Cottonwood (Big Bend, TX)

Campground was adequate but that's all. Could use some upgrades.

Really cool area with lots of wildlife. We saw two different groups of javelinas and some wild horses. Great experience!

What have you done?! Dead trees, dead grass, bare dirt, no nod to the history of the cottonwoods. Sad. No plan in place to replace the trees that died and that you killed? Incompetence or mismanagement? Both? Get it together. Also, pit toilets were maxed out. Need new management at Big Bend!

Stayed at site 23. So peaceful and quiet.

This is a big dry open field with dry vegetation and VERY FEW trees. VERY hot and no way to escape the heat. Lots of construction visitor center not open.

We enjoyed our stay, but it definitely doesn't look like the pictures anymore. There was a fire, and a lot of the trees are dead. The only trees it has now are mesquite with thorns. We had to first clean all the fallen thorns and branches before setting up our tent. We still enjoyed it; the people were very friendly.

Cottonwood is a quiet campground compared to Chisos Basin. There are only pit toilets but the nearby visitor center has a bathroom with running water. If you are expecting heavy rain during your trip, please be warned that the group campsite may flood as well as site 17 (this was our experience), but other than that, we would stay here again. You are close to Santa Elena and about an hour drive to Chisos Basin, Panther Junction, and Terlingua and there is plenty of space at each site for multiple tents.

The park was beautiful and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

Beautiful location and very tidy restrooms.
I'm sad that most of the namesake cottonwoods were cut down and there's less shade available.

We were disappointed that any cottonwoods that may have been growing in the area apparently burned within the last few years. Also, although there are signs warning you that low-lying parts of the campground may be flooded by irrigation, it doesn't look like it's been irrigated in a long time. There was no grass. This is all in contrast to some photos that are around, showing green grass and leafy trees. But there are decent areas for pitching tents. There are some sparse large mesquites that cast some shade. The parking spot was level for our van. The other sites in general look fairly level. We appreciate that there was a campground in this remote location, and enjoyed visiting the Castolon Historic District and Santa Elena Canyon (and a couple of other interesting sites) without having to do a ton of driving. The bathrooms were decent (vault toilets, toilet paper, hand sanitizer in dispensers), and there is a campground host who checks on things a bit. There are trash and recycling bins. The picnic table was in good shape, as was the charcoal grill. A note about the grill - you can't lower the grate, so you need to use a lot of charcoal to generate enough heat to cook. If you could lower the grill, then fewer coals would be enough to cook a few items. I didn't verify this myself, but I heard there is a potable water spigot at one end of the campground (near the entrance), and the spigot at the far end (near where we camped) was signed as non-potable. If there are any hiking or walking trails accessible at this campground, I didn't see any signs for them. There's a little store in Castolon, a short drive (probably not a great walk along the road) away. Dawn was really pretty. I recorded seven bird species in a minute with the Merlin app around sunrise. I would camp here again if the plan is to do a bit of hiking in the area. It's certainly not a destination on its own.