Campground, cabins, and a restaurant in the junction town of Hanksville. The campground is reasonably priced. The restaurant has frustrating service and indifferent food, but it's a short walk.
Pleasant, well laid out, reasonably priced campground.
Pretty name, but kind of a dusty little trailer park of a campground. It felt like a lot of folks there are semi-permanent residents. There is a tiny creek. A short walk up the hill is the town of Mantua, where there is a reservoir and a swimming beach. The full service town of Brigham City is a right down the hill.
The campground itself is kinda noisy, but it's a better camping experience than Yellowstone, because you can walk to the lodge and the canyon rim.
Ten miles of washboard-y gravel road off of Utah 121. Not worth it as it turns out. A very full open-top trash barrel in the middle of the camping area and not even a porta-potty. Some cool big boulders at the edge of the camping area, but otherwise nothing interesting. Update: The signs were (IMO) misleading. I am not at the official camping area. In the morning I chose not to subject the van to 10 more miles of this bumpy, dusty road, so I will probably never know what it's really like. :)
Quite a nice semi-dispersed camping area. One mile off US 6 on paved Sheep Creek Road. A big field on a bluff overlooking the valley. It would be nice if they had a portapotty, but they don't.
On a hill, some sites have a great sunset view. New and very well laid out
on a little creek near the busy road = occasionally sketchy neighbors
Right on the beautiful and swift-flowing Green River. Migratory birds. Winter grazing for big game (elk, mule deer), the occasional moose they say. Biggest thing I saw was a dragonfly, but the place is beautiful and remote. Getting here entails about 20 miles of gravel road, most of it pretty nice. The rest is rough and washboardy.
Very hot here, tried to choose a site for morning shade. There is a nice trail up the river. Sunset against the mountains across the river is beautiful.
One more in the string of handy, heavily used campgrounds up the Colorado River on Utah 128 from Moab. This one is past Drinks Canyon CG, and right before Big Bend CG. It's very small, 7 sites. So named I think, because sites 6 and 7 re hidden away in a little grove of scrub oak.
bad: right next to a dusty, gravel road good: right next to a happily burbling brook I am here because the campground a mile away is closed for the season, so my hope is there won't be much traffic on this road tonight.
Heading north out of Moab, take a left before the Colorado River and head upstream. There are a string of BLM campgrounds along the river. This is the sixth one, about eight miles out. It is more deluxe than Drinks Canyon, it actually has a bathroom and a dumpster! Campsites here are bigger, RV sized, but equally Spartan -- a picnic table and a fire pit, that's it. But you are on the Colorado River!
A few short miles up the canyon from lovely Logan UT. The next campground up, Spring Hollow sounded nicer, but was FULL on Labor Day Friday. My modest little campground is NOT reservable, so there were still two of the ten sites available. I feel lucky.
Heading north out of Moab, take a left before the Colorado River and head upstream. There are a string of BLM campgrounds along the river. This is the third one, about six miles out. It is three sections, the pay station is in the middle. A campsite consists of a picnic table and a fire pit close to a busy road, that's it. But you are on the Colorado River!
Very basic motel on Center St, about five blocks south of Center and Main, the core of any good Mormon town. A lot of semi-permanent residents. Not really sketchy, just poor. Indoor pool and jacuzzi were very nice.
Tidy little place near the center of a tidy little Mormon town.
Was called the Bear Lake Lodge until recently. The old motel seems to be some kind of doomed placeholder for a deluxe extended stay place "coming soon". Great location, the lake directly in back, pizza place to the north and a nice modern place that even serves beer to the south ... which turns out to be the same owners as the motel.
Very hot here. But it's a dry heat. The lake sounds kind of underwhelming from the BLM page, but there is a boat ramp and picnic area which looks like it has the best morning shade in this whole godforsaken acreage. The actual campground is a few hundred yards up the road before the boat launch. Once the sun got low it was really very pleasant there. Hawks and owls hanging out in the tree at my campsite!
There is one big pool with a little waterfall, then up the hill are some bathtubs for your own private soak overlooking the wide valley. Really cool setup. Camping area is 200 yards down the hill. The pools are spectacular and the actual camping area is pleasant but rest of the property is extremely derelict. Walking up the crappy trail to the bathtubs in flip flops is hard for a 70-year old. It's pretty dangerous coming back down in wet flip-flops! Electric hookups and tent/van sleeping seem to be the same price.