Eldorado National Forest

You can camp outside of developed campgrounds when in United States National Forests. Be sue to practice "Leave No Trace" principles. Your vehicle must be parked on a system route or within a reasonable distance of the route so as not to block the roadway, create a safety hazard, or damage vegetation.

Complete information about the Eldorado National Forest campgrounds can be found on the National Forest website.

Silver Lake Campground

Silver Lake is a beautiful alpine lake where fishing is the activity of the day. Silver Lake Campground West, is a beautiful little campground across the road from Silver Lake. The sites are nicely spaced, the pine forest is open and there are great rocks to climb on.

Silver Lake Campground East, is a larger campground with a little pond separating the loops. It is very close to the lake, but I didn't see any sites on the lake. It is a very busy campground.

Make reservations for Silver Lake Campground East, using Recreation.gov I tried to make reservations in mid-June, and there no weekend sites available until the 2nd week of September. You cannot make reservations for Silver Lake West. When we were there on Memorial Day Weekend at 9 a.m., it looked like there were many empty spaces.

Caples Lake Campground

Kirkwood Lake campground is right before Caples Lake. We didn't stop by to take a look. A little further down the road is the Woods Lake campground. We did not stop by there either.

Toiyabe Campground

The Toiyabe Campground is down the Carson River towards Nevada. The landscape moves from Alpine to high altitude desert. The campground is right on the river and looks like a great place to hang out all day but if you are planning to fish, this campground is the closest one to the Hope Valley. You cannot make reservations for Toiyabe Campground. Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend there were spaces available.