Gooseberry Reservoir
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 30 nights read 15:57 UTC
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 178 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Gooseberry Reservoir Campground is located in a scenic mountain valley in an open meadow next to Gooseberry Reservoir. It is situated at an elevation of 8,400 feet. Visitors enjoy canoeing and fishing on the small reservoir and exploring area trails. Keep reading
Recreation
The reservoir offers good cutthroat and rainbow trout fishing, as well as canoeing. It is open to hand-powered watercraft only, and no boat ramp is available on the lake. The Great Western Trail runs next to the campground, offering excellent opportunities for hiking, biking and off-road vehicle riding. Mammoth Guard Station is located just one mile south.
Facilities
The campground contains several standard RV sites with long parking spurs that easily accommodate large RVs. Vault toilets are provided, but no water or garbage service is available. A well-maintained dirt road leads to the campground, providing relatively easy access for cars and RVs alike.
Natural Features
The surrounding mountains are dotted with aspens, fir trees and sagebrush, but the campground has no trees and no shade. Each site has a nice lake view. Grasses and summer wildflowers cover the valley.
What the agency tells you
Drinking water and trash collection are not available at the campground; please pack out all garbage
Click here for more information on the Manti-La Sal National Forest
Don't Move Firewood: Help prevent the spread of tree-killing pests in our national forests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 17
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 40 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed at 8 of 9 sites
- Campfires
- 8 of 9 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 8 of 18 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…RVs. Vault toilets are provided, but no water or garbage service is available. A well-maintained…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 296th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 14 days ago, 32 km away
- Peak color
Full this Saturdayread 15:57 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
Every one of the 8 sites on offer is taken this Saturday. 7 are free on Tue, Oct 20. read 15:57 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $10 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:57 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
18 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 8 mapped sitesAll 18 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 16 of the 18 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 17 of the 18 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| GOOS | 001 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 102 ft | 314 ft | 2,349 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 002 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 102 ft | 236 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 2,314 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 003 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 149 ft | 160 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 2,208 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 004 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 182 ft | 85 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 2,031 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 005 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 171 ft | 38 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 1,834 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 006 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 168 ft | 70 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 1,663 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 007 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 168 ft | 101 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 1,499 ft | $10 |
| GOOS | 008 | standard nonelectric | 40 ft | 178 ft | 114 ftLower Gooseberry Reservoir | 1,470 ft | $10 |
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 009 | type not stated | 41 ft | 1,695 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 010 | type not stated | 149 ft | 1,692 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 011 | type not stated | 93 ft | 1,910 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 012 | type not stated | 156 ft | 1,929 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 013 | type not stated | 144 ft | 2,137 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 014 | type not stated | 211 ft | 2,222 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 015 | type not stated | 154 ft | 2,268 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 016 | type not stated | 224 ft | 2,358 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | XXX | unnamed record | 40 ft | $33.97 | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 1 | type not stated | $33.97 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It types it MANAGEMENT rather than a campsite. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Mammoth CabinManti-La Sal National Forest · 1.2 mi
Gooseberry Creek CampgroundManti-La Sal National Forest · 1.6 mi
Flat CanyonManti-La Sal National Forest · 4.8 mi
Fish Creek CampgroundManti-La Sal National Forest · 6.6 mi
Lake Canyon Rec AreaManti-La Sal National Forest · 9.2 miLake Canyon CampgroundManti-La Sal National Forest · 9.4 miFrom Fairview, Utah, travel north about a mile on Highway 89, to the junction with Highway 31. Travel east on Highway 31 for about nine miles, to the junction with Forest Development Road 124. Go north on Forest Development Raod 124 for three miles, to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Scofield, UT
Typical weather
Typical October night 29°F, day 50°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 12°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it · a letter you can send
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Gooseberry Reservoir is in Utah’s 4th congressional district. Its representative, Burgess Owens (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyBurgess OwensU.S. Representative · Utah’s 4th district
No contact form we could verify, so that link is their own site. Contact is inside it. Washington office: 202-225-3011.
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn R. CurtisU.S. Senator · Utah
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMike LeeU.S. Senator · Utah
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah
Dear Burgess Owens, I’m a constituent in Utah’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Gooseberry Reservoir, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Gooseberry Reservoir keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Gooseberry Reservoir. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Gooseberry Reservoir (Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah
Dear John R. Curtis, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Gooseberry Reservoir, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Gooseberry Reservoir keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Gooseberry Reservoir. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Gooseberry Reservoir (Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah
Dear Mike Lee, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Gooseberry Reservoir, Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 8 of the 17 campsites the agency files at Gooseberry Reservoir, and every one of them is booked ahead, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 8 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Gooseberry Reservoir keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Gooseberry Reservoir. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Gooseberry Reservoir (Manti-La Sal National Forest, Utah) via campanac.com