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Dispersed camping · Utah

BLM Moab Field Office dispersed camping rules

You can camp up to 14 days 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 stay limit

BLM Utah statewide dispersed-camping sheet: "There is a 14-day camping limit while occupying any campsite on BLM-managed lands" — no rolling window is stated for Utah. The Moab visitor guide (7/2024) adds the move rule: "Camping on public land is limited to 14 days at a single location. After 14 days, you must relocate to a new site at least 30 miles away from your previous camp."

Where you can camp

Designated sites in some areas

Statewide: "Free dispersed camping is allowed throughout BLM Utah-managed lands except where posted." Moab visitor guide: "Due to high visitation, many areas near developed campgrounds and the city of Moab are closed to dispersed camping"; "Dispersed camping is allowed in areas that have been previously disturbed by camping activities and that lie outside of a camp-only-in-campground zone or designated backcountry zone (see map)." Designated backcountry campsites "are marked with a tent symbol on a brown post." BLM states "The Moab Field Office manages 1,662,581 acres of public lands (91 percent of the field office area) as available for dispersed camping" (2022 Klondike Bluffs press release). source

Keep your distance

  • 300 ft — BLM Utah statewide rule: "Camp at least 300 feet from range improvements. Range improvements can include corrals, gates, livestock waters and livestock pens." The sheet cites 43 CFR 4140.1(b)(7) (interfering with lawful range functions) as the citable violation. source
  • Directional rule, no number: "Do not dispersed camp in the vicinity of developed recreation sites such as picnic areas, campgrounds or trailheads" (BLM Utah statewide sheet); the Moab guide's zone map closes areas near developed campgrounds to dispersed camping. source

Roads and vehicle access

Check the travel maps

BLM travel-management equivalent of the MVUM rule: "Only travel on designated routes" (statewide sheet) and "Stay on designated routes and trails to protect fragile desert soils, plants, and wildlife habitat" (Moab visitor guide). Camp "only in previously disturbed sites or areas" and "do not build new fire rings or create new dispersed campsites." The visitor guide's camping-restrictions map shows the camp-only-in-campground and designated-site zones; georeferenced maps at www.blm.gov/geo-pdf-maps.

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

  • Moab-area camping zones (visitor guide map): camp-only-in-campgrounds and designated-site areas Standing zone restrictions: "many areas near developed campgrounds and the city of Moab are closed to dispersed camping," with designated-backcountry-site zones (brown-post tent-symbol sites) along corridors shown on the guide's camping-restrictions map. A portable toilet system or waste bag "is required for all dispersed camping" throughout Grand County where no toilet is available; wood gathering is prohibited.
  • Klondike Bluffs final supplementary rules (April 26, 2022) In the Klondike Bluffs Mountain Bike Focus Area and a nearby 160-acre parcel: camping limited to designated areas only, portable or established toilets required, and wood cutting/collection prohibited.

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 Moab Field Office at (435) 259-2100 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, Utah - Canyon Country District.

Before you go