Commissary Park and the smallest wilderness in Wyoming
The Encampment starts in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness in Colorado and runs 44.7 miles north to the North Platte, and the top of its Wyoming run is the Encampment River Wilderness in the Medicine Bow National Forest. Designated in 1984 at 10,124 acres, it is the smallest wilderness in the state, with an average elevation of 7,800 feet. The Forest Service warns that downed trees block access every year. The south end is reached from Commissary Park Trailhead: take WY 70 west from Encampment 6 miles to Forest Route 550, go 16 miles to FR 496, and continue 4 miles to the trailhead. It is open mid-June through October, and the Forest Service notes large trees still across the trail and a section that slumped in the 2014 runoff. Groups are capped at 12 people and stock, and camps must be 100 feet from water and trails.
Nearby Hog Park Campground, on the southeast shore of Hog Park Reservoir, has 50 sites at $20 a night from mid-June until the gates close in mid-September. The upper USGS gauge, above Hog Park Creek at 8,259 feet, drains only 72.7 square miles; it averages 592 cfs in June and 45 in August, which gives you a feel for how small this water gets.
The BLM trail south of town
Between the wilderness and the town of Encampment, the canyon is foot country. The BLM's Encampment River Campground has 8 sites at $10 a night, a vault toilet and no drinking water, open June through mid-November; the trail upstream is open to hikers all year and closed to motor vehicles. To get there, turn left on County Road 353 about a quarter mile west of town, go a mile south to BLM Road 3407, and the campground is about three quarters of a mile on. BLM says rainbows and browns are both abundant. On the same county road, about 2 miles south of town, the WGFD Encampment River Public Access Area, run jointly with BLM, gives walk-in access on a signed easement; no camping, and the road is not plowed in winter. WGFD lists brook trout for that stretch.
Riverside to the Platte: artificial flies and lures only
Wyoming Game and Fish treats the Encampment as Area 5 water, the North Platte drainage, and gives it one special rule in the 2026 regulation: from Wyoming Highway 230 at Riverside downstream to the confluence with the North Platte, fishing is by artificial flies and lures only, which WGFD defines as excluding any living or dead organism, food, scent or chemical attractant. Above the highway the standard Area 5 stream limits apply: 3 trout, no more than 1 over 16 inches, plus 16 brook trout. The season is open all year, around the clock.
The best public spot in the flies-only reach is the Baggot Rocks access area, 4 miles northeast of Riverside off County Road 680, with two parking areas and a mile of pedestrian access on a State Land Board easement; WGFD says the river there fishes well for browns and rainbows all year. There is no camping or campfires. Nonresidents pay $14 a day, $56 for five days, or $102 a year with a $21.50 conservation stamp.
What the mouth gauge says in June and in August
The gauge on this page sits near the mouth, below Riverside, draining 262 square miles, so it reads the whole river. Its long-term means show a sharp snowmelt year: 810 cfs in May, 1,152 in June, then 261 in July, 64 in August and 56 in September, with October slightly higher at 86. Brush Creek Ranch, which guides the Platte valley, says runoff usually peaks in the first week of June. No shop publishes a wading range, so the 55 to 260 cfs band here is the USGS record from September back to July, the post-runoff wading season. In the two weeks to September 24, 2026 the river ran as low as 14.3 cfs and spiked to 69 after rain on September 20. Medicine Bow Anglers in Saratoga links the Encampment level on its river conditions page. In a hot, low August, fish the mornings; Brush Creek stops its guides at 68 degree water in low years.
A Platte valley bug calendar
No one publishes an Encampment-only chart. Medicine Bow Anglers, the Saratoga shop that bought Hack's Tackle in 2019 and guides the Upper North Platte and Encampment, says the valley is best known for three hatches: salmonflies, green drakes and Tricos. Brush Creek Ranch fills in the calendar. Blue-winged olives, caddis and early stoneflies come mid-March to mid-May. Salmonflies hatch for up to two weeks in the runoff window, and as the water drops through late June come caddis, Yellow Sallies, PMDs and green drakes. From mid-July to mid-August Tricos hatch heavily on the North Platte and the Encampment and hoppers, beetles and ants join in; the Trico fall fades by early to mid-September as olives return, and terrestrials last into late September. Brown trout spawning brings streamer fishing in October until the river freezes.