Lakeside camping with petrified wood and good fishing
Wide Hollow Campground is the overnight hub of Escalante Petrified Forest State Park, located 1.5 miles west of Escalante off Highway 12. The campground sits beside Wide Hollow Reservoir, a small lake stocked with rainbow trout and bluegill — a quiet surprise in a region most people think of as purely desert canyon country. It's about 35 miles east of Bryce Canyon's entrance, making it a reasonable base for the Bryce corridor and an excellent staging point for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
The campground has 22 single sites plus one accessible site. A handful of sites (including sites A, C, D, 20, 21, and 22) have electric hookups; the rest are dry camping with water access nearby. A newer section added in 2024 offers more open, less shaded spots, while older sites have more tree cover. Flush toilets, showers, and a sanitary dump station are on-site.
Sites can be reserved through Utah State Parks via ReserveAmerica. Summer weekends fill early — book ahead if visiting July through Labor Day. The park is generally open year-round, though winter conditions vary.
52 reviews
2 years ago
We stayed in T3, and it was awesome! Good firepit with a grate you can move, and every campsite has an awning and table. Very clean bathrooms with plumbing. The campsite is clean too. Staff is awesome and super friendly! Beautiful landscape too. I think the only downside was that we couldn't put stakes down for our tent because of a felt-like material under the gravel. But honestly it's so nice that its there to keep weeds from popping up. 10/10 would recommend
4 months ago
Very clean and updated across the campground. Very nice clean bathrooms. Right next to reservoir and out of town, but still close enough to easily go in to Escalante. No light pollution at all so the night sky was amazing!!
a year ago
Superb camping with geese and bald eagles, oh, and bats. No mosquitos in September anyway. Emily was the best host, and very accommodating as we were on motorcycles and tents. We reserved and the spot sucked so she fixed us up big time. Wish I could have spent more time with her, she was very sweet 😋
2 years ago
Great camp spot. We were in a lake side full hook ups spot. Pros: each site has a covered picnic table and fire ring. Gravel along the site keeps the dust down. The bathrooms are heated and upgraded. It’s a well kept site. Nearby petrified wood hike is a nice moderate hike with a some decent elevation gain. There is a fun nearby rock shop. Cons: Be prepared for loud geese 😂 the lake side spots don’t really have great access to the lake, they have wood fencing around them and no real paths down to the water.
5 years ago
We just spent four nights at the Wide Hollow Reservoir Campground and it was fantastic - except for one pesky, thieving squirrel. ;) We chose Wide Hollow Campground because of it proximity to all of the fantastic sites for hiking and site seeing throughout the Escalante area. The campsites include a tent pad and a cement slab with picnic table, fire ring, and grill. Some come with a very nice shade structure over the picnic table area. We also really liked the full bathrooms and showers. There are nice asphalt trails and parking spots between camp sites. Mosquitos and gnats were annoying, so BRING BUG SPRAY, CANDLES, AND ALL OTHER MANNER OF BUG PROTECTION. The Escalante Petrified Forest State Park hike next door to the campground is not to be missed. We loved our stay at this campground!