El Porvenir Campground

The campground is still technically closed, but I visited the campground and did the Hermit’s Peak hike after parking further down on the road and walking in the extra quarter-mile to the campground. Following the devastating fires of this spring, 2022, I wanted to see how the landscape was recovering: there was extensive green groundcover and lots of plants returning to life, as well as verdant, green canopies from the variety of tree species. However, between the ground and the canopies, almost all of the tree trunks were charred from the fire, and will likely take ages to recover. Additionally, all the burnt groundcover meant that any rain turned into sloughing and subsidence everywhere. There was tons of sand from all of the flash, flooding and lots of debris in each of the drainage ch

Devastating what a wild fire will do. Especially one that is Started as a prescribe Burn in our National Forest. Recent photos of the aftermath from The Hermits Peak ,Calf Canyon Fire. This place was so Beautiful and full of life!! Gonna take Yr's to Get back to the way it once was.....

We just returned from 5 beautiful nights at El Porvenir Campground. We arrived on a Wednesday around dusk at the end of September and there were plenty of available campsites for tents though we had a camping trailer and felt there were 3 spots that were available and doable for us. A Sprinter camping van was also joining us the following day. In total, 7 of us thoroughly enjoyed the warm days, cold nights with a campfire (and there's even a sanctioned area to collect firewood from, up the road accessible from camp), fall colors, quick creek showers (no soap, of course), and the hiking right from camp. The Beaver Creek trail was simply beautiful and the Hermit Peak trail long and a challenge. Pit toilets were clean & stocked well.

I showed up at 9:30pm on a Saturday, but still got a spot! I think reservations require at least 4 days notice, but it worked out fine. The toilets (hole in the ground with a toilet seat latrines) aren't being maintained due to lack of funding, and the road in has large potholes, but the campsite was clean and I got to sleep under the stars for the first time in a long time. I'd love to come back.

A great campground with trailhead to Hermit's Peak. I happened to take a USNF chainsaw certificate there.