Miners Canyon Dispersed Camping

We chose to stop here while headed North through Utah. The location is easily accessed on 68 either from the north or south depending on which way your heading.

We pull a 40 ft 5th wheel so big rigs can make it in. There are not many big rig sites, maybe 5 or so. Sites are not clearly marked. The road in appeared to be recently gravelled and very smooth. You can stop just as you turn off 68 and drop trailer or toads to scout availability of a spot. I imagine in summer the place would have more occupants.

The location has beautiful water frontage and snow capped mountains across Utah Lake. However there are no trees or wind breaks. We stayed here in March and were the only campers here. The northern border of the BLM (left side of gravel road as you drive in) is clearly marked as private property and inaccessible. There is a map located on the message board as soon as you pull into the area that also shows this. There is also a shooting area and non-shooting area both designated with sIgns on the BLM and on the entrance map.

The town of Saratoga Springs is about 10 minutes north on 68. It is a beautiful community with a lakeside golf course in upscale housing area. Diesel, Gas, and propane are available within 15 minutes drive. The southside of Utah Lake on 68 is an agricultural area.

At&t coverage was 2 bars 4g lte. T-mobile was 3 bars 3g. Not good enough to stream videos.

We camped here for a week on our way north to a summer job in Yellowstone. Finding it is easy as it's the best road towards the east as you're coming down 68; with a BLM sign marking the location.

You could fit any size rig here, and upon arrival we met a couple from Manitoba who were in a 40ft rig camped right on the ridge above the lake. Another couple with a 35-40ft 5th wheel were camped as well.

Pros:
- The views are spectacular
- Lakeside camping
- Fishing
- Easy access
- Close to Saratoga Springs for groceries and other amenities
- With our Wilson 4GX OTR booster we were easily able to stream with Verizon. AT&T had full bars with the booster, but the signal was so in-and-out it wasn't worth anything.

Cons:
- TONS of local traffic, we saw around 20 cars a day, this may or may not bother you but we've been spoiled by solitude
- People shooting, even though the BLM has banned it in this area
- TRASH, everywhere. Mostly from people shooting in the area. I think this is probably why the BLM has banned target shooting in this area. People seriously need to be more considerate of their environment.

Our favorite thing about this location:
While we were there, in early April, the mountains were snow capped and absolutely beautiful. The views from the lake were better than views from in town, where people pay millions of dollars to afford them.

We were going to stay here a couple of days as we headed up to Salt Lake City but once we got here we LOVED it and decided to stay almost a whole week. The views of the lake are fabulous, cell service is good, and it's a pretty quiet location. However the BLM area with lake views isn't huge and so it can get crowded, especially on weekends.

When you first pull off 68 there are a number of sites without lake views on the other side of the hill. If you continue down the main road a bit more, past the hill you'll come across a couple more spots and a big turn-around area which makes a great spot for a big rig. We took a right on the road that follows the lake on top of the ledge and camped right there (GPS 40.20057, -111.88625). There were a few spots farther down our road as well. If you have a van or smaller vehicle you could go down the steep hill and park right night to the lake.

A word of caution there are A LOT of bugs here. Bigger swarms then we had ever seen. You can actually hear them. However, they do not bite or sting. So while occasionally annoying they weren't too bad. Also the farther from the lake you got, the fewer bugs. There was some trash here but you are no longer allowed to shoot on this side of 68 so it wasn't as bad as some of the BLM we've boondocked on. The peaceful lake in the mornings more than made up for all the cons.

Saratoga Springs is about 15 minutes away (groceries, gas, etc) and Lehi/American Fork are about 30-35 (almost every store here).

Sand burrs! They are everywhere! Our dog couldn't walk anywhere. The bugs are out of control. It was so dirty and full of trash. It looked great online but the reality is not so great. You are not close to the water for kayaking and its mucky and full of bugs. The only reason I give this 2 stars is because of the view was incredible.

This will be a bit different.

We didn't camp near the lake (bugs...experience avoiding them near Utah lake). I wouldn't call the area pretty, but it isn't ugly; it's desert, dry camping. Normally I'd probably bump this up a star--except for the wind and the garbage.

We are LNT campers (Leave No Trace) - but despite the signs (everywhere) stating "No Shooting", there were bullet casings and dead shotgun shells everywhere, with liberal additions of broken glass and blasted hulks of technology. We filled an entire garbage bag before the wind drove us inside for 3 days.

Across the highway, up the hill, people were constantly shooting (which is fine, it's allowed there and they never shot at us, so NO worries!)

