Oil Well Flats Recreation Area

We stayed here while we looked for a home base in Canon City. This was a wonderful place. It is close to Canon City and has incredible views. Plus lots of trails in the area along with alot of dinasour fossil history. We did see some snow on a couple of mornings, but it is a great BLM dispersed camping area. Solar production was great and Starlink worked flawlessly.

I have stayed here on two separate occasions this early summer. I stayed in sight 6, which is really large and it had plenty of room for me and my German Shepherd (I am in a 21’ travel trailer with a 4Runner pulling it.) That said, it was absolutely filthy and I spent about two hours and filled a trash bag picking up broken glass, empty bullet shells, and the like. It is a beautiful spot for sure with incredible mountain view’s. It was quite tricky getting in as the entrance road is very steep and when I came in it had not been graded in quite a while. They happen to grade it while I was staying here and so the road is great now!

After being away a few weeks I came back again and stayed in spot 12 which is just around the corner about 100 yards from spot 6. This spot is a little bit smaller but still a very nice spot and very private although it is at the corner of a trail crossing. There are mountain bikers, four wheelers, horses and hikers using these trails. That said, it has been fairly quiet with all of them. What has not been quiet has been the gun range that is down in the valley. From 7 AM to 10 PM minimum there is constant gunfire sound. If it wasn’t for the gunfire I would have given this place 4 stars.

What I love about this spot is that you are only 15 minutes from Canon City and a Walmart and it is extremely convenient.

We will be back. This place is meant for and populated by mountain bikers. Sites tend to be dusty ornfull of cacti, and in the afternoon the wind can howl.

It's hard to beat the views and solitude. The noise from the gun range in the valley is constant though. That ruins the natural beauty.

The roads get pretty rutted and some are hard to navigate with a trailer.

I think if you don't love mountain biking there may be better places to camp near by, but we loved it.

This area has approx two dozen designated campsites down each of the roads. Stop at the info sign and take a picture of the map. The campsites are not marked on the map, but the roads and awesome hiking trails are.

This place definitely gets busier on the weekend with mountain bikers, campers, and even some off road vehicles. A few of the roads are for high clearance 4x4s only, but most areas can be accessed with class B/C motorhomes and travel trailers. Some designated camping areas are only large enough for tents.

Cell coverage is spotty and altitude is your friend.

Some trash and broken glass in the camping and parking areas. There's a shooting range in the valley, expect gunshots. This area is a desert and has cacti as well as short evergreen trees. Not much shade aside from a bit on the trails.

A steep dirt road leads up into the Oil Well Flats Rec Area, but we took it slow and got our 27-foot Airstream to a great spot. Cell service improves the higher you go. Level ground is hard to come by, so make sure you have some blocks to stack. We enjoyed posting up right next to the network of high quality mountain bike trails. Riding right from our door was a treat. Cañon City is a great little town.

The roads can be rough in spots, but going slow & easy, we were able to pull our 25' trailer up to a site with great views and almost right off the bike trails. Great variety of sites, in terms of size, views, shade, and tree protection - so a little something for everyone. The sites are well spread out & some take a bit of exploring to find, they're so remote. Plenty of gunshots can be heard in the distance, but far enough away to be noticed but not too bothersome. For the most part, very clean. But some of the sites closest to the trailheads were a bit trashed (someone even left some crushed glass at the start of one of the trails - what is wrong with people???). And someone was "kind" enough to paint a formerly-beautiful rock formation near one of the trailheads with graffiti. But other than that, a great place to stay, especially in the off-season when it's quiet. Call ahead, because they do close roads/trails when wet.