Posey Lake Campground
- Right now
- Listed not openA database flag with no reason and no date
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 2221 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 13 notices
In the agency’s own words
Posey Lake Campground is located next to its beautiful namesake lake high on the Colorado Plateau at an elevation of 8,800 feet. Visitors enjoy canoeing, fishing and exploring local trails. Keep reading
Recreation
Posey Lake offers rainbow and brook trout fishing, canoeing, kayaking and non-motorized boating. Two hiking trails begin at the campground. The Posey Overlook Trail is a mile long and leads to a beautiful overlook. The Posey Spur Trail connects the campground to the Great Western Trail, which provides excellent hiking and mountain biking.
Facilities
The campground contains 21 single-family sites and one group site for up to 35 people. Drinking water is provided from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Facilities at this campground include accessible vault toilets, a fish cleaning station and two fishing docks. Roads and parking spurs are gravel.
Natural Features
The campground is situated on a hillside above Posey Lake. A scenic forest of towering ponderosa pines covers the area. Clusters of aspens dot the landscape and summer wildflowers are abundant.
Nearby Attractions
Posey Lake offers a cool escape from the surrounding desert landscape and is often used as a base to explore the surrounding region. The Escalante area of southern Utah offers breathtaking scenery nearly everywhere you look. Sightseeing along Forest Road 153 (Hell's Backbone) and Utah Highway 12, a National All American Highway, is very popular. The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Anasazi State Park, and the Escalante Petrified Forest State Park are all located in the area. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (801) 226-3564.
What the agency tells you
CHECK IN: Begins at 2 PM. CHECK OUT: By 11 AM.
This is an American black bear habitat; be aware and keep a clean camp
Vehicles over 30 ft. in length are not recommended because of the difficult access road
Everything else this campground posts · 10
Pack-it-in Pack-it-out! No trash collection available. Come prepared to stow and haul out your garbage.
Hookups are not available
Motorized boats are not allowed on the lake
Off-road vehicles are not permitted in the camping areas
A daily fee will be charged and collected at the campground for extra vehicles. Come prepared to pay onsite.
What is a booking window? Individual sites at this campground operate on a 6-month rolling basis. Some sites are available for reservation 7-days in advance. If not reserved, sites become first come first serve. Additional first come, first served sites may be available.
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.
Any accepted senior passes must be entered for the discount at the time of booking for single sites only.
Click here to learn more about the Dixie National Forest
Customer Service Please Contact 801-226-3564 or Help.Dixie.CedarCity@AmericanLL.com
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 22 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…at this campground include accessible vault toilets, a fish cleaning station and two fishing docks.…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…and one group site for up to 35 people. Drinking water is provided from Memorial Day through Labor Day.…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Night sky · 25th darkest of 458 in UT
- Bortle 1
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
recreation.gov lists 21 of the 22 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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, $15 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
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
23 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 20 mapped sitesAll 23 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 21 of the 23 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. 22 of the 23 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 | 002 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 61 ft | 140 ftHungry Creek | 176 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 003 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 61 ft | 189 ftHungry Creek | 115 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 004 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 43 ft | 240 ftPosy Lake | 93 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 005 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 43 ft | 278 ftPosy Lake | 126 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 006 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 59 ft | 315 ftHungry Creek | 97 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 007 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 59 ft | 364 ftHungry Creek | 148 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 008 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 94 ft | 451 ftHungry Creek | 86 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 009 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 94 ft | 509 ftHungry Creek | 17 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 010 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | $15 | |||
| FAM | 011 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 111 ft | 320 ftPosy Lake | 154 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 012 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 138 ft | 288 ftPosy Lake | 79 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 013 | group standard nonelectric | 35 ft | 268 ft | 255 ftPosy Lake | 284 ft | $66 |
| FAM | 014 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 192 ft | 659 ftPosy Lake | 315 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 015 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 117 ft | 861 ftHungry Creek | 112 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 016 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 149 ft | 751 ftHungry Creek | 285 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 017 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 117 ft | 787 ftHungry Creek | 185 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 018 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 89 ft | 578 ftHungry Creek | 252 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 019 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 89 ft | 490 ftHungry Creek | 228 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 020 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 147 ft | 345 ftHungry Creek | 290 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 021 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 124 ft | 207 ftHungry Creek | 176 ft | $15 |
| FAM | 022 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 106 ft | 182 ftHungry Creek | 110 ft | $15 |
| MANAGEMENT SITES | 001 | type not stated | 95 ftHungry Creek | 162 ft | $33.97 | ||
| MANAGEMENT SITES | XXX | unnamed record | 25 ft | $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
Cowpuncher Guard StationDixie National Forest · 4.4 mi
Barker Recreation AreaDixie National Forest · 6.8 miCoyote HollowDixie National Forest · 18 miCalf Creek Recreation AreaNational Public Lands · 18 mi
Aquarius Ranger StationDixie National Forest · 19 miFrom Highway 12 in Escalante, turn north at 300 East at the elementary school at the Posey Lake/Hell's Backbone sign. Travel 14 miles to junction of Forest Roads 153 and 154, keep left and travel 2 miles to Posey Lake Campground. Site access can be difficult; about 14 miles of the road is gravel with some steep sections.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Escalante, 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
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
Posey Lake Campground 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 →