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Agency-listedUtah Trust Lands Administration · dispersedFree

Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)

Drive-up · public land · UT · 38.42200, -109.44862
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The land manager 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 2 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 (38.4220, -109.4486)
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Aerial image of Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)
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Weather outlook — at Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 5,355 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)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 (38.4220, -109.4486) · public land · UT

15 MI30 MI60 MIYOUR CAMPN ↑Water · 11 miWDump · 11 miDShell · Fuel · 8 miFGrocery · 8 miGPharmacy · 11 miRxStandard Plumbing Supply Company · Hardware · 10 miHArrowhead MotorSports · Mechanic · 8 miMMoab Laundry · Laundry · 11 miLShower · 13 miShAir-up · 12 miAUrgent care · 54 mi+Gearheads Outdoor Store · Outfitter · 11 miOMoab Post Office · Mail · 12 mi@Moab, UT - Tesla Supercharger · EV fast charger · 12 miEV
Straight-line miles · bearings approx · roads run longer
Nearest of each
  • MMechanic8 mi
  • FFuel8 mi
  • GGrocery8 mi
  • HHardware10 mi
  • DDump11 mi
  • WWater11 mi
  • LLaundry11 mi
  • RxPharmacy11 mi
  • OOutfitter11 mi
  • @Mail12 mi
  • EVEV fast charger12 mi
  • AAir-up12 mi
  • ShShower13 mi
  • +Urgent care54 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water

The read: water's a short hop out, fuel & food sit about 8 mi out.

Not within 60 mi: 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 (38.4220, -109.4486)

Access
Drive-up
Land
public land · dispersed
Elevation
5,355 ft
State
UT
Coordinates
38.42200, -109.44862
Cost
Free

Nearby & resupply — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486) · public land · UT (OpenStreetMap)

  • Water featureStream · nearby
  • Nearest townMoab · ~11.7 mi
  • Drinking waternone within 10 mi
  • FuelE's Market Fuel · ~13.2 mi
  • Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
  • Dump station~10.8 mi
  • GroceriesStu Mart · ~11.0 mi
  • PharmacyPharmacy · ~11.4 mi
  • Hospital / clinicMoab Regional Hospital · ~12.2 mi
  • HardwareStandard Plumbing Supply Company · ~10.4 mi

EV charging — from Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486) · public land · UT — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)

Nearby restrooms — around Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486) · public land · UT — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Open Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486) elsewhere

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Other camps near Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

Snow, and when this opens

The nearest automatic snow station is Lasal Mountain-Lower at 8,780 ft, about 9 miles away. It sits about 3,425 ft higher than this camp, so treat it as a guide rather than a reading for this spot. We do not repeat a depth here, because any number we stored would be stale by the time you read it — the station publishes today's.

Lasal Mountain-Lower snowpack, from NRCS →

How we know this — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)

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/5830271352 (tourism=camp_site), a real mapped camp object (cluster member nearest the centroid of 2 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', 327 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 (38.4220, -109.4486)

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.

Before you go — Utah Trust Land Dispersed Camping — San Juan County, UT (38.4220, -109.4486)

Finding water out here →Stay limits →Your first dispersed night →Power off-grid →All field notes →
Been here? Tell us what changed. This page is built from public records, so the fastest way it gets better is somebody who has actually pulled in. Road washed out, site gone, gate locked, or it is exactly as described — all of it useful. Send a report →