Temple Mountain Townsite Campground
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 30 nights read 14:25 UTC
- A night
- $15From, per site
- Sites
- 10All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 1 notices
In the agency’s own words
Temple Mountain Townsite is a fee campground in the San Rafael Swell Recreation Area. Keep reading
Recreation
Temple Mountain Townsite is at the intersection of Temple Mountain Road and the Behind-the-Reef Road. From the campground, visitors can hike to reclaimed uranium mines, drive a short distance down the wash to the Temple Mountain Pictograph Panel, or drive the longer North Temple Wash loop. The Behind-the-Reef Road is accessible to most vehicles for six miles, accessing several trailheads for hikes into the San Rafael Reef Wilderness. Two of these (Chute Canyon and Wild Horse Canyon) are accessible for horseback riders. The road continues for another 14 miles requiring high clearance and four-wheel-drive as it follows the rugged base of the reef against a backdrop of 500-foot cliffs and jagged canyons. After about seven miles, the road narrows to a maximum vehicle width of 50 feet. More wilderness slot canyons hikes can be accessed from this road. Motorized vehicle use is not permitted in wilderness.
Natural Features
The campground is at the mouth of a short, steep canyon (Temple Wash) which cuts through the San Rafael Reef. One of the most distinctive geologic features of central Utah, the Reef is a 75-mile-long rocky spine that reaches up to 1,000 feet high and forms the eastern edge of the San Rafael Swell. The Temple Mountain area provides acces to many scenic slot canyons, hills, and spires cut from red and white rock. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (435) 636-3600.
Nearby Attractions
Goblin Valley State Park (fee area), 2 miles east: The state park entrance is two miles up the Temple Wash Road going back towards Highway 24. The state park is famous for its unique landscape of sandstone hoodoos (goblins) and buttes. The park has hiking and mountain biking trails as well as a fee campground and yurt rentals. Little Wild Horse Canyon: The Little Wild Horse slot canyon is the most popular hike in the San Rafael Reef. Visitors can appreciate sculpted sandstone walls and narrows through the three-mile canyon. Paired with Bell Canyon via the Behind-the-Reef Road, this makes for an eight-mile moderate day hike with varied scenery. The canyon bottoms are gravel and there are some obstacles requiring straightforward scrambling. Temple Mountain Mining District: The townsite is in the heart of the historic Temple Mountain Mining District. Visitors can visit sites and learn about the history of Cold War-era uranium mining by foot or vehicle.
What the agency tells you
Located at the base of Temple Mountain, the Temple Mountain Townsite Campground provides convenient access to off-roading and wilderness recreation in a scenic and quiet setting. The campground has two vault toilets, a day use area, nine individual sites suitable for tents and/or RVs, and one large group campsite. All campsites have fire rings and picnic tables. The group campsite has a large shade structure with four picnic tables. This is a first come first serve campground. Please recreate responsible and stay on designated routes.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 10 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Around the campground
- Backpacking
- Historic site
- Horseback riding
- Off Highway Vehicle Trails
- Wilderness access
Full this Saturdayread 14:25 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 14
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
recreation.gov availability, read 14:25 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
10 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 10 mapped sitesAll 10 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 10 of the 10 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. 10 of the 10 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 01 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 4.9 mi | 85 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 02 | standard nonelectric | 58 ft | 4.9 mi | 124 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 03 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 4.9 mi | 112 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 04 | standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 4.9 mi | 53 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 05 (Group) | group standard nonelectric | 85 ft | 4.9 mi | 91 ft | $50 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 06 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 4.9 mi | 117 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 07 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 4.9 mi | 216 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 08 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 4.9 mi | 182 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 09 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 4.9 mi | 89 ft | $15 |
| Temple Mtn Townsite | Site 10 | standard nonelectric | 73 ft | 4.9 mi | 173 ft | $15 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
South Temple WashPrice Field Office · 1.5 miWild Horse Butte Camping AreaPrice Field Office · 7.3 mi
Cottonwood Canyon CampgroundPrice Field Office · 28 mi
New Joe's CampgroundPrice Field Office · 28 miFrom Highway 24, turn west onto Temple Mountain Road (signed for Goblin Valley State Park). Continue straight on this road past the state park turnoff as it turns from pavement to gravel and enters a short canyon. Temple Mountain Townsite is located on the north (right) side of the road as the canyon opens up, seven miles from the highway turnoff.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Hanksville, UT
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 65°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 14°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
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Temple Mountain Townsite 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 →
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 moneyMike KennedyU.S. Representative · Utah’s 3rd 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah
Dear Mike Kennedy, I’m a constituent in Utah’s 3rd district. I tried to camp at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 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. Temple Mountain Townsite Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Temple Mountain Townsite Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground (Price Field Office, 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah
Dear John R. Curtis, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 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. Temple Mountain Townsite Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Temple Mountain Townsite Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground (Price Field Office, 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah
Dear Mike Lee, I’m a constituent in Utah. I tried to camp at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground, Price Field Office, Utah, and couldn’t. All 10 sites at Temple Mountain Townsite Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, all 2 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. Temple Mountain Townsite Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Temple Mountain Townsite Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the Bureau of Land Management 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 Temple Mountain Townsite Campground (Price Field Office, Utah) via campanac.com