Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Bonanza, UT

Red Fleet is a very accessible campground. There are several large RV spots with full hookups (30amp, one handicapped spot with 50amp) in addition to tent camping. Boat ramp down to reservoir. Sandy beach and hiking trails. Large parking lot for cars/boats. Dumpster, bathrooms, water hookups, and very fast WiFi (available for $3/day). $25/night for hookup spots, $15/night for regular spot. Pets allowed but must be on leash.

This area is beautiful, not super close to water though. We bring our dogs everywhere and hope for shade and/or water. This place at least has good shade and nice open fields for dog play and yard games. It was about 20ish mins drive to flaming gorge area for a beach day!

This area is very open with patches of quakes you can park in or near for some seclusion. The Range Study has one bathroom facility right at the entrance. There are a ATV trails running everywhere in this area. This place tends to be really busy as it can accommodate large groups. That's why it received only 3 stars this time, there was just far to much ATV traffic for my liking. There isn't many places to hike around here. My dog and I were able to get out a lil bit but we had to keep avoiding the ATV's. There is all kinds of wildlife in this area including deer, chip munks, squirrels, elk, and occasionally a bear. So be sure to keep trash and all food inside or bear proof. Good area to let dogs and kids run. And if your like me, this is a great place to pick dandelions for dandelion Jelly!

This is a great little campsite to enjoy after exploring the dinosaur quarry. Dogs are allowed on leashes. There is a creek that runs next to the camp site and easy hiking trails all around it. At night it is so dark you can see every star in the sky. The deer and sheep are very active at night which is very fun.

We spent a glorious 2 nights at one of the Western-most camping spots right with a private path to the river & a nice little swimming hole area. Our dog was in heaven! We enjoyed time on the beach and at the site. Be aware there are lots of ants around in the summer though! GREAT hikes from nearby trails. Don't miss the museum either!

We stayed here suring the annual paddlefest 2019. They had a waterslide down the boat ramp and water trampoline that arent normally there. This year they have added a hammock rack to the campground that holds 9 hammocks. Theyve also added an on site kayak/ paddle board rentals. Dogs are allowed on leash. They do,have running water spigots and bathrooms on site

Stayed here in mid October when the Green River site was closed-- campground was surprisingly full but felt nice and spaced out. Sites and bathrooms were clean and water was still on when I went. Ran the trail between the two campgrounds in the morning and the views were stunning. Thankful for a National Park that is (at least partially) dog friendly! Really loved the quarry wall exhibit as well-- would stay here again but think I would venture to one of the more remote camping sites to see more of the gorgeous landscape. Had decent signal with verizon.

I contacted the campground and was told if I got there by 1pm on Thursday I could probably get a site for the weekend.  So we got there at 1 and had a huge choice of spots.  We stayed in spot 72 which was great!  There was sun in the morning but all afternoon and evening there was shade.  There were large trees and plenty of space for kids and 2 dogs.  We fit a large tent plus a truck tent.  Enjoyed the camp hosts as well. I would not recommend staying in the A's as there was hardly any shade.  We had people battling for our spot when we left on Saturday.

Also enjoyed having clean bathrooms with running water! No showers though.

Rainbow Park Campground is 4 sites that are very close together offering almost NO privacy. Luckily we were the only ones there. It was magical. The ride in was about 30 minutes of a dirt road easily navigated by my Ford Transit 350. 1.7 miles before the campground road there is a must see Petroglyphs site offering a couple of loop trails that bring you up the hill. The road past the site brings you to some amazing views of the Green River and varying mountain views. The campground itself is on the river where there is a raft stop. While we had the campsite to ourselves all night, rafts started landing on the Rainbow boat ramp around 10am. The rafts coming in were fun to watch.
The site was $6 and if you have a larger group and can get all 4 sites, it would be a fun time. We would like to go back but with 3 dogs it would be hard to be so close to neighbors. All in all, it is worth checking out the area and campground.

