Looking for free campsites (don't need showers or excessive amenities) near Moab (Canyonlands, etc.) or Monticello (near Indian Creek). Any suggestions appreciated! Looks like a high pressure system should be moving through, & some desert rock sounds really nice right now! Thanks.

I've camped way up Kane Creek Road in some undesignated camping, and the BLM maintains some campgrounds prior to that. The page below shows their campgrounds in that area, and the one I'm talking about is south of the Hunters canyon one, up in a wide open area. Stuff may be fairly snowy right now though, which may mean you want to try to poach the ones by the river. Cane Creek Road, if you're not familiar, is accessed on the south side on town by turning west at the McDonalds. The below pic makes it look like moab is south, but the downtown is north of the turn. They highly regulate/patrol this area in the summer. Winter...?


I've also seen some undesignated camping (but never tried to camp there) out on the Needles overlook road north of the Indian Creek turn off. Its west of the highway, passed Wind Whistle Campground, which is maintained only til October. Its road 133 on the map below.

At the base of Castleton has always been free established camping....fires, level tent sites...haul your own shit out....but it can be noisy...not this time of year though....this is the spot for all the tower routes on the Castleton ridge (Castleton, Rectory, Priest)....and not far from Fishers....or back to Lighthouse....you do drive back out to the main road to get to Sister Superior (Jah Man, etc).

There's tons of BLM land in the area where you can camp wherever you want for the most part. Some nice spots off of 133 that you can probably get to without 4WD or high clearance. They grade a lot of those roads pretty often.

Great- thanks for the replies, guys!