Sleeping Elephant Campground

Tent camped here on 6/20/2025. Beautiful place with a lot of room. Vault toilet, which was very clean. You can walk across the road and wash up in the river. FYI, the water was cold but refreshing. It was very quiet, great night sleep. The ride in & out was gorgeous.

First time camping here! Currently costs $16.50. The vault toilets were very clean and the campsites were nice and clean too. I really like the bear locker each site has. Some of the campsites are closer to the road and had less trees around them for shade during the day. The sites also vary in size, with some have a much smaller area to set up a tent. You have to drive to another campground to purchase bundles of fire currently. $9 per bundle. The river is on the other side of the road. We ended up driving to a free day use area to check out the river though (some day use areas cost money). Overall nice campground, especially for the price.

This is a nice, smaller Forest Service campground featuring a spectacular view of its namesake Sleeping Elephant Mountain (elev 9600') to the east. The sites are best for tents, pop-ups or smaller RVs or vans, as the campground road is narrow and most of the site parking spots are short and unlevel. There is access to the Poudre River across the road for fishing. Note that it is a fee area and the campground and pit toilets are well maintained.

What an absolutely beautiful place! One of my favorite mountains! There’s nothing special about it, nothing that separates it to much from other Mountains except it’s shaped like a sleeping elephant! About an hours drive from Fort Collins up through Poudre Canyon, you can’t miss the sign lol! I however couldn’t find a trailhead to this beauty! If there is someone please comment! I bushwhacked the majority of it and followed a few elk trails and crossed the poudre to get to the top! So route finding is a must! During summer the waters rip through here, us caution crossing, as for winter ice is thick and solid, use caution and know what to look for when walking on ice. The peak is roughly 9,100 ft. With an isolation of 1.7 miles its quad peak is Boston Peak.

Campground has been closed since the 2020 fire. But the sleeping elephant is always worth a stop.

This canyon was way busier than we expected and we ended up driving a bit further in than we intended. This was the only campsite we could find with space and we took the last possible spot. The fee was a bit steeper than I would expect from public lands, probably due to a for-profit third party managing the area. The campground is nice and arranged in such a way that your neighbors seem not to be there. There are ticks in the area due to the closeness of the river. Overall, this was what I expected and it was an enjoyable overnight and a wonderful drive up and back down the canyon.

Nice spot right off the road. We got the last spot available, fortunately, and had a lovely time hearing the flowing river and stargazing at night.