Site Review- Cimarron National Grasslands, Kansas
Site Review- Cimarron National Grasslands, Kansas
GPS: 37.08’16”N, -101.49’23”W
The Cimarron National Grasslands are outside of the town of Elkhart, Kansas in Morton County.
We arrived at the grasslands coming from Elkhart, Kansas, on KS-27N.
If you take KS-27N from Elkhart like we did, you will travel 7 miles until you see FS- 700 on your right. You will know you are at the correct road when you see the Cottonwood Picnic Area.
Turn right on to FS-700 and drive 4 miles, until you see the recreation and campground area on your left. Turn left into the recreation center, however, instead of going left for the campground you will want to go right at the split.
After keeping right, you will see a road on your left. This road is the one we boondocked off of.
About a quarter of a mile down on the right you will see an old cattle corral. We parked in the parking area in front of this cattle corral. We could tell that this area had not been used recently and we thought it was a good place to drop our travel trailer.
We chose to stay next to the cattle corral because we did not want to destroy the grasslands by pulling on to them with our RV. You could tell that this area had once been well used and the grasslands had not taken it back over yet, so we felt safe in parking here.
We have a 40 ft long TT and a F250 Superduty, both fit in this location with plenty of room to spare.
There is a water spigot at this location, but it does not say that it is potable, so we recommend getting water before coming.
Past where this site is, about 15 feet up the road, there is a cattleguard that may cause some difficulty for large rigs.
Also, we recommend dropping your rig and scouting out your location first. We did this and we are so thankful for doing so. Some of the road ways past this location are made of very loose sand. In some areas it was difficult walking along them, so I imagine it would be much worse with an RV.
This area is near the Point of Rocks that we recommend visiting. You can read more about that here.
There are 3 things you should know about this place, and they include cows, rattlesnakes, and ATV riders.
Cows
Cows seem to be a common occurrence in the west, at least for the places we choose to boondock. The grasslands are divided up into allotments and you will see fences and signs separating these allotments. It is all the grasslands, however, the allotments are for the purposes of cows. The US Forest Service allows cattle to be grazed on the grasslands, but they only allow so many cattle per allotment and do it based on the rain for the previous year. The grazing on the grasslands is by permit only, but it helps to maintain the natural aspect of the prairie. Read more about it here.
We did not find a schedule on when cattle are grazed on which allotment. If you know of one, please let me know so I can link it.
We did get lucky though because we did not have to worry about the cows until 2 days before our departure. At that time cattle were moved into the allotment next to us, and our days were filled with MOOs. We didn’t mind them so much though and thought they were interesting to have around.
Rattlesnakes
Rattlesnakes on the other hand, we do not find interesting to have around. We did not experience any live rattlesnakes, but we found a dead one someone had killed, near the playground area, and a guy killed one 20 feet from our RV.
This area is a prairie. The grass may look dried out and dead, but they are teaming with life. We went to bed every night to the howl of coyotes. We spotted several rabbits, prairie dogs, and pheasants. All of this life means predators, and one predator in the prairie is the rattlesnake.
We avoided walking through the tall grass, watched our step, and made noise when we were out walking around. We did not have any issues with the rattlesnakes, but you should be aware they are there.
ATV riders.
The weekend is crazy busy with ATV riders. They are up and down the roads from sunup until sundown and some even at dark. It was fairly noisy, but they did keep it just to the weekends and so the week was fairly peaceful.
Some tips for the area:
Grocery shop before coming to the area. The area had a Dollar General, a small grocery store, and a Pizza Hut. The one grocery store we found in this town was small and fairly expensive. The closest Walmart to this area is 1 hour away, in Guymon, Oklahoma.
If you need to dump, Prairie RV Park and Car Wash has a dump station behind their car wash. It is $2 to dump and you pay on the honor system. They have a booth that has a black box with envelopes and a mail slot for you to stick your envelope in. If you want to spend the night here, check out the review we did.
We stayed a couple of nights to enjoy some full hookups and strong Wi-Fi for a few days. They have a water spigot around the corner from the dump station, but I do not guarantee it is potable, and there is nothing stating you can use this spigot. There is a number in the booth you could call and ask about the water if you need it.
If you need water and don’t want to deal with the questioning of the Prairie RV Park, the campground near this site has a few water spigots you can hookup to fill your tanks. They do not have a dump station though, so dump beforehand. The campground is $7 a night and some sites were plenty big enough for our 40 ft TT. If you need water, you could pay 1 night at the campground and fill your tanks for $7.
Cost of Stay:
$0 if you want to boondock in the Cimarron National Grasslands, as it is USFS. $7 if you want to stay in the campground here, but that includes water.
Length of Stay:
As far as I am aware, the stay limit of this location is 14 days, but you should always check for yourself if you plan to stay in an area like this.
Cell Service:
We have Straight Talk that runs off of Verizon towers and we had 4 bars continuously, while in this location.
Do I recommend this area?
Yes. It just is not an area that I see us going back to in our travels, but if we did, we would go stay here.