Hole in the Rock Dispersed Camping

Hole in the rock road is where most adventures jump off from in Grand-Staircase, so this is a great place to base out of. The campsites are 2 minutes from the main highway so you do not have to take your rig down miles of dirt road, and Escalante is only 10 minutes away.

There are an infinite number of campsites as it's mainly a big field with juniper trees dispersed throughout. It can get a bit dusty if the wind is really whipping, but otherwise a fantastic area. You are supposed to get a permit to camp anywhere in Grand-Staircase, which is free at the visitors center in Escalante, but I have yet to see a ranger.

The cell signal is usable on Verizon with 10mb up and 1mb down, ATT is better at 11mb and 5mb down, T-Mobile is only 4G so only .3mb up. The tower does not seem to be overloaded so it is pretty consistent.

In Escalante you can dump your tanks at the petrified wood state park for $5+$8 entrance fee, no potable water, for that go to the Grand-Staircase visitors center, where you can fill jugs for free. There is laundry at the Canyons of Escalante RV park. Beware that nobody carries single ply toilet paper around here! :D

This camping site is a large meadow just after the turn off onto Hole in the Rock Rd. from Hwy. 12. Easy access for all types of vehicles and all sizes. Great starting point for any adventure in Escalante area. Peaceful quiet meadow area. Dirt road continues farther on past meadow, and it is easy to find a quiet spot. This BLM area is technically in the Grand Escalante Staircase National Monument, so when visiting the visitors center in Escalante, the ranger told us we needed a pass to camp in the area. It is free. Center is only a few minutes from the Hole in the Rock Rd. Escalante town is close by for groceries and gas.

Hole in the Rock Road is a (somewhat) maintained natural surface road that extends for 55 miles into the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Shortly after passing the sign for the national monument there are a couple of dirt side roads with an array of boondocking sites. There are several places that will accommodate rigs of any size and access is pretty easy, especially for the sites nearer the road.

You can use the wide paved area at the NM sign to park your RV and scout ahead – always a good idea. Sites are mostly dirt and can be dusty in high winds, which we had. So we picked a spot in a large, open grassy area. It took a little jockeying to get level, but still easier than many campgrounds.

There is a garbage dumpster along the road near the boondocking sites and fire rings. No other amenities. You do have to get a free permit for dispersed camping. We picked ours up at the Escalante Interagency Visitor Center at 755 W. Main St. Escalante, UT.
One of the advantages to this boondocking site is access to several points of interest and trailheads along Hole in the Rock Road. We visited Devil’s Garden, saw the dinosaur tracks, and did the Peekaboo-Spooky slot canyon hike.

We had only 3 bars of 1x Verizon service unboosted, and managed 3 bars of 4G boosted.

We camped here for a week back in May and had a really nice time. It was pretty busy here but the area is just a big open meadow with some roads criss-crossing it. We pulled in on a Sunday and it was crowded but we found a nice place in the middle to tuck between two large junipers and find some 'privacy in plain site'. Then on Monday when some weekenders cleared out we grabbed a spot on the edge of the meadow that was very quiet and private except for our extremely kind neighbor, who was a retired photographer living out his dream in a tent.

You technically need a free permit to camp here since it is in the national monument. You can get one in town at the visitor center. Although no one ever checked ours, there was a ranger presence there and it's good for the monument to have proof that it is being used for it's designed purpose... 'the enjoyment of the people'.

The hole-in-rock road takes you down to some really cool places in the Grand Staircase Monument area as well as Glenn Canyon / Lake Powell.

The access road is in good shape, and the other roads vary based on how hard the sand is. the town of Escalante has small groceries and water available at the visitor center. The camping is on your right when you start driving down hole-in-rock road. It really is hard to miss but if you get to the large map of the monument along the road, you've gone too far but can see the camping area from there.

UT-12 is considered one of the most beautiful scenic byways in the country, and even won second best in the world once according to the volunteers at the visitor center. It's hard to doubt that claim after having driven the length of it.

p.s. If you have kids or are an adult that likes science projects (me) The soil here is extremely high in calcium carbonate, so put a handful of soil into a cup or jar and pour some white vinegar into it and watch the science happen!! Totally safe, all that is created is carbon dioxide gas and the crystallized calcium.... and mud.

We stayed here in early October, and luckily, it has been dry, or it might have been hard to get very far into this camp area. There's a main camping area, but we accidentally pulled into the first driveway, which had a small berm, and headed down the straight dirt road, almost to the end, where there is
a locked gate! Glad we didn't come this far down with the trailer! We found a nice spot, level, with a fire pit, a couple of junipers for added privacy. It took us 3 tries to get situated, but only needed a block of wood for leveling. Very quiet out here! Yet, it's only a few minutes out of Escalante.

I stopped in at the visitor center and they directed me to Early Weed on Hole in the Rock road. 24 miles in of terrible washboard road!!!

Granted, I could have stayed at the entry to Hole in the Rock right at Hwy 12 (and had cell service), but I was wanting to visit Peekaboo and Spooky slot canyons.

I would NOT recommend this road for any RV. I can't stress enough how rough the washboard was. I really shouldn't have driven it in my Sprinter (I think I only broke one drawer latch, but I haven't given it a thorough look either).

Early Weed was an okay place to camp other than the road in. The site was relatively flat and beautiful with a nice, large cottonwood tree. It was only 2 miles from Dry Fork (the parking area for Peekaboo and Spooky - which I highly recommend. However, I would recommend camping elsewhere and hiring someone to drive you in - 52 miles of washboard is NOT good for an RV!

This area is easy access with huge wide open areas. After spending the first day in the wide open field parking area we found some really nice campsites down the road to the right as you enter camping area with great sunset views.

There are no amenities here, can find what you need in nearby Escalante, but you will pay for the remoteness. Was pretty quiet while we were here, we were by ourselves a few nights. This makes a great spot to camp and check out Spooky and Peek-a-boo gulches. Spooky Gulch was really cool, if you don't mind the squeeze.

Cell service was a bit spotty, but we made it work with the booster, could probably do without. Depends where you camp.

This is a big open field with a few juniper trees here and there. It can get pretty windy and pretty busy (big OHV crowd, lots of generator noise while we were there), but it is a good place to set camp while you go hike some awesome canyons down the very wash boardy Hole-in-the-Rock Road. Make sure to stop at the Escalante Visitor Center to get all the info you need to explore the area.

We set up camp in the huge field/parking area right where hole in the rock connects to SR 12. There is a ton of space for a lot of rigs and some bushy tree here and there that can provide some privacy but overall this has more of a campground feel than being in the middle of nowhere- but hey its free and the views are great and we were lucky to have some very friendly neighbors while we were there. We used it as a one night stop off between Bryce and Capitol Reef while hiking some of Escalante-Grand Staircase NM. If our rig could handle the washboard of hole in the rock we would stay longer and do all the amazing hikes down that road as well- but alas bus suspensions were not made for such things.

We had decent AT&T signal (good for browsing, download not bad, upload terrible)

We found Hole in the Rock camp site just off of BLM-200 Road. For us, this was a perfect area since it was wide open land, so we could turn our RV around easily with our car on the tow dolly and it was right near all of the hikes that we wanted to do. The price = free

From this base camp, we went to some amazing hikes; Peekaboo Gulch, Spooky Gulch, Devils Garden, and Zebra Slot Canyon. All of these hikes were down BLM-200 Road. We stayed here for two days. We even went into nearby town to fill up our Camelback’s and a Jerry jug with free water at the Escalante Visitor Center.

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