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Free and paid camping in Utah

594 camps in Utah: 370 free, 224 charge a fee. Every camp that charges is marked fee in the list below — or press Free only to hide them.

Utah is split almost down the middle between two agencies, and they do not sit at the same altitude. Of the 594 camps on this page, 148 are on BLM ground under a single heading, and 204 are on national forest, spread over five units — the Fishlake (53), Dixie (47), Manti-La Sal (38), Ashley (35) and Uinta-Wasatch-Cache (30). The elevations tell you these are two different trips. Where we have a number, the median BLM camp here sits at 4,905 feet and the median forest camp at 7,929 feet. That is not a rounding difference, it is a different season and a different set of rules. Read the unit heading before anything else on this page.

The high country opens late and nobody will give you a date. Utah's forest camping sits high — 48% of the camps we have an elevation for are above 7,000 feet and the highest is 10,574 feet — and at that height snow, not the calendar, decides. The Fishlake gives Big John's Flat, at 10,200 feet, a season of June through October, which is about as specific as anyone in this state gets. For what the shoulder actually looks like: the Manti-La Sal's North Skyline Drive is a gravel road along the Wasatch Plateau, closed every winter and groomed as a snowmobile trail, and the forest's own condition note on it read "5/29/2026: Not passable due to snow." That is the end of May. The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache says most of its gates "close from November to May/June each year, depending on weather," and its road table puts individual Logan-district gates at April 15, June 1 and June 15 — three dates on one district. Check the forest's road-conditions page for the specific road you plan to drive, and do it the week you go. The BLM half of this page averages some 3,000 feet lower and is not governed by the same snowpack, but no BLM Utah source we read publishes a season for it, so treat any month you pick there as your own judgment call.

There is no Utah stay limit. There are five of them, and the two most common numbers are 14 and 16. The Fishlake gives you 16 days, then makes you move at least 5 road miles. The Dixie also gives you 16 days, but the move is 10 miles. The Manti-La Sal drops to 14 days with a 10-mile move, and caps unattended equipment at 72 hours. The Uinta-Wasatch-Cache runs a standing order, in force from August 2022 to August 2032, allowing 14 days in any 30-day period in undeveloped country — but only seven consecutive days at a developed site on the Logan, Ogden, Salt Lake, Pleasant Grove, Spanish Fork and Heber/Kamas districts, and 14 on Evanston/Mt. View. On the Ashley, the High Uintas Wilderness order caps you at 14 consecutive days in one drainage and within a mile of your last camp, holds groups to 14 people, and keeps camp 200 feet off any trail, lake, stream or spring. BLM's Utah sheet is the flattest of the lot: a 14-day limit on any campsite, no fee, no permit, no pass. Same trip, five answers. The Fishlake adds the detail people get caught by — your gear counts against the clock even if somebody else is using it.

Two habits from other states will get you in trouble here. The first is assuming you may camp wherever the ground looks flat. In the busiest country Utah has moved to numbered sites and means it: BLM limits camping in the Hurricane Cliffs Recreation Area, east of Hurricane off Highways 59 and 9, to 56 designated sites, free, with campfires "permitted in steel fire rings only," and its final rules for the Klondike Bluffs area in Grand County limit camping to designated areas, prohibit cutting or collecting wood, and require "use of a portable or established toilet for human waste." That last one is a piece of equipment you have to own before you leave. Where dispersed camping is still open, the setback is not one number either — the Fishlake wants 200 feet from water and never inside 100, the Dixie wants 300 feet from water and 300 from any livestock corral between May 1 and November 15, and both the Dixie and the Manti-La Sal hold you to 150 feet off a designated route to reach a site. BLM Utah's rule is blunter: camp only where somebody already has, do not trench or level, and do not camp near a campground or trailhead. The second habit is checking one fire page. Utah issues restrictions by district, and in the summer this was written BLM's Canyon Country and West Desert districts were both at Stage 2 while Color Country next door was at Stage 1 — open fires of any kind banned on one side of a line and not the other. Every agency here points at the same place, utahfireinfo.gov. Look at it the morning you leave, and look up the district you are actually driving to.

If you have not camped Utah before, start on the Fishlake. It is the largest forest block on this page, it publishes its rules in plain sentences, and it has done the hard part for you: sites like Big John's Flat are established dispersed areas with vault toilets and no fee, so you are not guessing where you are allowed to stop. Read what that forest tells you about the road first, because it is honest — FR-123 up to Big John's Flat is "a narrow dirt road with minimal turnouts," all-wheel or four-wheel drive recommended, and you are asked to stay off the meadows and park on bare soil. Then plan for the two things nothing on this page will provide. Water is the first: "Potable water is not available at this site" is the standard line, and at 10,000 feet in a dry state you should carry every drop you intend to drink rather than count on filtering. Trash is the second — the Fishlake calls it a "Pack-In Pack-Out" camp, the Manti-La Sal states that dumpsters are not available for public use, and BLM Utah says pack out all trash. Bury solid waste in a 6- to 8-inch hole, 300 feet from water, camp and trails, which is the widest of the setbacks any Utah unit asked for and works everywhere on this page. One last thing worth saying because it is what we did not find: none of the Utah forest pages we read puts a mandatory food-storage order over you the way Montana and Idaho do. That is not permission to leave food out. It means the discipline is yours, not a rule's.

See all 594 on the map →

Showing 400 of 594. Utah has more camps than fit on one page, so these are the ones we know most about first — of the 400 listed here, 278 are free and 122 charge a fee. The remaining 194 are all on the map.