By Cheri Sicard
In the video below, travel along with Catherine Gregory to check out Fremont Indian State Park, where she is staying at Castle Rock campground, which is part of the Fishlake National Forest (that’s correct, a state campground in a National Forest).
Catherine says this is one of Utah’s best RV camping secrets right off the interstate.
Before heading to the campground, Catherine takes time to explore the visitor center. You’ll want to as well, if you ever visit, as there is a lot to see here including the largest Fremont culture site in Utah with thousand-year-old pit houses, an astounding array of petroglyphs, and other Fremont artifacts.
Ancient Fremont rock art adorns the walls of nearby Nine Mile Canyon. Catherine says this park presents a wonderful opportunity for those who can’t get to the backcountry to experience this art. Even beyond doing away with the limitations of needing a 4-wheel drive vehicle, the artwork in Nine Mile Canyon is accessible to all via a wheelchair-accessible paved hiking trail.
According to the video, the Fremont people were a pre-Columbian archeological culture. Local indigenous peoples, including the Navajo and Ute, later discovered the remnants of the Fremont people. The museum in the visitors’ center tells the whole story with artifacts and dioramas.
You can actually visit a preserved Fremont Pit House, a log-lined structure built under the ground that provided both shelter during extreme weather conditions and food storage. Because of its subterranean placement, the Pit House remains far cooler than the surrounding topside temperatures, even during the heat of summer.
After exploring, a well-graded dirt road leads to the campground. A stream runs right through the space and a short hike revealed some towering rock formations that explain how Castle Rock got its name.
Soon it was time to hit the road again, but Catherine says if you ever find yourself passing through central Utah, this park makes an outstanding stop to add to your trip.
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Sometimes I wish people would just keep these places secret. Now with all the videos, I bet Fremont will start to get overrun and it will be impossible to get a reservation. So much for camping here anymore. There are so many full-timers that have YouTube channels that visit someplace they will never come back to, but they have to put out that video. They don’t think about how it impacts local families that have their special camping spots they used to go to year after year but can’t now because of the crowds. That’s what happened to Lee’s Ferry, Gunlock, and a whole bunch of other places in the Southwest including tons of boondocking spots. The boondocking spots got trashed so they are now closed to camping. These spots became super popular because of social media. I know I shouldn’t be selfish and want to keep these places a secret, but the YouTubers don’t understand the impact of their videos, they just want more views and thus more money.
Sorry to disagree, but these parks are for EVERYONE just not the locals who know the secrets.
Sorry to disagree with you, Cheri, but the problem is the sudden hoards of folks that come in response to these postings. Folks don’t mind sharing, but being overrun by herds of EVERYONE’S you claim these places belong to are quite literally ruining the experience for themselves as well as “the locals”. And in the case of this posting it is a State park with the bulk of the costs to operate it being absorbed by those locals. I agree sharing can be good. Swarming…never is. Seems to me, anyway.
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I think this place is worth checking out.
Agree with Tommy…