Agency-listedUtah Trust Lands Administration · dispersedFree

Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Drive-up · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT · 37.26551, -109.67498

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Utah Trust Lands Administration lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.

FREE dispersed camping on Utah STATE TRUST LAND (SITLA), San Juan County. OpenStreetMap maps 3 camp spots in this immediate area; the pin is on one of them. This spot is unnamed on the map -- there is no sign and nothing to ask for by name. This is genuinely free: Utah charges no fee, permit, licence or pass to camp on trust land. State rule R850-12-500 lets anyone maintain a non-commercial campsite here without written authorization, and the state's own Trust Lands page confirms no permit is needed for short-term, low-impact camping. THE RULES YOU MUST FOLLOW (R850-12): 15 days maximum in one spot within any 30 days, and once you leave you may not re-camp within a 5-mile radius for 15 days; camp at least 100 feet from any water; keep vehicles within 100 feet of an established (authorized) route and do NOT drive cross-country; campfires only inside an EXISTING fire ring (building a new ring needs agency permission), burning only clean dry firewood or charcoal, and you may gather downed wood but not cut standing trees; pack out all trash; bury human waste at least 8 inches deep and 200 feet from any camp or water and pack out all toilet paper; no fireworks; leave no property unattended over 72 hours. WHAT TO EXPECT: nothing built. Utah runs NO developed campgrounds on trust land, so this is primitive dispersed camping -- no toilet, no water, no table, no fee station. Bring your own water and pack everything out. IMPORTANT -- CHECKERBOARD LAND: Utah trust land is scattered one-square-mile sections mixed in with BLM, Forest Service and PRIVATE land, and the boundaries are invisible on the ground. Before you camp, confirm you are actually on trust land using a SITLA plat or the Utah Trust Lands map, respect any adjacent private, leased or grazing land, and obey any closure the agency has posted at the site or on its website (it may close areas at any time). Some parcels in this part of the state are inholdings inside a national monument -- the state rules above govern the parcel itself, but follow federal rules on the surrounding land. CAVEATS, honestly: we have not visited, and no source describes this particular spot -- the legal right to camp free here is very well documented, but how usable or pleasant the site is, is not. Confirm current rules and closures with the Utah Trust Lands Administration (trustlands.utah.gov, 801-538-5100) before you go.

USGS topo — contours & terrain

USGS topographic map of Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Aerial — USGS / NAIP

Aerial image of Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Weather outlook — at Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Loading the latest forecast…

Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 4,332 ft.

Fire & smoke — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)NIFC · AirNow

Checking active fires & air quality…

Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.

Everything you need — measured from Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT

▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.

Nearest of each

EVEV fast charger6 mi
FFuel6 mi
GGrocery6 mi
LLaundry6 mi
@Mail7 mi
WWater7 mi
+Urgent care20 mi
HHardware26 mi
MMechanic35 mi
RxPharmacy46 mi
AAir-up54 mi

≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 6 mi out.

Not within 60 mi: Dump, Propane. Plan those before you head up.

One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗

The site — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Access

Drive-up

Land

Utah Trust Lands Administration · dispersed

Elevation

4,332 ft

Ground slope

1% · flat

State

Coordinates

37.26551, -109.67498

Cost

Free

Nearby & resupply — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT (OpenStreetMap)

Water featureSnake Canyon (stream) · mapped within 1.6 mi
USGS NHDno named surface water within 1 mi
Nearest townTselakai Dezza · ~4.7 mi
Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
Drinking waterDrinking water · ~6.9 mi
FuelSinclair · ~25.9 mi
Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
GroceriesStore · ~26.1 mi
Hospital / clinicMontezuma Creek Community Health Center · ~20.6 mi

EV charging — from Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearest public DC fast charger6.0 mi straight-line E — STATE OF UTAH BLUFF EAST 2 · ChargePoint Network · CHAdeMO, CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
Public DC fast stations within reach2 within 25 mi · 6 within 50 · 23 within 100 · 72 within 150
Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)27.2 mi — Blanding, UT - Tesla Supercharger, Blanding
Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)39.8 mi — SKY KIVA VILLAGE, Cortez, CO · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
Also listed, not counted aboveLevel 2, restricted access — Desert Rose Inn, Bluff, 5.8 mi · J1772 · hours: 24 hours daily; for guest use only · AFDC lists it “Free”
Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 167233 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center

