Utah Camping Advice

I'm driving from Portland OR to St. George March 1st. Looking for a place to pull off 2-3 hours north of St. George and deploy the roof top tent for a nights sleep before proceeding on to St. George the next morning for 5 days of mountain biking. I checked Utah Lake State Park, which seems like an ideal distance, but it is closed for maintenance.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks
tk

 

Meadow Hot Springs is a very popular hotspring that you can check out. I wouldn't suggest camping there, but I have done it before, but proximate to the hotspring are some lava tubes that you can also explore. Near the lava tubes you can find some pretty decent camp spots. Bonus: it is right off the highway and its all dirt roads!

 

Carry a real big gun

 

Dixie National Forest is awesome. Just pick a forest road till you find a place to park, there's plenty of established camp sites. There's also fish lake NF. You can camp anywhere in any NFs as long as you're 50ft off forest road. My avatar pic is in Dixie NF

 

Why

 

same question haha

 

*arms up...loads magazine*

....Yeah, but why?

 

2-3 hrs north of St George will be cold & snowy.....storm this weekend...finally....

don't go driving up the Forest roads & get stuck/lost/stranded.....driving I-15 ?

US SR 89 is more scenic slower paced.....along with the SR Hwy 12 scenic loop on return

but again.....6000' in January is cold.....temps will be much warmer in St George @ 2900'

 

I have camped from one end of this country to the other and always carried a sidearm with me. The only time ive ever felt threatened was by a cougar encounter while hiking in Kaibab National Forest on the North Rim. Luckily I didn't have to use it.

 

42% of Utah is BLM land, just boondock for free wherever you want

 

What he said,you dont want to be on the dinner menu and god forbid yourun accross some of them dueling banjo player mountain men

 

I spent 5 weeks camping in Utah without a gun last year, must be doing something wrong!

 

What was you thinking

 

I've been camping around there for years and lots of other places. I have one because I always carry one, Never felt threatened by anyone I've met while camping or hiking.

 

its not the 4 legged critters.......

a lion attack would be rare......bear more common.......

its the whackos you gotta worry about......

pack hardware & know how to use it......

and keep it secure ! this link......a recent incident......

'better to be judged by 12...than carried by 6'

https://www.ksl.com/?sid=46238613&nid=148

 

No thanks. Guns aren't for me.

 

Utah isn’t having a winter this year. Apparently too many Utahns went skiing on Sunday last year, now we’re paying for it.

 

Wait, so are you guys saying you can basically drive *anywhere* in Utah and pull over on the side of the road and camp for free? Not right in a city obviously. Does it have to be in National Forest area? Or?

 

Perhaps not *anywhere* but probably close to half of it. And about 75% of Nevada. Most BLM and NF land has free dispersed camping most anywhere you want. There will often still be fire regulations (may require a campfire permit and have portions of the year that no fires are allowed). But indeed in most of the western states (including large chunks of CA) most of the federal lands are open for camping "wherever". Read regulations in advance for details as to where allowed.

This was a few minutes off of the I-15 around Cove Fort which is a couple hours north of St. George this past summer:

 

cool. I've wanted to take a 10-12 day roadtrip from the Bay Area and explore around Utah and hit areas like Zion, Bryce, Capital Reef, Canyonlands etc....I was thinking cheap hotels/motels. Camping like this would save a ton of money and I would avoid all the "tourist campers" for the most part. Just need to be strategic about it