The Nonsense of W&J

Changing It Up

After a heat wave in Utah and Arizona, we decided to change our plans and head north to Wyoming for somecooler temperatures.  We tend to change our plans a lot while traveling.  And, it is easier to switch it up this year (2024) while traveling in only a truck.  Originally on our way to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, we were going to disperse camp near Salt Lake, Utah.  However, we couldn’t find any good camping spots.  Campendium did show a couple in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.  However, when we tried to find them, we ended up driving down a narrow, steep one lane road in our dually.  Let us just say some butt puckering occured.  So, we decided to spend a few days disperse camping on the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/uwcnf/recarea/?recid=9908 on Utah 150.

Mirror Lake Recreation Fee

We find our dispersed camping through a Campendium app on Jessica’s phone and an iOverlander app on Windell’s phone.  When we drove to the GPS coordinates on Campendium, we passed the Ranger Station to find camping.  However, we turned around to talk to the Ranger when we saw that a recreational pass was required.  We enjoy speaking to Rangers at National Forests and Parks.  They are some of the best resources to learn about an area.  Because we were tent camping, we did not have to pay the recreational fee.  However, our interagency America the Beautiful Pass would have covered the fee if we had been pulling our travel trailer.

So Many Moose!

The dirt roads to the camping in this area are rough, very rough, but the area is gorgeous.  We dispersed camped at Christmas Meadows in the US Forest right off Utah Highway 150.  We had our own personal, private campsite.  There was no cell service on our Verizon except with our antenna. However, the best part of staying here was all the moose we saw!  The Ranger let us know that there had been several sightings of moose.  She recommended driving along the highway next to the swampy areas during the morning and evening hours to see moose.  So, we went “moose hunting” early evening and in the morning.  We saw five moose total – three females and two males.  There is a lot of dispersed camping in this area and you can stay for up to 14 days. The drive on Utah 150 is breathtaking!  When we went through in early June, Mirror Lake still had ice and the Provo Waterfall was roaring. This is a fabulous place to visit and camp.   If you want to see moose, this is the place to be!

We found the Dugway Campground BLM Dispersed Camping  with our Campendium app while traveling Interstate 80 East back to Missouri.  We use the Campendium  and the iOverlander apps on our phones to find dispersed camping, BLM Dispersed Camping, water, showers, and dump stations while traveling.

The road to the Dugway Campground is quite a ways from the highway and a little rough.  However, we pulled our travel trailer slowly on it with no issues.  There is a small boat ramp with the North Platte River next to the campground and there were a few people who visited the boat ramp.

The campground itself is very serene and the night sky is brilliant.  We really enjoyed the solitude of this campground in Wyoming.  The campsites are designated and you can stay for 14 days.  If you want some solitude and open sky, this is a great place to sit.  The road and campgrounds accomodated our 23′ travel trailer with no issues and could handle bigger rigs also.  We stayed two nights here just to rest from the road and we would definately stay here again if passing through the area.

The GPS coordinates for this campground are 41.86026, -107.0534.  We did make a short video on the campground on our YouTube channel The Nonsense of W&J https://youtu.be/zwyvUXttnJA