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Cottonwood Campground
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Cottonwood Campground
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Cottonwood Campground is a quiet oasis in the western corner of Big Bend National Park. Reservations are required. Conveniently located between the Castolon Historic District, the scenic Santa Elena Canyon and the tail end of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, this small, 22-site campground is one of the least-known and quiet campgrounds in the park. There is one group campsite and 21 individual sites. This is a remote campground in a remote park. It is dry camping, no hook-ups, and no generators are permitted.
Plan Ahead: there are NO first come, first served campsites Reservations required. All campsites are reservation only, up to 14 days in advance. Campground is operated at a reduced capacity during the heat of summer (May 1- October 31) Reservations for Cottonwood Campground are made at: https://www.recreation.gov/camping/campgrounds/234078
Official reservation information ↗Published campsites
- total Sites
- 22
- group
- 1
- horse
- 0
- tent Only
- 0
- electrical Hookups
- 0
- rv Only
- 0
- walk Boat To
- 0
- other
- 0
Published camping fees
- Campsite Fee
- $16 · Per night. Reservations required through www.recreation.gov Pit toilets, picnic tables, grills, and water are available. No dump station, no generators allowed. Campsite capacity is maximum of 8 people and two vehicles. Park entrance fees are separate from campground fees. An entrance pass is required in the park and while staying in the campground.
Amenities
- trash Recycling Collection
- Yes - year round
- toilets
- Vault Toilets - year round
- internet Connectivity
- No
- showers
- None
- cell Phone Reception
- No
- laundry
- No
- amphitheater
- Yes - year round
- dump Station
- No
- camp Store
- Yes - year round
- staff Or Volunteer Host Onsite
- Yes - seasonal
- potable Water
- Yes - year round
- ice Available For Sale
- Yes - year round
- firewood For Sale
- No
- food Storage Lockers
- Yes - year round
Accessibility and facilities
- wheelchair Access
- Two campsites are fully accessible with a flat paved surfaces, and paved pathway to the nearby accessible vault toilet. Most other campsites are very level and useable by people in wheelchairs.
- fire Stove Policy
- No wood or ground fires. Charcoal grills provided.
- rv Allowed
- 1
- rv Info
- Sites can accommodate all but the largest RVs and trailers. No generators allowed.
- additional Info
- No generators allowed at Cottonwood Campground.
- ada Info
- Cottonwood Campground is a semi-developed camping option. Road and campsite surfaces are gravel and level. Two campsites are fully accessible with flat paved surfaces, and paved pathway to the nearby accessible vault toilet.
- trailer Allowed
- 1
- access Roads
- Unpaved Roads - All vehicles OK in good weather
- classifications
- Limited Development Campground
Official NPS information and current conditions ↗
1 matching records · Campground records| Place / record | Campground records | Context | Explore |
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| Cottonwood Campground | 1 | Cottonwood Campground is a quiet oasis in the western corner of Big Bend National Park. Reservations are required. Conveniently located between the Castolon Historic District, the scenic Santa Elena Canyon and the tail end of the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive, this small, 22-site campground is one of the least-known and quiet campgrounds in the park. There is one group campsite and 21 individual sites. This is a remote campground in a remote park. It is dry camping, no hook-ups, and no generators are permitted. | Profile → |
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SOURCES & DEFINITIONS
Know what the map counts.
Source: National Park Service API for sites, facilities, campground locations and published fee entries; NPS Public Use Statistics for monthly recreation visits, 1979–2025. Snapshot retrieved 2026-10-03. 474 NPS site records include 62 national-park API records; Sequoia and Kings Canyon share one API record. These record counts are not the official count of individually designated parks. 392 API site records have matched visitation history, including the separately reported Sequoia and Kings Canyon visit totals combined for their shared API record. 665 campgrounds are included.
Complete monthly series reconcile with the source’s annual totals. Published annual totals remain available for years with partial monthly reporting. Four monthly entries contain negative accounting corrections. They remain in the archived data and annual totals, and are unavailable as ordinary monthly visit counts. Blank data is not zero. Recreation visits are visits, not unique people. Month as percent of annual peak = selected month visits ÷ largest monthly count that year × 100, requiring twelve nonnegative monthly values. This helps compare recorded seasonality; it is not a crowding forecast, reservation forecast, or present-condition report.
Activities and amenities reflect published NPS entries, rather than a guarantee of access on a particular day. Fees and pass categories are dated 2026-10-03; official site and reservation links provide current conditions and rules. Campground points are published NPS coordinates. Offshore sites can be viewed on the world extent. Broader public-land agencies are outside this reviewed NPS snapshot.
World outlines: Natural Earth 1:50m map units, public domain. U.S. state outlines: Census via us-atlas. Source licenses apply to their respective inputs and derived data. Download the derived parks snapshot · Source manifest, retrieval dates and SHA-256 hashes.
Archived inputs and attribution (14)
- nps-parks.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,921,936 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 29b719dea3c3361c4ef1d7c0f068da09ee366e5335907442453b08db7737072b - nps-campgrounds.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,464,748 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 9762634332c69e5ed729fbe4751a163cab534722c07c7e595b857e9a372b75e3 - nps-campgrounds-500.json · National Park Service · NPS federal data; media rights vary by credit · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 967,966 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 4160009fb0ddc173680428bba03b765398deeca9d303a518821967c7db5fea20 - nps-visitation-2025-2025.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 1,071,221 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 878c51940ae94a29c7e47518d2321713e6d48ad9b008408530723745ca5fab5a - nps-visitation-2021-2024.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,209,731 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 508548d54089885eb78af5a81c63856ba289c01ee8f39c2d096267b3cf9ce243 - nps-visitation-1979-1983.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 3,868,488 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 494795b9ffb6da1f00e10614cde87ef8b18aca67e9c504c2196ba0346c21ddd7 - nps-visitation-1984-1988.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,171,732 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: cd6e3b86c83ecc9ab11d123ea8f560f0590446020fe66eea21e272eb8d931eb7 - nps-visitation-1989-1993.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,393,574 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 22960690990cec0c7af0e7a55d87ef7ee3d8a116afd81bf753c821f65e50ad00 - nps-visitation-1994-1998.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,538,236 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: c021fdd6108c9d3e1047b954376cf8e01c4f8abf0f327dfe081596dff7939e48 - nps-visitation-1999-2003.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,704,673 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: da3f808031e6f26e1e36c42cc11403b415e24e67844762ac51f33998d2c1cd5f - nps-visitation-2004-2008.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,844,655 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 373f1d9ae9eff33e2e73b3bfc26d26c6504d2f831fc5b41c5c1e3df7bade6047 - nps-visitation-2009-2013.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 4,928,350 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 968591a7dd40985cc44fea48568b8a0880953c7b982b328a6c88077d064c12c2 - nps-visitation-2014-2018.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 5,057,268 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 76f1e2173bee73eee3550e4e2e3a987e19d67d4f6841c9c726fa412360a3fb20 - nps-visitation-2019-2020.csv · National Park Service · NPS federal data · retrieved 2026-10-03 · 2,028,678 uncompressed bytes. Published source · Archived input (gzip)
SHA-256: 661d426529aa1b5771d52e29c90758b943edf883fa8e1f9c53f76851e450e5f1
