Camping in/around Dinosaur National Monument

[BroncoHauler]

Part of my upcoming trip with my son will be at Dinosaur National Monument.

Boondocking aside, my best camping options seem to be:
Green River campground (inside D.N.M.)
Split Mountain campground (inside D.N.M.)
Red Fleet State Park just outside Vernal, UT (offers electrical hookups)
Steinaker State Park just outside Vernal, UT (offers electrical hookups)

Anyone have any recommendations or insight to any of these possibilities? I did not include Rainbow Park and Echo Park campgrounds, both inside D.N.M., since they only have vault toilets. I'm not ready to subject my 5 year old to that just yet.


Herb

[LenS]

Tent camped inside the park there over 20 years ago with kids. Hot, HOT summer weather and lots of gnats. Kind of like hell. Our kids remember pouring water over out heads to stay "cool". I guess it was late July and into early August. So your comfort might depend on the time of year you and your son are going. I think I would recommend an electric site for you and your son. Also one in the shade of a tree (if you can find one).

It was a long time ago.

[BroncoHauler]

Not that it means much, but I just looked up the temperature numbers;

May in Vernal, UT.
Avg temp: 55
Avg high: 72
Avg low: 38
Highest temp: 93
Lowest temp: 12
Average Number of Days Above 90F: 0.3
Average Number of Days Below 32F: 7


Herb

[Greggd]

Herb
Green River is a nice campground and has never been crowded in the three visits there . Scenery and accessibility to other locations are also good . You might want to check on the opening date though , seems like I remember it being closed until the First of May . All off
my Grand Kids really like it as well .
Greggd

[mtnrafter]

I've been rafting the Yampa and Green Rivers thru the park for almost 20 years and know the area pretty well. I actually just camped this past February at the Split Mtn. take out. Noone was there but the river ice was pretty high and very unsafe for exploring along the shore. The dino exhibit was closed on account of construction, btw. I expect "ice out" to be pretty soon. I've been snowed on in May and early June and have been in bloody hot conditions from mid June thru August. Split Mtn. has decent outhouses. Five or so camp sites for rv's or tents. Not much privacy. Bugs shouldn't get bad until the first part of June. Echo Park is a 40 mile haul down a road that gets pretty snotty when wet and is dang hot in the summer- pit toilets as well. Good exploring thru there, though. Rock art, whispering cave, more rock art. It was THE outlaw hiway back in the day. There's an rv type camp at the intersection of hiway 40 and the road into the park just west of the Green River. Never camped there.

Have a great trip. It's a wonderful part of the world.

Jay

[saline]

Echo Park is a pretty cool area to camp. It's near the confluence of the Yampa and the Green.