Dinosaur South Dispersed Camping

We rolled into the area this afternoon and this was my first choice when we started looking for spots but I honestly didn’t expect it to be available. This spot is unbelievable! We are in the first spot at the top of the hill and the view is unbelievable. I definitely wouldn’t try going any further past the first spot in my 30’. The ruts are definitely too much without some clearance and suspension.

I'm the truck that PatBarb referred to in their review below that continued past the one "easy" spot they were already camped in on Wed 9/28/2022.

We were pulling a 19ft Sol Horizon Rover travel trailer with our Ram 1500 4WD truck and the dirt road became VERY rough to the point that I put the transfer case into 4WD Low and was doing 1-3mph in places to keep our trailer contents from spilling. The road has suffered quite a bit of erosion from heavy rains and there are embankments on both sides. We reached a flat area in the road about a half-mile in and since it was off-season with no other traffic seen we considered camping right there in the middle of the road, but that ended 10min later when a Polaris Razer (or similar) off-road buggy zoomed down that road and around is. Good thing the Rover (boondock) option gives our trailer more ground clearance with off-road tires so I found a place another 100ft down the road where the embankment was short enough to drive over into the flat grassland, with plenty of turn-around space for leaving the next day. We proved it's doable for a trailer our size but not for the under-equipped or faint of heart to proceed past the easy spot. Even the easy spot near the entrance to the road does NOT look big-rig friendly.

The entrance is on the west side of the paved road, which can be confusing as it is not clearly visible coming up the paved road and the more visible dirt road is across on the east side (for the Pug Flat Bluff site).

Anyway, our camp had gorgeous beauty, a herd of about 20 prong horn deer ran by in the morning, no bugs, wildflowers in bloom. This is why we prefer dispersed camping.

You go about 100-200 yards from the road and turn right, and go uphill another 50 yards to the ONE spot (and it is beautiful) for regular clearance vehicles, which is at the top of a little hill. If this spot is taken and you have a higher clearance vehicle you can continue down the road through a dip a quarter mile to the next small plateau and camp there (I watched a truck camper do this). At the site there is even a fair-sized turnaround.
Cautions:
1. I was lucky the site was open because there are no turnaround areas, otherwise, especially if you have a trailer (I have a little pop-up trailer). With my two wheel drive truck I might have had to back all the way back down to the highway, not something I would want to do.
2. Take that first right turn when you come in because if you go straight the road gets pretty funky if you have a regular clearance vehicle - and there are zero turnaround areas.

I wasn't sure what to expect and wasn't disappointed as this was a nice location and totally quiet the 3 days I was there. I hadn't been used in a while and was overgrown with the local grass, but it was level enough that I didn't have to use blocks on my 30-foot TT. I had a bit of a challenge turning around and backing the trailer in as the road is narrow, but once on the site there was plenty of room around the trailer. This would be a lot easier for B-vans and truck campers. The site is hidden from the road and even traffic on the road is very sporadic. Dinosaur National Monument is pretty amazing, but if you're there to see dinosaur fossils, you'd be better off camping near the Jensen UT entrance to the monument. Still a very nice and quiet spot.

It's just a section of prairie off of County Road 161, but the views are gorgeous and it's a free spot to stop near Hwy 40. This spot is just outside of National Monument land that borders the paved road (no dispersed camping) on BLM land. From the county dirt road to the site is about 50 yards of 2-track. It's a little bumpy but street vehicles with normal clearance (Class As, Bs, Cs, and travel trailers) shouldn't have any clearance problems in dry conditions. The only vehicles that might have problems are low-slung diesel pushers or the like. There's room for perhaps 2 or 3 vehicles up to 40 feet at this spot and leveling will be necessary. (My total length with truck and trailer is 40 ft).

The views are amazing, with the cliffs of Dinosaur National Monument visible to the north and expansive views of the plains in every other direction.

There's also another area leading to BLM land right across the paved road that is referenced on freecampsites.net; however, it's downhill from the road and looked a bit muddy when I was there. This additional spot is probably known as "Plug Hat Butte Dispersed Camping" here on Campendium.