Lockhart Road

We stayed here for 3 days while visiting Canyonlands National Park and Arches Nation Park. We stayed at a site about a mile from Hamburger rock. Our views were spectacular and the sunsets were surreal. If you have never seen the night sky before this will definitely blow your mind. Make sure you have extra gas and water when coming down to this spot as we realized we had to drive 1 1/2 hours to get water at the closest gas station. You are 30 plus miles into the canyons which will take you 50 minutes to get back to the main road. There is a trading post that is 5 miles from this location but they weren’t open when we checked. If you don’t have a generator to run your rig then I would recommend staying in the spring or fall. Definitely going to plan our trip back in the cooler months.

We attempted to camp at the Canyonlands Needles campground, but when we arrived at 10am it was already full. We're glad it was full because this BLM spot was great and we could save our $. We grabbed the first available pull-off and it was large and level-- we're 40ft long with our trailer + tow vehicle and the spot could have fit a rig twice as long. It was crazy windy outside, which I'm guessing isn't unusual for this location. Beautiful canyon view sunset & sunrise. No cell signal for Verizon or T-Mobile even with our booster, but we were able to utilize the free WIFI at the visitors center when we needed internet.

We originally planned to camp at Hamburger Rock which is just off the main road on Lockhart. I consider it lucky that Hamburger was full because a drive further down Lockhart Road revealed incredible boondocking spots - most with ample privacy and incredible scenery. We opted for one tucked into rocks and enjoyed the privacy and rock scrambling. Other sites that were already taken looked like they had really good views, as they were higher up. But I don’t think you can go wrong - all of the sites are unique in their own way.

Drive all the way down the road and there’s a waterfall at the end! There’s also a pit toilet past the group campsite on the right.

Only downfall (depending on your perspective) was no cell service. But we certainly didn’t need it here.

The road is well marked for Lockhart Rd. There are a number of places to stay, you have to kind of look around pull offs to see if you fit. We were here in a 40' fifth wheel. The views were incredible. The road in is gravel and in very good condition. There is a campground about a mile down called Hamburger Rock but it is only for tents and small trailers. It's a cool little place, but why pay when you have just as good for free. There is a pit toilet there though. It was quiet with very little road traffic. No Verizon service.

We wanted to spend some time in the Needles area of Canyonlands National Park. The national park campground is very small and was very full when we arrived. Ok, Plan B. We checked out the BLM campground at Hamburger Rock and it was also full. Ok, Plan C. Dispersed camping along Lockhart Basin Road. Score! We found a lovely level site with fantastic views only 5 miles from the national park entrance. There are many boondocking sites along Lockhart Basin Road – you just have to find one that works for your rig size and personal preferences.

We stayed in a fairly large area just south of Hamburger Rock campground. My only knock on this particular area is that because it is large and you can park almost anywhere on the rock, we went from a comfortable three vehicles on Tuesday to a crowded 10 vehicles on Saturday. That lovely view, now it’s the butt end of a CruiseAmerica parked 15 feet in front of me. Sigh. Oh well, next time we’ll look for a smaller site without the potential for so many neighbors. 😊

Lockhart Basin Road is dirt and gets a good deal of traffic (read that dusty) so I’d look for a site that isn’t right off the road. The dispersed area we were in was mostly slickrock, so no worries about getting mired if it rained. Can’t speak for other areas.

We had no Verizon service. The national park visitor’s center has wifi, but it wasn’t reliable during the day – try stopping by after hours, the wifi is still available and there are far fewer people trying to use it.