South Fork Ogden River

¾ hr $

There are seven forest service established campgrounds up the canyon east of Huntsville on highway 39 along the south for of the Ogden River. They currently are charging $18 per site and $8.00 for additional vehicles over one. You can get around the extra vehicle fee by parking on the highway, if you can find a decent place. Generally the maximum is 8 people per site, but they appear somewhat flexible. There are some double sites for $36, some that are reservable. Don't forget some cash. They lock the gates to the campgrounds at 10:00 to keep people from driving in all hours of the night. You can get out, but not in over the tire ripper. All of the campgrounds have a table, fire pit and water and restrooms nearby. All of these Forest Service campgrounds were still closed for the winter as of 5/11/13, but their published season is May-Sept. The Weber Memorial Park was open.

In most of the campgrounds there are sites near the river and others are closer to the highway with some highway noise, but not bad. They are in order from Huntsville, Magpie, Botts, South Fork, Perecption, Meadows and Willows. All of the campground are first come first serve except for the one called South Fork and reservations for that one should be made well ahead at time http://www.recreation.gov/camping/South_Fork_Ut/r/campsiteSearch.do?site=all&type=9&minimal=no&search=site&criteria=new&contractCode=NRSO&parkId=73846&topTabIndex=Search . Most of the other campgrounds fill up on Friday nights by 7:00 and they fill up from the bottom up with Willows being the last. They usually post a sign out front when the campground is full, but they are sometimes slow getting it posted. A good idea is to just head for Willows if it's after 6:00 on a Friday. Here is a photo of a good site at the Willows campground on the inside of the northeast side of the loop:

If Willows is full, head up to Weber county's Memorial Park just below Causey Reservoir. There is almost always somewhere to camp at there.

See http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/intermtn/cach.htm for more detailed descriptions of these campgrounds.