Moon Lake Campground
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:19 UTC
- A night
- $20–$32When it reopens, per site
- Sites
- 54In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 11 notices
In the agency’s own words
Moon Lake Campground is located on the shores of the scenic two mile long Moon Lake on the southern slope of the 13,000 foot peaked Uinta Mountains. Visitors come to Moon Lake to enjoy cool mountain air, fishing, canoeing and motor- boating, scenic vistas, hiking trails and horse rides. Keep reading
Recreation
Moon Lake offers great canoeing and motor-boating. Anglers fish for tiger, rainbows and brook trout, kokanee salmon and splake. Tiger and rainbow trout are actively stocked annually. The Lake Fork Trail and Brown Duck Mountain Loop hiking/equestrian trails begin at this site offering excellent opportunities in the High Uintas Wilderness where numerous alpine lakes provide great backcountry fishing. The Fish Creek National Recreation Trail begins at the Moon Lake Dam and ascends northeast up to center park, climbing from 8,200’ to 10,400’ over 5.6 miles. The Moon Lake Resort is adjacent to the campground and offers small engine boat rentals. Flying J Outfitters is located one mile before the campground, at the Lake Fork trailhead, offering both scheduled and walk-up horse rides as well as drop and pack trips into the High Uintas Wilderness.
Facilities
This large campground contains numerous single-family sites, each with a picnic table and campfire ring with grill. Generally, parking spurs are 16 X 65 feet. Please see individual campsites for exact dimensions. Most sites have lake views; some have lake access. Flush toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided. Water spigots are located throughout the campground and roads and parking spurs are paved. A host is on-site and firewood is available for purchase at the nearby Moon Lake Resort. Moon Lake Resort is adjacent, offering convenience groceries, ice, soda pop, fishing bait and gear.
Natural Features
The campground is situated on the lakeshore at an elevation of 8,100 feet where lodgepole pine, aspen and Douglas fir provide some shade away from the lake. Wildlife and flowers both flourish in the canyon
What the agency tells you
Tents must be on the tent pad only. No extra tents allowed. This is to help protect the vegetation and facilitate new tree growth.
If you want to occupy a campsite other than the one you reserved, you will need to pay for the unreserved site. There will not be a refund for the reserved campsite.
No shooting of any type of gun or projectile is allowed in the campground.
Everything else this campground posts · 8
All dogs must be leashed at all times when inside the campground.
Quiet time is 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. This includes all generators.
Failure to comply with these and other posted rules will result in a fine and/or being removed from the campground.
Click here for more information on the Ashley 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.
Due to increased use, there is no guarantee that first come sites will be available even though the web site may say they are.
Do not occupy a reservable site if you did not reserve it or if the reservation is not immediately current. You will be required to move.
ATV's are not allowed in Moon Lake Campground or the surrounding area.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 54 · 8 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 60 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…have lake views; some have lake access. Flush toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…some have lake access. Flush toilets, drinking water and trash collection are provided. Water spigots…”
- Firewood
- Sold here
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Creek
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Horseback riding
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 309th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 3
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 15 km away
- Peak color
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:19 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
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 · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at Moon Lake Campground closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 150 miles · 4
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Deer Run CampgroundFlaming Gorge National Recreation Area · 61 mi · 18 sites
- Dripping Springs Campground (UT)Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area · 66 mi · 26 sites
- Cottonwood River CampJohn Wesley Powell National Conservation Area · 71 mi
- Rainbow Park CampgroundDinosaur National Monument · 71 mi · 5 sites
recreation.gov availability, read 16:19 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
54 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 54 mapped sitesAll 54 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 54 of the 54 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. 54 of the 54 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.
| L | 18 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 89 ft | 567 ft | 189 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 19 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 89 ft | 500 ft | 109 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 20 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 101 ft | 537 ft | 61 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 21-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 51 ft | 464 ft | 91 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 22 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 51 ft | 419 ft | 85 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 23 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 90 ft | 415 ft | 212 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 24 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 82 ft | 328 ft | 269 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 25 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 90 ft | 295 ft | 214 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 26-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 82 ft | 252 ft | 301 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 27 | tent only nonelectric | 62 ft | 114 ft | 364 ft | $20 | |
| L | 28 | tent only nonelectric | 62 ft | 83 ft | 396 ft | $20 | |
| L | 29 | tent only nonelectric | 76 ft | 161 ft | 326 ft | $20 | |
| L | 30 | tent only nonelectric | 60 ft | 103 ft | 401 ft | $20 | |
| L | 31 | tent only nonelectric | 60 ft | 105 ft | 432 ft | $20 | |
| L | 32-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 62 ft | 282 ft | 196 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 33 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 62 ft | 221 ft | 257 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 34 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 67 ft | 213 ft | 281 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 35-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 67 ft | 265 ft | 256 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 36 | tent only nonelectric | 91 ft | 154 ft | 414 ft | $20 | |
| L | 37 | tent only nonelectric | 91 ft | 103 ft | 415 ft | $20 | |
| L | 38 | tent only nonelectric | 99 ft | 96 ft | 386 ft | $20 | |
| L | 39 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 90 ft | 267 ft | 398 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 40 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 92 ft | 297 ft | 308 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 41 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 56 ft | 378 ft | 394 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 42 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 80 ft | 354 ft | 330 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 43 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 56 ft | 433 ft | 391 ft | $20–$32 |
| L | 44 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 80 ft | 434 ft | 298 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 01 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 73 ft | 957 ft | 368 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 02 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 69 ft | 952 ft | 284 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 03-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 69 ft | 1,011 ft | 323 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 04 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 80 ft | 1,044 ft | 240 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 05 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 75 ft | 978 ft | 190 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 06 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 75 ft | 1,043 ft | 159 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 07 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 95 ft | 962 ft | 100 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 08 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 88 ft | 926 ft | 111 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 09 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 88 ft | 1,013 ft | 96 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 10 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 49 ft | 901 ft | 220 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 11 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 68 ft | 957 ft | 245 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 12-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 57 ft | 932 ft | 316 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 13 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 49 ft | 864 ft | 265 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 14 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 57 ft | 905 ft | 371 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 15 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 66 ft | 837 ft | 331 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 16 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 92 ft | 790 ft | 407 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 17 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 76 ft | 744 ft | 321 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 45 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 149 ft | 606 ft | 337 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 46 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 76 ft | 674 ft | 246 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 47 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 63 ft | 698 ft | 235 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 48-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 67 ft | 662 ft | 195 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 49-DBL | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 63 ft | 717 ft | 241 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 50 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 79 ft | 680 ft | 261 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 51 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 78 ft | 760 ft | 218 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 52 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 78 ft | 765 ft | 239 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 53 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 115 ft | 767 ft | 292 ft | $20–$32 |
| U | 54 | standard nonelectric | 60 ft | 132 ft | 826 ft | 354 ft | $20–$32 |
25 of 54 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Moon Lake Guard StationAshley National Forest · 0.3 mi
Moon Lake Group CampgroundAshley National Forest · 0.9 mi
Rock Creek Group (UT)Ashley National Forest · 5.5 mi
Miners GulchAshley National Forest · 6.0 mi
YellowpineAshley National Forest · 6.7 miSwift Creek CampgroundAshley National Forest · 9.2 miFrom Duchesne, Utah, take State Hwy 87 north to Mountain Home, then north 12 miles to the Forest Boundary and Forest Road 131. The campground is about 36 miles from Duchesne on paved roads although some spots have pot-holes.
The weather
the next four days
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Tabiona, UT
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
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
Moon Lake Campground is in Utah’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Mike Kennedy (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →