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Dispersed camping · Arizona

BLM Arizona Strip Field Office dispersed camping rules

You can camp up to 14 days in any 28 on this field office's land, with some corridors limited to marked sites. The card below is the whole rule set — every line links the order or page it came from, and all of it was checked on .

14 days in any 28

The Arizona Strip District's camping limit "prohibits camping longer than 14 consecutive days within a 28-day period and requires campers to move at least 30 air miles from a previously occupied camping location" (87 FR 732, Jan 6, 2022 - the final supplementary rule that reinstated the same 14-day limit at Virgin River Canyon Recreation Area effective Feb 7, 2022, "making it consistent with all other public lands within the Arizona Strip Field Office area").

Where you can camp

Designated sites in some areas

"Most BLM lands allow dispersed camping unless an area is posted 'Closed to Camping' or has specific restrictions" (BLM camping program page). On the Arizona Strip, in the western Areas of Critical Environmental Concern "camping is only allowed in existing or already impacted areas," and the ACEC along the rim of Marble Canyon and the wilderness areas are closed to all motorized vehicles (Arizona Strip visitor map). source

Keep your distance

  • Recommended: 200 ft — BLM's national camping guidance: "Stay at least 200 feet from lakes, rivers, and streams to protect water quality." No Arizona Strip-specific numeric water setback was found on official pages. source
  • Western Arizona Strip ACECs (desert tortoise habitat, scenic and riparian resources): "camping is only allowed in existing or already impacted areas" - no new sites. Scope: the ACECs mapped on the Arizona Strip visitor map, not the whole field office. source

Roads and vehicle access

Check the travel maps

BLM travel-management equivalent of the MVUM rule: "Vehicles must stay on designated roads and trails unless the area is specifically designated for off-road vehicle use" (BLM camping program page); on the Strip, "off-highway vehicle use is limited to roads and trails designated by signs" in several western ACECs, and the Marble Canyon rim ACEC and wilderness areas are closed to all motorized vehicles. No published off-route pull-off distance for camping access was found - ask the field office.

Fires right now

We don't watch this office's fire orders yet — check its own site before you light anything. Here's what stage 1 and stage 2 mean when an order is up.

Closures and special orders

Rules checked against the pages linked above — the full list is below the card.

Rules change by forest order and posted signage — confirm with the Arizona Strip Field Office, St. George (UT) at (435) 688-3200 before you go.

How to read these rules

Dispersed camping means camping outside a developed campground — no fee, no table, no toilet, no water. You pick an already-used spot, pack out everything you brought, and the rules above are the whole deal you're agreeing to. The stay limit counts the way the card says it counts, not the way it counts on the forest next door: some places count per spot, some across the whole forest, some inside a radius, and moving a short distance often doesn't restart the clock.

Distance rules come in two shapes. Keep-away rules ("at least 100 feet from water") protect the thing you're camping near; stay-close rules ("within 300 feet of the road") keep vehicles on ground that can take them. A line marked recommended on the card is the office's guidance, not an order — the rest are enforceable rules, and a posted sign at the site beats everything on this page.

On BLM land the travel maps play the same role a national forest's motor vehicle use map plays: they show which routes are open to vehicles, and camping access usually means staying on those routes and pulling into already-used sites just off them.

Fires are a separate rule with a separate clock. Nothing on this page says you can light one — the card's fire line says where that answer lives today. If a fire is allowed when you get there, buy your wood near camp — hauling firewood from home is how tree-killing pests reach new forests, and the BTU chart says what that local bundle is actually worth.

Where these rules come from

Every rule above was read on the office's own pages and orders on the dates shown — nothing here is borrowed from another forest or an old guidebook. The managing agency is Bureau of Land Management, Arizona Strip District.

Before you go