Maple Canyon
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- OpenThe agency lists it open
- A night
- $10From, per site
- Sites
- 1915 on recreation.gov
- Season
- May 1 – October 18Open May 1 through October 18
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Maple Canyon Campground is known for its unique cliffs, arches, and scenic views of the Sanpitch Mountains. It is a small campground nestled between towering conglomerate rock walls on either side of the canyon. A favorite among rock climbers, notably for a formation called The Pipe Dream, the campground is just 3 miles from Freedom, Utah. Keep reading
Recreation
Rock climbing is the campground's main draw, attracting climbers from all over the world with its numerous routes for beginners and experts alike. Over 140 bolted routes are available with climbing grades from 5.4 to 5.14.
Facilities
The campground contains one group site and several single-family sites. Sites 2, 3 and 4 are walk-to tent sites that must be accessed by carrying gear a short distance from the parking area. Vault toilets are provided but there is no water. Roads and parking spurs are dirt. Accessible by all passenger vehicles.
Natural Features
The campground is nestled among thick groves of maples below beautiful, towering conglomerate walls at an elevation of 6,700 feet. The canyon contains over 40 cliffs ranging in height from 30 to 300 feet. A variety of wildlife makes its home in the canyon.
Nearby Attractions
The canyon offers some excellent hiking, biking and horseback riding opportunities. Three steep scenic loop trails (three to five-mile loops) provide access to many of the rock climbing sites in the canyon, such as the famous Pipe Dream tunnel. Panoramic views east into Sanpete Valley and beyond to the Wasatch Plateau reveal themselves near the tops of the trails and cliffs. The Sanpitch Recreation Area and Chicken Creek Campground can be found nearby.
What the agency tells you
Caution: This is a high cliff area; exercise caution, especially with children
RVs and trailers are not recommended
There are no electricity, water or sewer site hookups
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Lettered sites A-F are $5/night and are available on a first come, first served basis
Please bring your own drinking water
This is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility; please bring garbage bags
Day users will be charged a fee of $5/vehicle
No livestock allowed
ATVs allowed on designated trails only
Group site, when not reserved, is available on a first come, first served basis for $15/night
This is a high elevation facility; Visitors traveling from lower elevations should exercise caution
Click here for more information on 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
- 19 · 4 walk-in, 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed at 14 of 17 sites
- Campfires
- 14 of 17 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- VAULT TOILETS on 14 of 19 campsite records
- Drinking water
- None, bring your own
- “…area. Vault toilets are provided but there is no water. Roads and parking spurs are dirt. Accessible by…”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Climbing
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 316th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 10 km away
- Peak color
Full this Saturdayread 15:57 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBookedNot reservable
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 · 13
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 Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
19 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 15 mapped sitesAll 19 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 16 of the 19 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. 19 of the 19 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| FAM | 001 | group standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 196 ft | 1.4 mi | 130 ft | $40 |
| FAM | 002 | walk to | 149 ft | 1.4 mi | 34 ft | $10 | |
| FAM | 003 | walk to | 123 ft | 1.4 mi | 171 ft | $10 | |
| FAM | 004 | walk to | 123 ft | 1.3 mi | 376 ft | $10 | |
| FAM | 005 | type not stated | 30 ft | 1.4 mi | 162 ft | $5–$20 | |
| FAM | 006 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 110 ft | 1.4 mi | 199 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 007 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 110 ft | 1.3 mi | 292 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 008 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 123 ft | 1.3 mi | 367 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 009 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 131 ft | 1.3 mi | 240 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 010 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 139 ft | 1.2 mi | 74 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 011 | standard nonelectric | 15 ft | 106 ft | 1.2 mi | 173 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 012 | walk to | 103 ft | 1.2 mi | 271 ft | $10 | |
| FAM | 013 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 57 ft | 1.2 mi | 376 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 014 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 57 ft | 1.2 mi | 350 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 015 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 95 ft | 1.2 mi | 470 ft | $10 |
| FAM | 016 | standard nonelectric | 20 ft | 101 ft | 1.1 mi | 571 ft | $10 |
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 1 | type not stated | $5–$20 | ||||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 2 | type not stated | $5–$20 | ||||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 3 | type not stated | $5–$20 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Ponderosa UintaUinta National Forest · 15 miCottonwood CampgroundUinta National Forest · 16 mi
Bear CanyonUinta National Forest · 16 mi
Lake HillManti-La Sal National Forest · 19 miPainted RocksRichfield Field Office · 20 miFrom Fountain Green, Utah, head south on West Side Road for 7 miles to Freedom Road in Freedom. Turn right onto Freedom Road and watch for Maple Canyon signs. Travel 3 miles northeast of Freedom to the campground.
From Moroni go 9 miles west, following the signs for Maple Canyon.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Fountain Green, UT
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 55°F.
Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 33°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season
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
Maple Canyon 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 Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah
Dear Burgess Owens, I’m a constituent in Utah’s 4th district. I tried to camp at Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 19 campsites the agency files at Maple Canyon, 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 15 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Maple Canyon keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Maple Canyon. 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 Maple Canyon (Uinta 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 Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah
Dear John R. Curtis, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 19 campsites the agency files at Maple Canyon, 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 15 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Maple Canyon keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Maple Canyon. 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 Maple Canyon (Uinta 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 Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah
Dear Mike Lee, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Maple Canyon, Uinta National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. recreation.gov lists 15 of the 19 campsites the agency files at Maple Canyon, 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 15 sites recreation.gov was offering there were already booked. 1,623 of the 7,639 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Maple Canyon keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Maple Canyon. 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 Maple Canyon (Uinta National Forest, Utah) via campanac.com