Lockhart Road Dispersed Camping

Yes, lots of opportunity to get creative, but even more opportunity to get yourself so stuck in deep sand that it will cost at least a grand to get a truck to come pull you out. Also extremely crowded during the late spring and early fall. Keep in mind you are probably at least 50 miles from the nearest service. Lots of ATV and motorcycle traffic. That said if you get a spot it’ll likely be wonderful!

As amazing as Needles district is, this campground really blew our socks off. Drive right past Hamburger Rock and the first few pulloff sites, then you'll find yourself in the midst of a sea of red rock hoodoos, as much fun to climb as they are to admire from afar.

The dark skies at this park are just about the best I've ever seen, and we've camped all around Moab. Shooting stars abound, and looking up at the twinkling sky framed by such cool and unusual rock formations only amplifies the effect.

Now for the guts: you won't get much for cell service out here, we got a bar or two of Verizon but it was spotty. Our AT&T wifi router was even spottier. The Access is good, but not great. Our spot was just a few miles in and there was one wash to cross, but we cleared it fine with our dually and 43' rig. I think if you went much further this would get tough for big rigs, but I can't be sure - this road goes a very long ways.

If you have a big rig I would recommend scouting ahead and making sure a spot is available before going too far down this road. Like most BLM sites, the spots for big rigs are limited, but great if you can get one. The bonus here is that there are so many dispersed sites, there are plenty of opportunities to get creative, which if you're into boondocking a lot, you're probably used to :)

We didn't have any problems with noise, neighbors, generators, etc. This area is less popular with offroaders than the zoo of Moab, so it's much quieter overall. Cleaner than most BLM sites around Moab too.

Location is stellar in the fact that you're 15-ish minutes from the Needles entrance. There aren't a lot of amenities around, only the camp store in Needles which is....expensive, and limited. So make sure you pack in pack out.

I chose to go to one of the first sites on the trail, like a 20 second drive off the main road. It was behind a bunch of big rocks so it was still very private.
-Free!
-Close to the road, or you could drive for miles it looks like to more spots
-Right next to some cool climbable rocks
-Did it in my low-clearance, 2WD Hyundai Veloster
-Enclosed pit toilets 1/4 mile up the road at the Hamburger Rock campground, or a 10 min drive to the visitor center with 24/7 clean indoor bathrooms
-No service at the site, but drive up to Hamburger and I had 1-2 bars LTE with AT&T

Went in mid-January and I had the whole area to myself. There wasn’t even a single camper at the Hamburger Rock paid campground 1/4 mile up the road. I would absolutely stay here again.

This is a beautiful area with nicely spread out dispersed sites. There's an outhouse on the road at the Hamburger Rock campground (BLM) as well as another one further down the road. We were here in mid-October which is a busy time as the weather is just about perfect. We had a couple of nights with an ATV down and back between 2am and 3am (to the outhouse maybe?), but then Friday night came and it got very busy with ATVs and LOTS of people.

This is just outside the Needles District of Canyonlands NP, so a very good option if you will be there (and Newspaper Rock is an interesting stop on your way in or out). There's a private campground just outside the park entrance (Needles Outpost) with a small store that sells ice and a few groceries, and there is water available in the park at both the visitor center and the campground.

The road in is dirt - a little bumpy but accessible by any car and the size of the sites varies quite a bit. We were impressed by how clean the area was - far better than many dispersed sites we frequent in Northern Colorado.

We went past Hamburger Rock, and just before the rode went down to the group campsite we found a site on the left side of the rode overlooking the gorge. It was our first boondocking experience and it was the best and convinced us that we need to do this whenever we can. The reviews here really helped us find the place and convince us that this was the spot. I do believe this was the best spot on this road, we drove further North the next morning and found nothing that compared.
38° 12′ 21″ N, 109° 40′ 23″ W

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.