Utah Lake is NOT a pretty lake...it's shallow and stinks (sorry folks). But it is a very pretty green'ish color...until the wind.

So, what about this wind?

Wind gusts kicked to over 50 mph. Steady winds at 30-40 mph -- and the weather service hadn't even issued a High Wind warning yet! (They have now! And we've moved! Winds are estimated to gust over 60 mph!!)

With the wind comes dust...white-out conditions, haboob dust storms! Again, we're no stranger to this...but both of us work full-time from our 5th wheel and that dust makes it pretty miserable. We have over 1600 watts of solar on board, but it's not enough to go Condition Red and just button everything up and run the A/C. So we pretty much ran them for 3 days straight with the generator.

At night, the winds mercifully died down enough to open up and temps fell to very pleasant levels (from high 80's-mid 90's to low 60's). A lot of that night time was spent just cleaning up the significant dust and cleaning out the equipment. Despite buttoning up, it does get in and get into everything...it's pretty fine and powdery.

During spring and fall this place would be a lot more pleasant. If it rained you'd have problems due to soil composition and road conditions (scout this place out if you've got a big rig! And use your wheel chocks! It's deceptively off-level!).

Long review. So TL;DR - Garbage, wind, dust. Could be nice during the right time of year so check the weather before you visit and scout carefully! Use your wheel chocks!

-CL

Places is an okay place to stay for free there is gun shooting in the background there in a day. When the wind picks up it's a lot of dust. And at night if you have the lights on you can hear the bugs all over it. If you swim in the water be careful water is kind of polluted.

We stayed here for about a week in late October. I liked it here. The camping area is around a 20 acre area with dirt roads zigzagging thru it. There is the main road that you come in off of the 68 that any size rig can easily negotiate. Then its just short of a mile of decent gravel road to the lake and the large open parking area. If you have a smaller rig or 4X4 you have more options on where to camp.

This is a wide open area with no shade, which was fine in October, it was fairly warm. We parked on the ledge overlooking the lake which gave us a great view. Be careful of nails when driving around, there are a lot by the old fire pits. Besides some primitive fire pits there are no amenities here of any kind. If you do need something there is a town with a Walmart 15 miles North on the 68.

We had no problems with bugs or stickers in our dogs feet this time of year, like I read in some of the other reviews. The lake was alright, very pretty to look at, but it is a bit of a mud pit on the shore line. I went SUPing a couple of times and it was pretty nice, but you have to be careful of the winds. I wouldn't recommend swimming here, as the lake is very shallow and has pollution problems. There is fishing for huge carp and sucker fish if you want, a boat would be helpful to get to the deeper water.

There was a decent amount of trash around here, and a fair amount of people traffic thru out the day. Always some gun fire in the distance, but I still found it to be a peaceful spot to hang out for a few days.

This is a free spot to stop and stay the night. Beautiful view of Utah lake and the mountains beyond! We had just purchased our 30’ Motor home and wanted to take it on a shakedown run. We parked on the ridge closest to the lake and began leveling 3 wheels of the motor home. No perfectly level spots here. We used those lego block type levelers and cracked them on the rocky ground.
The view was awesome. It was a little windy and we thought we were alone for a cool March night but we heard voices and saw a couple others out there the next morning. You can drive a car to the waters edge here but probably not an RV. Not many bugs this early in the season. Lake flies will be crazy later in the summer.

This is a good free spot outside of Salt Lake if you're an optimist. When we arrived we were taken back by all the trash. After filling 2 trash bags full from around our site we decided that was good enough. The spots are spacious and has plenty of room in between. They stayed full the entire time we were there. There is A LOT of traffic here. The traffic is constant during the day and the weekends are busier with more ATVs. With all that being said I did enjoy the location. Beautiful in the quite mornings and lovely at night. Enjoyed waking around the lake and the location. If you can get over the trash and the ppl it's a great spot.

*Very little AT&T service. I could use Netflix but couldn't actually talk on my phone or search the net.
* There were very strong winds every night.
* Saratoga Springs has a decent hot spring (again if you ignore the trash) and a great RCA airport (remote controlled airplanes and helicopters).

It’s been a pretty easy stay here. First day was rainy but felt nice when the sun was out. Can get windy here and not many places to do your business if it’s during the day time but was able to quickly dip behind some bushes. This place was pretty heavily trafficked during the day. Lots of people coming in and out for only a few minutes. A little too windy to have a fire at times. Guaranteed to stay in a different spot every night if you’re driving out of the site during the day. A lot of the same people but tend to want to switch sites during the day? Other than that, easy and only about a 15-30 minute drive into town. Please pick up your trash and other’s when you come!!!