Ranger Review: INNO INH120 2-Tray Bike Rack at the McCoy Flats Dispersed Camping

Campground Review: This type of camping is my jam…not crowded, primitive and scenic, and free. The only reason why it is getting 4-stars is because of the wind…not so much my jam. It did die down overnight but then it picked up again the next afternoon. McCoy Flats is located about 6 miles southwest of Vernal, UT and you stay here for the proximity to amazing mountain bike trails. This trail system boasts 46 miles and 15 trials for all skill levels. If you are a mountain biker, this area is not to be missed. The camping, therefore, is dispersed along the main road from the designated trailhead. The main road is paved then you can pull of and set up camp along any unpaved spur road. It is primitive camping…whatever you bring with you is what you have. When you are done, don’t be that guy, and pack out your trash. The area is wide open but is susceptible to wind, which makes this a great area for vans, RVs or trailers. But if there is no wind, tents are awesome. You are also in the high desert plain, so watch for snakes. Because you are within the trail system, you can set up camp close to a trail and not have to move your vehicle, which is nice. The other nice thing about this area is a forest service pit toilet at the trailhead. So if digging a cat hole is not your thing, there is a toilet accessible. Overall, this area is going to become one of our regular haunts not only for the scenery but the trails.

Gear Review: Since we were visiting McCoy Flats, I figured this would be the best time to test out the INNO INH 120 2-tray bike rack and as a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get the opportunity test out gear from their awesome partners from time to time.. The popularity of tray racks have grown over the past few years and this rack clearly demonstrates why. It was super easy to put together right out of the box. It fits both 2” and 1.25” hitches securely so you don’t have to purchase converters which extend the rack out further. It fit our two fatter tire bikes (3” tires) with ease and the grooved channel in the tray would easily fit the skinny road bikes as well. Plus, it can adjust to different size bikes (i.e. kid sizes). 

Sure, it can fit a lot of bikes, but how secure is it? One word…AMAZING! Each tray has two arms which secure over the tires so both the front and back tires are secured. The bikes have very little movement when loaded (any movement detected is normal from the rack in the hitch or due to the car hitting a bump) and the bikes don’t touch each other. This prevents any scratching or potential damage while in transport. The latching mechanisms are durable and easy to tighten/loosen, making loading and unloading super easy. We have had this rack on our car for the past week and due to the ease of use my husband has gone riding every day. When not in use, the rack folds up easily and sleekly (it does not stick out obnoxiously from the back of the car).

Three things I want to warn about. 1) If you are at risk of scraping your car when going over a bump or down a curb, you will definitely scratch with the hitch on. Higher clearance vehicles won’t have any issue, but a car may risk some loud scrapes. The hitch seems to be taking them well, though. One benefit is the trays are slightly tiered, so if you do scrape, you scrape the area where the rack goes into the hitch and not the trays. 2) Be sure to load and secure your bikes with fully pumped tires. While this may be a no-brainer for some, we caught this before heading home. As mentioned, it secures your bike by the tires, so if your tires are low, it may not be as secure. 3) While the rack is metal, it does have plastic coverings and the plastic covering the area between the hitch and the rack has already started to crack along seams. This may be due to the scrapes from bottoming out or perhaps it is designed to come apart as I can push it back together, but in any case it has no impact on the performance of the rack, so I am not too worried about it. 

Overall, the INNO INH 120 is an amazing bike rack and well worth the investment for anyone who is or wants to ability to easily pack up for a ride. I don’t think I will ever own a prong bike rack again.

I drove further down the road slightly over the utah border and it was silent and serene with beautiful views. All the spots available on this road were gorgeous.

SEPTEMBER 2020 This campsite is in the first few miles of Dinosaur National Monument along the Green River. It has 4 campsites but each campsite has three turnout parking areas that accommodate about 9-10 cars. The sites are $40 each and can be reserved online. I estimated each group site was about a football field of space. Each site has three fire rings and about 6 picnic tables. Each site is separated into 3 different sites. Most people who reserve online do not realize how much space they have even when they are here. There are public bathrooms with indoor plumbing including a sink, urinal, and toilet. There is clean running water available. No shower. There is a second bathroom under construction (we never heard noise from the construction). The two of us were traveling in one van and found the Green River campground (the other campground in DNM) was packed with people, and the sites too close together. So we bit the bullet and paid $40 for a group site here. It was such a large amount of space we wound up letting other travelers stay the night in the other two spaces in our site. Even with others “in our site” we still had about 10 times more space then if we stayed in the Green River Campground. The next three nights this campground was reserved. We asked another camper if we could stay one of their 3 spaces and they were more than happy to share the abundance of space. The night sky was magical. Lots of kids in this campground. Dogs allowed on leash. Walking distance to trails. Walking distance to a boat ramp where lot of rafters take off. A couple of miles from the DNM Quarry. Don’t miss the trails up to Hog Canyon and Box Canyon, trail head is at Josie Miller Cabin. Easy trails for all ages. Box canyon was incredible.

