Best Dispersed Camping near Pocatello, ID

Stayed at the trailhead parking lot boondocking (No toilets, no water, no electric).  Fairly level area with a fire ring, picnic tables under a shelter, metal charcoal grill and easy access to the lava field (Hells Half Acre) hiking trails.    Access from US 20 to the trailhead parking is gravel and easily accessible for all vehicles with several large turnouts that can be camped at.  The rest of the loop past the turn to the trailhead parking is not graveled but still passable by most vehicles.  I would be more hesitant to use the loop in wet weather where the ground may be soft.

Unfortunately as you can see in a couple of the pictures not everyone cares for our public lands appropriately, there is some garbage left around and someone has taken it upon themselves to use signs and structures for target practice.

- AT&T has 2 bars of LTE and very slow data with a 243ms ping time and a 10Mbps download once it eventually started 

- T-Mobile has 3 bars and my hotspot was able to achieve 18.85Mbps download although it too had a long ping time of 292ms

- Starlink has an unobstructed view of the sky with a 226.6Mbps download speed and 27ms ping

Not sure where precious reviewer went but the GPS coordinates are for a dirt pull out beside a narrow spring. A mile further uphill on dirt road is a small camping area. Free for 21 days. No facilities but a few fire pits. It was full with trailers that have been there a while by the look of it. No spring. I drove another few miles up the mountain and found the entrance to the massive ranch that owns most of the surrounding land. Beyond that was yet more dirt road with no sign of a antelope park or spring. I gave up and was thankful I didn't arrive late in the day.

I don't know how people are finding the beautiful places they show here. I used the GPS coordinates from here and it led me to a maze of twisted little passages. Very deeply rutted roads challenging me and my 4wd led to a complex of turns and turnarounds. The only road that appeared to lead down to the river was dirt at about 45 degrees. There are many ways to go and I don't know how to could know which to take. Must be dumb luck to find a pretty place by the river.

So, I left and went to the location that the BLM website gives for this named place. It's not the same place. The official location of this place is farther west. That is poorly identified, too. There's a signed turnoff but down the road there's a "Y". I went right. That led to confusion and nasty flies going into my nose and eyes. I left.

Looking at the map later it appears that I should have gone LEFT at the "Y" instead of right. I have no idea what that's like.

Basically, this place has many roads that intersect and go to unknown places. I don't know why there are so many roads, circles, "Y"s, along the river, perpendicular to the river.

The BLM website isn't helpful. I called them and expected a call back but didn't get it.

I wouldn't go here without one of the people here who submitted great reviews with beautiful photos. It's not worth the confusing directions (both my Garmin RV GPS and Google Maps were wrong in different places) and ambiguity of destinations.

Blackrock Canyon BLM Pocatello, ID 8/4/22 DO NOT trust APP coordinates 42.8145, -112.3307 : Campendium 6/20/22 42.8146,-112.3307 : The Dyrt 6/30/22, 42.8142, -112.3306 : FREE Roam / 2019 These coordinates all lead to a reasonably level, fenced dirt parking lot on the left with a vault toilet and concrete walkway going across the road to a covered picnic/stream area. We were very excited. This is NOT the BLM camping area.... or rather more likely, 'no longer' is? There are 3 new looking signs stating Day Use Only, No Overnight Camping. However there is still a signboard by the toilet with the typical BLM rules/regs & 14 day limit? What's a gal to do? So I called the BLM office listed on the sign to clear up the conflicting sign info. Yep, the aforementioned parking lot is NOT FOR OVERNIGHTCAMPING - again, signs are shiney, no weathering, so this may be a new development? We were told there are 2 BLM camping areas. #1 is ACROSS from the aforementioned parking lot... big DEEPLY graveled area on the right as you come in that steeply slopes down to the picnic table area (our autolevel just laughed at us no matter what we did or where we positioned). #2 is about 1/4m further up where the road loops back on itself, and also has a vault toilet (no concrete walkway). This is a medium parking area inside the loop. Looked doable until we noticed the berm hiding under the grass. At 34' backed in, we'd have either lost the under carriage spare tire, or had our big butt sitting on the ground. So this too was a big nope for us. There is a pullout on the way to the 2nd area, but currently has a 'road closed' sign on it, and another pull out just before the 1st parking area. We could have squeezed into this one, but by this point we were wore out & the thought of all the dust ... just nope. We moved on. This is a GORGEOUS area, if you're a smaller footprint, and can get level. Verizon & ATT both usable but not very strong. Road in is a little washboard and hilly, but doable. I15 underpass ... we're 13'8" on truck & cleared both with no issues. Definitely recommend dropping your rig in the parking lot and scouting out this area 1st.

This site is right above the snake River so you can hear the water, wonderful way to fall asleep! You are in the High Desert of Idaho so this site is amongst sagebrush but has good shade trees also. When I was there I could start a tent but this ground does tend to get pretty hard during dry season so staking may be a bit more difficult.

There are actually 2 sites you can pitch a tent or park a vehicle. There is also a firepit. I got really good cell reception. There are fun trails to explore with beautiful scenery. This would also be a great spot if you like to pole fish. You can walk to the river and cast in! This spot os about 8 miles to the American Falls Dam where you can kayak, SUP, fish, and picnic

The directions were spot on. I recommend a vehicle with relatively high clearance. It os closer to the interstate than you would expect so you can hear vehicles but was super quiet at night