What this is
Campsite Ranger watches Colorado campgrounds, permits, and wilderness zones on Recreation.gov and emails (and eventually texts) you when something you’re watching opens up. For Rocky Mountain National Park trips it also passes along official conditions signals — closures, nearby wildfires, smoke. It’s free while in beta; founding members will lock a founder rate before paid plans exist.
What it is not
- Not a booking service. We never reserve, hold, buy, or resell anything. When you get an alert, you book it yourself, in your own Recreation.gov account, at the normal price. We can’t guarantee a spot will still be there.
- Not a safety service. Conditions info (fire, smoke, air quality, closures, weather) is a convenience heads-up drawn from public feeds. It can lag or be incomplete. Always check official sources — NPS, InciWeb, AirNow, NWS, CDOT — before you travel. Your safety decisions are yours.
- Not a government service. We’re independent and unaffiliated with Recreation.gov, NPS, or any agency. Data source: Recreation.gov and public government feeds.
What we ask of you
- Use it for your own trips (and your family’s) — don’t resell alerts or scrape the service.
- Only add a phone number that’s yours, and only check the text-consent box if you mean it.
- Can’t use a spot you booked? Cancel it on Recreation.gov so someone else can — that’s the spirit of the whole thing.
The honest liability part
This is a free Colorado beta built by one person. It’s provided as-is, with no warranties — alerts can be late, missed, or wrong; the service can go down; features can change or end. To the maximum extent Colorado law allows, Campsite Ranger isn’t liable for missed reservations, trip costs, or decisions made on conditions info. If you ever pay for this someday, updated terms will come first.
Privacy
Covered separately and briefly: the privacy policy.
Questions or problems? Email cd@chrisdorsey.co. These terms are governed by Colorado law.