Podunk Guard Station
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 1 of the next 1 nights read 16:40 UTC
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Podunk Guard Station is located next to the East Fork Sevier River, in the Dixie National Forest in southern Utah. The cabin was constructed in 1928 and has been used by generations of Forest Service employees. Guests enjoy exploring local trails on foot, horseback, mountain bike and off-road vehicle. The river offers fishing and swimming opportunities. Keep reading
Recreation
Recreational opportunities in the area include hiking, mountain biking, off-roading and fishing. The Paunsaugunt, Fremont and Great Western OHV Trail Systems can be accessed easily from the guard station.
Facilities
The two-room cabin can sleep six people on two, twin-size bunk beds located in the bedroom, and a double-size futon in the living room. No linens or bedding are provided. The kitchen is equipped with a propane cook top range and oven, a table and chairs. No pots, pans, dishes or utensils are available. Guests must bring their own cooking and eating euipment. A wood stove is provided for heat, firewood is not guaranteed. The cabin has seasonal water running water in the kitchen sink only (when temperatures are freezing the water will be turned off). A vault toilet, picnic table and campfire ring are located outside.
Natural Features
The cabin sits in a narrow mountain valley just above the meandering East Fork Sevier River. The meadow is surrounded by mature spruce trees, and grasses and willow thickets line the riverbanks. Average summer temperatures range from 74 degrees during the day to 42 degrees at night. September temperatures range from 68 to 37 degrees; October temperatures range from 57 to 27 degrees.
Nearby Attractions
Tropic Reservoir is 8.5 miles north of the cabin. Boating, canoeing and fishing are popular activities. Anglers fish for brook, rainbow, brown and cutthroat trout. A boat ramp is located on the west side of the reservoir.
What the agency tells you
Potable water is not guaranteed to be available at the cabin year-round; guests must bring their own supply. Seasonal water is generally turned on to the cabin in the spring, avaialable at the kitchen sink, it is supplied from a local spring on site. The water is tested through a state approved lab during the operational season. The water will be turned off if there are unforseen issues with the system and thus not guaranteed to be available.
Limited cleaning supplies are provided; visitors must clean up after their stay. No linens or services are provided. Please bring garbage bags; this is a 'pack it in, pack it out' facility.
Non-electric cabin - no electricity or power is provided. It is recommended to bring battery powered laterns and lighting for your needs.
Everything else this campground posts · 10
A non-flushing bathroom buidling is provided near the cabin within walking distance, toilet paper is provided.
Please be prepared. Limited supplies are available on site, please be prepared with all of your own supplies.
Door entrance code is required to enter cabin. Code should be included in reservation letter. For questions please contact Rec.gov or call the Ranger Station at 435-676-9300 during normal operating hours Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m MT.
Please do not lock or block the cabin road entrance gate. If guest locks the gate, the lock will be removed.
This site will not accomodate motor homes or camp trailers, horse trailers, or horses.
Check out 10:00 a.m. and Check in is 3:00 p.m.
Click here for more information on the Dixie National Forest
Pets are not allowed inside the cabin!
No smoking inside cabin!
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 www.dontmovefirewood.org
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 cabin
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 30 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Not allowed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…the water will be turned off). A vault toilet, picnic table and campfire ring are located…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Firewood
- Mentioned
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River, Meadow
- Biking
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Hunting
- Picnicking
- Swimming
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 54th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 2
Full this Saturdayread 16:40 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
1 campground has sites open within 30 miles, read 16:31 UTC. See them
OpenBooked
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 · 16
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 · 5
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 1
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first. read 16:31 UTC
- Sunset Campground (UT)Bryce Canyon National Park · 12 mi · 1 of 92 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 16:40 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 1 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. 1 of the 1 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| POGS | 001 | cabin nonelectric | 30 ft | 117 ft | 888 ft | $30 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Kings CreekDixie National Forest · 8.8 mi
North Campground (UT)Bryce Canyon National Park · 12 mi
Sunset Campground (UT)Bryce Canyon National Park · 12 mi
North CampgroundBryce Canyon National Park · 13 miRed Canyon CampgroundDixie National Forest · 17 mi
Duck CreekDixie National Forest · 21 miFrom Panguitch, turn onto State Highway 89 and travel 7 miles to State Highway 12. Drive 8 miles on Highway 12 to East Fork Road/Forest Road 30087. The sign at this junction will say, "Tropic Reservoir - 8 miles." Travel south on this well-maintained, two-lane dirt road for 16 miles. Podunk Guard Station will be on the east side of the road.
From Bryce Canyon National Park, travel on Highway 12 for 5 miles to East Fork Road/Forest Road 30087. The sign at this junction will say, "Tropic Reservoir - 8 miles." Travel along this well-maintained, two-lane dirt road for 16 miles. Podunk Guard Station will be on the east side of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Alton, UT
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 17°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
Podunk Guard Station is in Utah’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Celeste Maloy (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 moneyCeleste MaloyU.S. Representative · Utah’s 2nd district
- 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 Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah
Dear Celeste Maloy, I’m a constituent in Utah’s 2nd district. I tried to camp at Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Podunk Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Podunk Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Podunk Guard Station. 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 Podunk Guard Station (Dixie 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 Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah
Dear John R. Curtis, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Podunk Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Podunk Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Podunk Guard Station. 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 Podunk Guard Station (Dixie 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 Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah
Dear Mike Lee, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Podunk Guard Station, Dixie National Forest, Utah, and couldn’t. All 1 sites at Podunk Guard Station are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Podunk Guard Station keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Podunk Guard Station. 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 Podunk Guard Station (Dixie National Forest, Utah) via campanac.com