Echo Park Campground in Dinosaur National Monument is closed, and the park gives no date for it to reopen. The monument’s current conditions page, last updated October 21, 2026, says Echo Park Road is “temporarily closed to motorized vehicles from the junction with Harpers Corner Road to Echo Park Campground due to significant storm damage,” and that the campground is closed to camping because of it. Checked October 24, 2026.
Rainbow Park is out for longer. The same page says the 3/4-mile Rainbow Park Road, the campground and the boat ramp have been closed since September 25, 2026, “likely through spring of 2027.”
If you had either on a fall trip, change the plan now. There is still camping in the monument, but less of it, and from October 29 almost none of it has water.
What is still open, per the October 21 page
- Green River Campground (Utah side): open, first-come, first-served, flush toilets and drinking water, no water hookups for RVs. It closes at noon on October 29.
- Split Mountain Group Campground (Utah side): open as first-come, first-served group sites at $40 a night until noon October 29. After the water is turned off that day, sites are $12 a night for up to 8 people. It sits on paved Split Mountain Road and is the only Utah-side campground on the list after October 29. The page gives no rig length limit, so ask before you bring a big trailer.
- Gates of Lodore (Colorado side): open, vault toilets, no drinking water, first-come, first-served. Pack out your trash.
- Deerlodge Park (Colorado side): open, vault toilets, no drinking water, first-come, first-served. The park warns about bank collapse at the river’s edge.
The NPS campground data lists the low-season fee at Gates of Lodore and Deerlodge as $12 a night, $6 with a senior or access pass.
The catch: two official dates for Green River
The conditions page says Green River closes at noon October 29. The park’s own campground data lists its winter closure as starting October 21. We would trust the conditions page, which carries a date, but if you are counting on a site there before the 29th, call the monument at 435-781-7700 first.
The same data lists Echo Park’s storm closure through December 12 and describes only “the last 5 miles” of the road as closed, from the Yampa Bench Road junction. The conditions page gives no end date and closes the road from Harpers Corner Road. Either way the campground is shut, so do not plan around December 12. The same description says the 13-mile road is unpaved, “impassable when wet,” and that winter access “is often impossible.” A reopened road in December is not a road you can drive.
Two more road notes from the October 21 page: Yampa Bench Road is passable for “high-clearance, 4WD vehicles only,” and Island Park Road is open to Ruple Ranch with high clearance recommended.
What to do
- Read the conditions page the morning you drive. If its update date is more than a few days old, call before you commit to a long dirt road.
- After October 29, carry all your water in. No campground on the October 21 list has drinking water past that date.
- Pack out your trash at Gates of Lodore and Deerlodge. The park says so, and it is also federal rule (see the trash rule on federal land).
Whatever the page says, the posted closure sign at the road wins. For camping outside the monument, start with our Utah and Colorado free camping pages. For how fall water shutoffs usually work at federal campgrounds, see campground water shutoff dates.