It's a nice little Kim spot about 9 miles from the dinosaur national monument visitor center Utah side. There's a lot of chipmunks and if you have allergies cottonwood trees. Also the ground not to level so for tent camping it's takes a little bit to find a spot to lay your tent. just a few minutes up the road there split mountain which is for group Canton so there's more white out spaces for Tent's but you also sacrifice to tree cover on hot days.

Green River Campground is located inside Dinosaur National Monument - on the ‘Quarry side’ of the park, in Utah. It is a short drive from the vistitors center and quarry, and is next to the Green River.

BEWARE: We trusted Siri's directions, and she steered us in the wrong direction - she sent us across the Colorado border and to the ‘Canyon side’ of the park. We saw a sign reading DNM, and passed a visitors center, so we figured we were in the right place - we should have stopped at the visitors center, we may have saved ourselves from getting a little lost. After driving 15 miles or so we came to a stopping point - you needed a 4 wheel drive vehicle to continue down a couple of the roads. There was a sign post with a map, but the Green River Campground was nowhere to be seen. Since we didn’t have 4WD we figured the campground was not accessible through the roads within the park, so we had to backtrack back to highway 40 towards Utah to the Quarry side. Lesson learned - follow the directions on the park's website, NOT SIRI!

If you have an easy-up or some sort of shade canopy, I highly suggest bringing it with you when you are camping in this part of Utah! As stadard for the area, most of the campsites do not have much in the way of shade. We camped this past July, and it was extremely hot for most of the day and well into the evening. There were a couple sparse trees in our site, but they did not provide any shade. We tried to rig up a shade canopy with an extra tarp, but there wasn't much to tie it to, nor did we have much rope.

Warning: The area does have black bears, but there were no bear bins in the campground, so you have to lock all of your food and toiletries in the car at night. There are bear-proof dumpsters for trash and recycling though. I was once told by a ranger in Yosemite NP that bears can recognize coolers when peering into car windows - he suggested putting put a towel and gear over your coolers when keeping them in the car overnight in bear territory.

The bathrooms were clean - no showers are available, though.

There were not any water spigets around by the sites, but there was a faucet outside the rest rooms for dish washing and water bottles.

The fire pit had a very nice cooking grate - we always bring a small collapsable grate in case the fire ring doesn’t have one, but no need to use it this time!

It got very windy during the day, and after coming back from a hike we found our tent blown over, despite having staked it down. Stake your tents down well!

We only saw one scorpion in our site for the two nights we stayed - one crawled up by the fire ring and hung out with us next to the camp fire. He was small. I would still suggest always zipping up your tent completely every time you open and close it, and to check your shoes if you leave them outside!

Some sites in Green River are "riverside," but are not directly next to the river - perhaps 30 yards away. We walked down to the river - we did not see any true trails to the river, but we didn't take the time to look around. The river and surrounding moutainous region was beautiful, and the cold water was a great way to cool off after a hike in the heat.

I was able to get some cell service down in the campground, but it was definitely better up near the visitors center.

Green River Campground is a great basecamp for those wishing to explore Dinosaur National Monument! Bring lots of water - it is HOT in the summer! We chose to get up early to hike and beat the heat - afterwards we packed up lunch and drove over to Josie Morris cabin. The Josie Morris cabin is an interesting historical site - what one women accomplished out in the middle of nowhere was impressive! Josie planted a lot of trees on her land, so there is a nice shady lawn with picnic benches and a view - it was the perfect lunch spot! The petroglyphs around the park are a must see, as is the quarry exhibit hall!

CAMPSITE SPECS

Fees: $18/night

Plumbed Toilets: Yes

Drinking Water: Yes

Showers: NO

Picnic Table: Yes

Firepit: Yes

Cooking Grates: Yes

Shade: Limited!

