Forest Road 281 Dispersed Camping

Absolutely gorgeous camping spot. We got there about 5pm and a lot of the sites were taken; we saw about 4 other campers. Found a beautiful spot close to another camper right on the creek. No cell coverage, no facilities, really nice to get away and feel adventurous in the woods and mountains. Could hear highway traffic but not too loud. ATVs were driven around, but stopped about 9:30pm. Started again and around 7am. Road in is 3km and the gravel is very big, not great for cars but we went really slow in our Acadia and made it through just fine. Would be great to have a truck to get to some of the sites by the creek. Would definitely stay again. Our solar panel wouldn’t charge with all the tree cover, however

We stayed six days and this was a great place. The road in is gravel but in good shape. It's a little narrow but you can pass if both parties get over. Lots of nice camping areas. I would recommend going past the second cattle guard. First, there are some great places to camp and second you don't have cows walking through your camp site. We did not mind but cows can be messy, if you get my point.

Lots of ATV's but they were all respectful and it was no problems. You can't beat the price of zero dollars.

There are lots of places to turn around so if you have a larger rig it's not an issue.

No cell service but if you need to make a call got out to the highway and drive towards Alpine, Wyoming about three or four miles and you will have all the service you need.

Great place and we would go back. There is a five day limit and we did push it to the sixth day. We did not see any Forrest people.

If you just must have cell service consider camping across the highway on the reservoir. It's also free but is very busy on weekends.

Loved this place. The road is maintained, there was ATV's but all where respectful of the quiet hours. The road is dirt, so expect dust. Don't settle for the first good looking site, if you go past the second cattle gate you will find the most awesome large site on the stream!!!! (And you wont have cow poop) I couldn't tell you how many sites there are - many, and for all sizes- from tents to Class A's.
The only down side was there was no service.

This is one of the best free campgrounds we’ve ever stayed at. The dirt road was in great shape, there were tons of large campsites for all sizes of trailers, and two awesome hiking/mountain biking/dirt biking trailheads within walking distance.

When you first turn off the highway you have to drive about a mile through private land before you get to the free camping area but there are lots of signs and it’s easy to figure out when it starts.

After the private land, there’s about 2.5 miles of dirt road filled with amazing campsites and most of them are right next to the creek that flows through the entire thing.

We camped in a large spot exactly 2 miles from the highway. We had to use our cell phone booster to get even a small amount of cell phone service and data really didn’t work at all. If you need cell service you should try and get one of the campsites closer to the beginning of the road.

You don’t have to worry about finding a spot to turn around because the road ends at a large parking area with a vault toilet you can easily turn any size of rig around in.

There are signs that say there’s a 5 day camping limit but we never saw any forest rangers enforcing it the week we were there.

I suggest getting there by at least Thursday because by Friday night every single campsite was taken and then some. We even had some tent campers crowd in next to us for a night because there was nothing else available.

There was hardly any trash anywhere, and we were protected from the afternoon winds that blow most days down by the reservoir.

Even though you’re not camping right next to the reservoir it’s just a short drive to great swimming and fishing and the only noise at night is from the creek. The only disturbance was the ATVs and dirt bikes during the weekend but that’s pretty standard for all BLM land.

We will definitely be staying there again.

When we arrived there was a notice that a Youth Group had acquired a permit to host at least 100 children in several sites and we almost turned around and kept going. However when we drove down the road we found it was very long and most sites were very spread out, spread out enough that we couldnt hear them at all and we were two sites down from the edge of their camp. We stayed in a site that was lower than the main road and thus had a hill for privacy, with a creek and trees on the other side. This has been a top favorite spot of ours, ever.

The site we were in was very big and could be a group site however this particular site was not suited for large RVs or trailers unless you are very skilled. It was a steep hill with a sharp turn and several large uneven dips in the road. There are however many other sites that are far more accessible. The road was fair in accessibility, no big rigs due to tree branches and some river rocks, but pull behinds would be fine in most spots.

No verizon serrvice.

No litter but someone did leave a cute plastic Buddha statue on a tree stump. It looked like it had been there a while.

This road is directly across from the Palisades Reservoir. It's only 3-4 miles long, but along the route are at least 20 different established boondocking sites. Many are large enough for multiple RVs and most are situated alongside a creek. At the time of our visit, (last week of June) the river was swollen with snowmelt and threatening to overflow its banks in spots. We choose a site pretty far up the road. It was one of the few that could only fit a single RV. We thought it might get busy during the upcoming 4th of July weekend and we were right. This is a popular spot for the locals who all bring along trailers full of ATVs. If you're planning to visit on a weekend you can expect lots of ATV noise with some random gun shots thrown in there just for fun.

Despite the noise, we enjoyed our riverside spot and the two hiking trails that branch off the road. This is a great location if you want to paddle around the reservoir or hike any of the nearby trails (we highly recommend the Upper Palisades Lake Trail).

Come prepared with supplies because the closest town is Alpine where they have no grocery store or laundromat. They do have an awesome brewery though with a large patio overlooking the reservoir.

There are two dump stations nearby. A Chevron station to the south in Alpine and the Riverside Park Campground to the north just past the dam. We used that one on our way north. It's $5 to dump and while the dump station doesn't have potable water the camp host said we could go into the campground to fill up. They also told us that we were welcome to use their dumpster. It's a boondockers dream come true!

A note about cell service: We got 1 bar of Verizon on the first mile of the road. Unfortunately, all those sites were taken and by the time we found an open one we had no Verizon or AT&T. With our booster and directional antenna, we were able to pick up one bar of Verizon. If you just want to check email or make it call it would be enough, but if you're trying to work full-time like we are it was pretty slow and frustrating. The good news is that the signal in Alpine is great and the brewery opens every day at noon!

Instead of staying on the large, crowded, reservoir, we enjoyed our very own river-side camping spot, huge trees, and lots of privacy. There are two nice trails worth hiking out here a well. Some quads venture out here, but not too many as the road dead ends about 3 miles out. Lots of options of sites to choose from all along those 3 miles. The site at the map pin has enough Verizon signal to get by, but only just. Boost it and you will be happy. The rest of the dirt road does not fare so well.

Holiday weekends, this place packs them in.