer up by elevation: pinyon pine, juniper, oak, and sagebrush on the warm, dry lower plateaus; vast stands of quaking aspen in the middle country; and dark Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir climbing toward treeline. Come late September, those aspens are the main event -- whole hillsides going gold at once.

Notable features

The forests' signature feature is Grand Mesa itself -- a basalt-lava-capped plateau often called one of the largest flat-topped mountains in the world, its surface mostly between 10,000 and 11,000 feet and dotted with hundreds of lakes. The high point of the whole unit is Uncompahgre Peak (~14,309 feet), the tallest summit in the San Juan Mountains and one of several fourteeners on or bordering the forests, including neighboring Wetterhorn Peak. Roughly ten wilderness areas anchor the wild core -- among them West Elk, the Raggeds, Uncompahgre, Mount Sneffels, Lizard Head, and Powderhorn -- some of them shared with adjoining forests. Just off the GMUG sit two more western-slope landmarks: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, one of the steepest, narrowest gorges in North America, and Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest body of water entirely within Colorado.

104

camps mapped

free to camp

3.2M

acres inside boundary

states

Unverified

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Acreage is the area inside this forest’s administrative boundary (U.S. Forest Service), which takes in private land as well. National Forest System land inside it is usually less.

The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison -- three national forests run as one unit out of Delta, Colorado -- cover more than three million acres of the state's western slope, from the great flat-topped tableland of Grand Mesa to the jagged San Juan and Elk peaks in the south. It's some of the biggest, most varied high country in Colorado: basalt plateaus freckled with hundreds of trout lakes, fourteeners topping out at Uncompahgre Peak (~14,309 ft), and, near Crested Butte, some of the most sweeping aspen forests in the Rockies. Cool twist: Grand Mesa is often called one of the world's largest flat-topped mountains, and come fall the aspens around Kebler Pass turn the whole range gold.

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the whole network, filtered to this forest

Cool to know

Grand Mesa is often billed as one of the largest flat-topped mountains on Earth -- a giant tableland capped by hard basalt lava that protected the softer rock underneath while the surrounding country eroded away. Its top is high enough and wet enough to hold hundreds of little lakes, which is why locals sometimes call it the 'Grand Mesa lakes country.'
The name Uncompahgre comes from the Ute language and is usually translated as something close to 'dirty water' or 'red water spring' -- a reference to the reddish, mineral-laden springs near Ouray. There's no single official translation, so you'll see it rendered a few different ways.
The aspen forests near Kebler Pass, west of Crested Butte, are some of the largest and most continuous in the Rockies -- a rolling sea of clonal aspen that draws leaf-peepers from all over every fall. (The most famous single aspen clone, 'Pando,' actually lives over in Utah's Fishlake National Forest -- but Kebler's aspen landscape is a stunner in its own right.)
Uncompahgre Peak, the highest point on the forests at about 14,309 feet, is the tallest of all the San Juan Mountains -- and it's just one of a whole cluster of fourteeners packed into this corner of Colorado.

Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.