Cell Service: Limited

Animals Bins/Food Lockers: NO

Trash: Yes

Access to the park was easy as was check in. The camp hosts were super nice and very accommodating during our three night’s stay. We proceeded backwards through the campground as instructed to pull through site 8, which is FHUs and 50 AMP. We had to maneuver our 39’ fifth wheel so the utilities side bedroom slide wouldn’t go into a tree. The utilities are placed in the middle of the pad so that was nice. However, water pressure was only about 25 to 30 psi so we filled our freshwater tank and used the pump. We got spotty service on Verizon between 1 and 2 bars. In the mornings we were able to get our Verizon MiFi to work well. We really liked being on the upper campground level with more space between the sites and the covered patio with the picnic table. Sites 1- 8 that lead to the upper level are FHUs. Beware that site 8 is a 1/4 moon turn with a large tree then two poles out the front of the site that people have complained about hitting. We could have backed out of the site but decided to go carefully forward and we missed the poles(obvious from scrapes that some people did not), but we did scrape the branches of the trees. Pull through site 7 is probably the easiest FHU to get into. The rest of the sites are a mix of different services, i.e. water and electric or no hookups at all. They also have a couple of yurts and a cabin. The main draw here seemed to be OHVs but there were also a few people with boats. Checkout Moonshine Arch. It took us twice to find the Moonshine Arch, which is just down the road from Steinaker SP. Google maps nor Waze will get you to the trailhead. It's best to ask for directions from the camp host manning the Steinaker SP gate entrance. The first time we were not prepared and missed the turn to the left after you get on the gravel road(there's no sign). When we got to the parking area, we had no idea which way to go and ended up wondering around. There was a couple with a brochure(which you can get at the park office) but it was basically worthless. Since it was hot and we had our dogs, we bailed but did have a nice hike. The second day we were better prepared and found a blogger who had posted instructions. Basically its a.8/less than a mile moderate hike as follows: 1) go through the green gate to an old, rough jeep trail and follow it around to the right to another green gate, 2) before that green gate follow the trail to the left until you come to an intersection where you'll go right and continue until you get to the flat rocks that go up a hill, 3) climb the flat rock hill staying towards the left until you see a BLM info sign, 4) at the sign follow the trail to the left(at this point you can follow the footprints in the sand) and keep going until you get to the arch, which has a sign that you are there, and of course the arch is hard to miss at this point. Some info says you can see the arch after you climb the flat rock hill. You can see trees around the arch once you know where it is but not the arch itself. Also, if you are into dinosaurs, this is your area starting with Vernal’s museum plus state and national sights as well.

If you want to tour Dinosaur National Monument in summer, it will be HOT! We arrived around 4 pm when the temperature was close to 100 degrees. Here's the (minor) problem with Green River Campground in the Utah portion of the park: there's not much shade.

But you may be able to get a site with some shade. How? Loop B's sites (23-55 among 80 total sites) are reservable between mid-May and mid-September. For a possibility of shade in the late afternoon/early evening, try for 23, 30, 32, 37, 39, 42, 49 or 55. (Some photos are included.) 30 and 42 are good for a group that needs two sites.

We wanted to stay two nights and considered going the walkup route, but we weren't sure if the walkup sites in loops A and C would fill up. (FYI they didn't fill up on Tues/Wed night.) We reserved a site in loop B for one night because that's all we could get. We planned to get in early and transfer to a walkup site where we could stay for two nights. The host was amenable to that, and she encouraged us to search for a shady site.

The search for shade is a good reason for moving if you have a reserved site with little to no shade. Loop C had some good possibilities among the cottonwoods. So.....reserve a site, get in early and move to a (somewhat) shady site. 

Other than the lack of shade and abundance of heat, the campground was fine. One minor gripe: the bathroom has water and soap but no paper towels or hand dryers.

Looking at fossils: It's not easy to find fossils on the 1.2 mile hike between the Visitor Center and the Quarry Exhibit Hall. After we went out on our own, we realized a ranger-led hike would have been better. Before or after, you will see plenty of dinosaur bones in the Exhibit Hall which is a building that encloses an excavated area.

Hiking: The hike above the Green River between the Green River and Split Mountain (group) campgrounds is beautiful...and hot. There are other hikes listed in a brochure you can get at the entrance or Visitor Center.

Something we didn't know until we arrived: To see the Colorado portion of Dinosaur National Monument, you have to drive back to the town of Dinosaur CO (30 minutes) and enter the park north of there. There's also a campground over there.

The BLM Dragon Trail rock art sites are along County Road #23 south out of Rangely Colo. No designated sites and most are best for overlander types. Camping opportunities start at the County road #100 access to the Shield site and then go south along County Road #23. Camping is possible at Shield site mp 5.6, Fremont Ridge site mp 9.7, Crooks Brand site mp 10.1 and Carrot Men site mp 11.6. Additional camping possibles to south to end of County road #23. Note that many side roads are deadend in .5+ miles to oil and gas pads so recon first. County Road #23 is a wide graded gravel road with dust abatement so no washboard and no dust. Look out for oil and gas trucks zipping up and down the road. At night area is very quiet but all bets are off on weekends as this area is also a designated OHV area. Cell signal is very good if you can see cell tower array on Big Ridge to east.