Nearby restrooms — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

RestroomMexican Hat Toilet · ~12.8 mi SW · BLM
RestroomFish And Owl Toilet · ~16.4 mi NW · BLM
RestroomComb Wash Toilet (East) · ~16.7 mi N · BLM
RestroomComb Wash Toilet (West) · ~16.8 mi N · BLM

Coming out here — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) · Utah Trust Lands Administration · UT

Surface water mapped nearby: Snake Canyon (stream). That is wash water at best, and nobody has checked it for you — a creek can be dry and a tank can be mud. Filter or boil anything you drink. USGS maps no named surface water within 1 mi of the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022).
Ground slope around the pin: about 1% — flat. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.

Open Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750) elsewhere

Google satellite →Gaia GPS →CalTopo →Back to the map →

Other camps near Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

Sand Island Campground~3.1 mi
Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.3510, -109.6289)~6.4 mi
Cigarette Springs Camp 4 (Utah Trust Land)~12.4 mi
Snow Flat Camp 4 (Utah Trust Land)~15.0 mi

Who holds the land at Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as State Trust Lands, manager on record: The State of Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (state). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.

How we know this — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Stay limit

15 nights (15 days/30)

Source

public land records

Confidence

Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.

How it was placed

Coordinate: OpenStreetMap node/10295847391 (tourism=camp_site), a real mapped camp object (cluster member nearest the centroid of 3 points), NOT a synthetic centroid. Land status channel A (authoritative agency cadastre): point-in-polygon INSIDE Utah Trust Lands' own ownership layer https://gis.trustlands.utah.gov/server/rest/services/Ownership/UT_SITLA_Ownership_LandOwnership_WM/FeatureServer/0 with agency='SITLA' / desig='State Trust Land' / label_state='Utah State Trust Lands', 58 m inside the parcel boundary (> 40 m margin so 1:24k cadastre + OSM node error cannot misclassify). Land status channel B (independent federal): BLM National SMA https://gis.blm.gov/arcgis/rest/services/lands/BLM_Natl_SMA_LimitedScale/MapServer/1 returns ADMIN_AGENCY_CODE='ST' (State) at this point, ruling out checkerboard bleed onto BLM/USFS. Free-camping authority: Utah Admin. Code R850-12-500 (non-commercial camping WITHOUT written authorization; 15 days/30, >100 ft from water; last substantive amendment 2021-04-01; word census over full rule text: 'license' 0, 'pass' 0, 'sticker' 0, 'charge' 0, and every 'fee' hit is 'feet'/'feeds', every 'permit' hit the verb or a grazing carve-out), statute 53C-1-302(1)/53C-2-301(1). Licence/pass asymmetry checked both directions: no camper gate (the DWR Hunter Access Agreement is an inter-agency payment for HUNTING access, not a camping fee). Excluded objects tagged fee=yes or named/operated as a State Park, USFS site or developed 'Campground'/'Designated'/numbered-Site facility. All sources keyless/public. Verified 2026-07-21. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.

EV chargers

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

Field check

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.

What we don’t know about Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.

Road surface & last-mile access
How many rigs actually fit
Cell coverage by carrier
Seasonal & winter access
Current fire restrictions
Whether any water here is drinkable
Shade & wind exposure
Noise and who else shows up
Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it

Before you go — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)

Finding water out here →Dumping grey & black →Hot-weather camping →Power off-grid →All field notes →

Is this page wrong about Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (37.2655, -109.6750)?

This page was built from a public land record, not from a visit. If you have actually pulled in here and it does not match, that is worth more than anything we can read off a map. Tell Dave what is off — it goes to him, not onto the page.

Anything else, in your own words (optional)Your email — optional, and only so Dave can ask you a follow-up. It does not go on a list, and nobody is promising you a reply.

A reader report is not a fact, and this one will not change a word of this page by itself. Dave reads it and checks it against the agency’s own record, because that record is what this site says. If reader reports are ever shown here they are labelled “reader report, unverified” with the date, and they are never merged into the agency fields.