This is a great little campground owned by a couple who used to live in the Denver Metro area. They were feeling a little cramped by urban sprawl so they bought a plot of land in the middle of nowhere (between Hanksville and Cainsville, UT on Hwy 12) and developed the land into a nice little campground.
The owner, Stewart, very kindly showed us to our campsite and gave us a run-down of the property and the site. The campground itself is basically a gravel/dirt area with diagonal pull-thrus and back-ins. Stewart and his wife Heidi built the campground themselves and have done some nice simple landscaping, planting trees, etc. The water is all on a reverse osmosis system that covers irrigation and water at all of the campsites. All campsites also have full power and sewer hook ups. They did not clear cut the trees when developing the property so there are a few mature trees for shade and as time goes, on, the ones they have planted should help with that as well. All of the lights on property are solar and face downward to make for optimal stargazing at night.
If you are looking for resort amenities, this is not the place for you. There is no bathrooms, showers, laundry room or even trash receptacles available. You pack it in, you pack it out. They really didn’t provide any extras besides full hook ups at every site and a nice solar lit road down to the river bank about a mile away.
After dinner one evening, we headed back to the campground for a quick bike ride down to the river that flows close to the campground. It turned out not to be the best bike ride because most of it was sand. Although I commend the owners of the campground for taking the time to cut the maybe 1-mile road down and along the river and then go the extra mile by placing mini solar light posts all along the whole road so people can utilize it at night and take advantage of the dark sky for stargazing. The river bank itself is a nice sandy area and the river for the most part was only up to mid-calf (although some areas were a little deeper with swifter current). We all had fun putting our feet in the water and searching for different types of stones on the river bed. The river road is open and accessible to high clearance vehicles but a strict 10 mph speed limit is enforced for the entire park.
We stayed here over Memorial Day weekend and were very surprised at the lack of rowdy campers around us. This is probably because we were also surrounded by BLM land that was completely open to dispersed camping. We had never been to the area so we had no idea how hard it would be to find a good dispersed site on Memorial Day weekend so we opted for the safe bet with full hook ups. But the fact that a Saturday night was more or less completely silent was a nice surprise.
I would definitely recommend this campground to anyone wanting to stay in between Goblin Valley and Capital Reef. I’m glad we were here at the beginning of our long trip so we didn’t need any other amenities but that is often the case so I can imagine it wouldn’t be an issue for many other happy campers. I’m sure that once their little trees have had a chance to grow into shade trees, it will be quite the place to be! I look forward to seeing how this campground evolves in the future!