Camping near Carbondale

I'm moving to Carbondale next month to attend the Colorado Mountain College. Naturally I don't want to pay rent, so I'm looking for a few places to camp out for the summer...maybe winter (BRRR). I drove up the Red Canyon Road past the CMC and saw some promising spots. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
-Jordan

I'd check out camping near prince creek once the snow is gone. I had a friend live out of his tent camping at Rifle Mountain Park, he'd stay there for the max days and then move to the other state park there in rifle. As far as off the grid camping close to carbondale, I know a lot of people live in tents behind wal-mart and off the scout trail in Glenwood, but those are more of the homeless types not the dirt bag types.

My brother camped in glenwood canyon all last summer as a raft guide, there were some stealth spots that he worked out. Good luck man, hit me up if you need a climbing partner, I live in glenwood!

I've heard good things about prince creek, and that would be great to bounce around spots in Rifle. Thanks for the advice. I'm sure I'll be looking for partners when I'm new to town!

There's a lot of BLM and Forest Service land in the area so depending on how much you want to drive you can camp all around the Glenwood-Carbondale-Redstone-New Castle-Rifle area. Lookout Mountain, at the top of Red Canyon Road, near CMC, should be a pretty decent spot to spend some nights, particularly if you want to be close to campus. A lot of space up there and not a lot of traffic. There are showers on campus by the climbing wall so you can spruce up for class.

Edit to add: Specifically around Carbondale check out the Thompson Creek area. Great climbing and a lot of camping.

Enjoy.

I drove past the spring valley campus and took a right on red canyon road. I saw a few of four wheel drive roads and spots I could park for a night without being bothered. Would it have been more promising if I would have taken a left at the spring valley rd/ red canyon road intersection?

There's a climbing wall on campus!? This school keeps getting more appealing...I am getting the hell out of the Boulder Bubble.

Take a left from the Red Canyon Rd/Spring Valley Rd intersection and then there is a dirt road that goes up and towards Lookout Mountain. It's a large mountain with radio towers at the west end of it, overlooking Glenwood. You can drive all the way out to the radio towers, which is a seldom used paraglider spot and where the upper Boy Scout trail comes up from town. There's a bunch of spots up there depending on what you're looking for and how far you want to drive. Check out a map of the area and look for Lookout Mountain and Bear Gulch and that should get you in the right area.

The CMC has a very modest wall but decent enough. It's open from 9 to 4 for students during the day so it's great for getting a quick burn in.

Some of the stuff near thompson creek is a good idea, just head up the road from carbondale towards "the fins" and there is a developed pay campground where the trailhead is, but if you go further on the main road, it goes down to the creek and there are a lot of undeveloped car camping spots that you could bounce around on.

What are the fins? I'm not that familiar with the area yet. Would I head north on red canyon road?

Thompson creek's rock features are the fins, though I've never heard them called that. Head W/SW on main street for a while on a curvy road through some ranch land. Left on Thompson Creek Rd. Definitely be careful early season, the mud on that road is some of the slickest around.

Splitter Choss has some beta on the fins (I don't know where I heard them called that but it stuck). The BLM has chopped the first bolts there until some sort of land management plan is attained.

There is a XC ski area right nearby called spring gulch for reference, the camp sights are probably 15-20 minutes passed that, where the road ends at a gate for a ranch.

The beta for climbing at Thompson Creek isn't currently posted on Splitter Choss but you can get beta from any number of locals or just PM me.

Also, FYI, the BLM didn't chop any bolts but requested that about half of the routes have the hangers on the first bolt or two removed because of concerns of overcrowding. There are still 20 fully equipped routes.

Information on "the fins"

postindependent.com/article…

Awesome. Can't wait to start exploring the area! All the info from everyone will be a great place to start. My truck is gradually transforming into a home on wheels-dirtbag mobile!