South Rim Campground

It was a good site. Lots of trees and neighbors not too close. An odd shaped site in that it was long and narrow at the font and then wider at the back, but fairly level. Vault toilets were fine and clean-typical vault toilets. We were only there 1 night so didn’t put up our screen house, but there would have been room. There was no waterfill or dump station for the trailer, but we knew that and worked around it by keeping water in our fresh tank.

Arrived after loop A closed and water turned off. Loop B and C still open. sites are small and in various lengths. Would not be friendly to large rigs. However, convenient to access the South Rim and bottom of the canyon. Grateful for the electricity. No cell coverage. No campground staff in the off season. No shower house or flush toilets.

Campground is suitable for small to medium sized rigs. Potable water in each loop. Watch for wildlife, deer abundant in the campground area. Bear crossed entrance road around 3pm. Hiking from campground at Loop C. Midday seems best for picture taking when shadows are minimized. Be sure to take the East Portal scenic drive. The primitive trail up the river is worth the effort. Take hiking sticks.

Overall, an amazing experience. As always the NPS made sure the park and its facilities were clean and functional. The park itself we highly recommend if you're nearby. Get there right after checkout to get the best spot if you don't have a reservation -- it fills up every night and there really aren't a lot of spaces.

The sites in loops A and C lend themselves more to tent and van campers (as they lack power), and the narrow widths and overhead brambles reflect that. It took us three tries in three different sites before we found one that would work for our 21' TT with a modest slideout.

Being a national property, it was exempt from the Colorado state fire ban. With the tight site proximity, evening fire time got distressingly smoky -- a definite negative for us. Aside from that and the occasional generator (we use solar exclusively when off shore power), it was good experience.

Cell service was nonexistent to faint. For some reason, in the morning we were able to nab 2 bars of LTE, and then it went dark the rest of the day.

This was a great national park camping experience. The campground is nestled in some low/middle height scrub trees and there is good separation between sites. It was relatively quiet and since Loop B has electric sites, I don't recall hearing any generator noise. Our site had good room for our 22' Bambi, although some of the sites would have been a struggle. Many of the larger rigs were on the first few sites of the Loop.

We planned to go to the ranger talk but found out the first night that a reservation was needed. The visitor center was closed but we went there anyway and watched the sunset from the overlook. We reserved a seat at the evening ranger program the next day. It is a short walk to the amphitheater from the campground...classic park experience.

The fire pits are very well built and were excellent cooking platforms. Our site, 17B, went back quite a ways and allowed for a lot of room for the picnic table area and fire area. There is also a pretty good sky view there for any astronomy one wants to do. The campground also has an astronomy platform on the south end.

There’s no fee for winter camping! We maneuvered our 26’ travel trailer in, but much bigger would be hard to find a spot. Only loop A was open.

Quiet, clean, drinking water in warmer months is available but not to fill your RV.

It was nice to be so close to the Canyon which was stunning to see’

The sunset was one of the best I’ve ever seen in Colorado. There was no camping fee and pretty much all the sites but two were under 2-3 feet of snow. There’s 2 very clean pit toilets (please keep them this way). Someone had shoveled the spot I parked in, but not too recently because there was still at least 6 inches covering the spot. We were the only ones that were camping while there. It was cold during the day but frigid at night, easily dropping into the single digits so I don’t recommend it without a heater. Cell phone service went in and out, at most I was able to make a phone call but no texts.

Not sure why people are saying it's free, maybe during winter but not anytime else. It's $16-$22 depending on if you get a space with electricity or not. Campsites are pretty close together but everyone was very quiet and friendly. Deer just hang out by your camp but they won’t bother you super fun to watch.

No shade. Hot. No generator use. Loop B has electric. Lots of wildlife. Birds. Small mammals. Deer with babies. No Verizon coverage.

We had nice shade tho not much room for our slide on our 25 foot class c. Privacy was good.