Durfield Dispersed Camping

Aside from a law enforcement ranger who gave us the old “what’re you doing here?” and then told us every rule in the world, despite us telling him we were here because of evacuation orders due to the 416 fire, this place is probably our go to for free camping in Durango.

It should be noted however, that GPS (at least Google Maps) will funk you up if you try and go to the place coordinates list here currently (37.2193121528792,-107.699248194695).

Instead, these ones will put you directly at the entrance: (37.2265970,-107.6950090)

From there, various roads spur off but All spots are pretty much wide open with trees surrounding, pinyon pine and junipers, so not a ton of shade.

The commute to Durango is only 10 minutes and Bayfield has some amenities as well. Picking up a bag or two of trash would make you a hero ‘round these parts, and there is a dumpster at Whitewater Park in town where no one seems to mind dumping. Or Google the recycling center in town, it’s $3 for a pretty large bin’s worth of mixed recycling and I believe free to recycle glass.

Or you can shoot your bottles and leave them for my kids to cut themselves on and my tires to embed themselves with, whatever kind of humanity you wish to represent!

We stayed here for 3 nights. Very quiet and very few people here on 4th of July weekend.
Close to Durango, we did the drive every day.
Apple maps wanted me to go in through Bayfield, I looked at the gps, and the dirt road and cattle guard are at Hwy 160. If you are coming from Durango, you will see a junk yard in your left and then you will make a right into the dirt road. Hard to see since it’s a curve, so slow down!
Few cows wondering around, we only saw 3 other campers come and go.
We camped where I drew the cross on the map attached. Close to some gas or oil equipment but there were no signs that we couldn’t, plus there were signs of campfires and other campers using this area before.
We had better Verizon than some places in Durango!

I checked out this Boondocking location without my Airstream. I wanted to see prior to hitching up if I liked it.

Pluses: Bad Ass Verizon. I mean 5 bars of LTE.

Negs: I saw only two really nice campsite, the first one you come across to your right under a beautiful, broad pine tree. the other is on the left near a pump, with a nice view. I did see a few places that kinda would have worked for my 27' Airstream, but they were pretty iffy and too close to the road. It's really an oil and natural gas field. Signs were post at the large, flat areas that were fracked to capture the NG "No Camping" "No Fires of any type". I guess there is a danger of methane gas leaking from the installations.

In summary, I'd pass. To me there are two good camping spots. I'd stay in a pinch, but Sauls creek is far superior. The only reason to stay here is if you need that big fat LTE signal for streaming Atlanta Housewives...

We stayed one night in May, 2019. Other reviews we read were a little negative about the oil field equipment in the area, but we are from Texas, so we felt right at home with a Christmas tree on our site. The gravel road was in good condition, so we had no trouble getting our 22ft travel trailer into our site. We woke to a beautiful view of mountains in the distance. Road noise not noticeable. Verizon service was 5bars, so we streamed Hulu with no delays. We hope to stop here again next time we go through the area.

Echoing everything in the “Nathan @ Wand’rly” review. Read his post for the correct path to this site. I pasted the coordinates above in the Site Number box and here again: (37.2265970,-107.6950090)

We were approached by a BLM guy our second day there, who gave us the standard dispersed camping rules. No trouble, just a heads up.

Quiet, good views, clean, close to town, and easily accessible.

Follow picture marked up map instead. Entrance is off of 160. Once in, some dirt roads lead to locked gates and we had to back up our rig down a long road in the dark. Wish they’d add small directional signs.

Watch your GPS it will bring you to an adjacent neighborhood and tricky to turn around. Great location close to wonderful Durango. Very nice road in, some off shout roads can get muddy. Overall a nice quiet place to stay. There was some garbage left behind by others, just aggravating to see. Not to many established sites, they are spread out very well.

Do not follow your GPS to Sundance Hill Road. This is a private community and the road dead ends where the entrance to this area used to be. The gate is closed and has directions posted on it as to get to the "New" entrance. I never did find the road into this area, and I had to ask the people that lived there if I could make use of their driveway to turn my 37 foot trailer around in. The lady was very gracious, but wished people would heed the sign posted at the entrance to Sundance Hill Road. The sign should be changed to a large stop sign or warning sign telling campers to not enter this road.

On the directions: it’s literally (south) off Hwy 160, about 15 miles east of Durango. Look at it in satellite mode in Apple Maps or Google Maps and you’ll be all set. We’d been up north is Silverton in the mountains during some summer rains and this was a great place to dry out on our way East. We lucked out and arrived when the best spot, about middle of the property, between the 2 large ponderosa pines was free. One LTE bar of T-Mobile that we boosted to three.

Everyone says "GPS wrong". Enter my GPS numbers into Google maps and the satellite view will show you where I am at right now! Google doesn't recognize the dirt road and the directions are not right to it. On Hwy 160 between Mile Markers 97 & 98 there's a small dirt turn in area at the BLM gate, It comes up fast, especially east bound; Google Maps shows it. I set the destination as the intersection of 160 and the dirt road.
Then it's just a matter of following the road and the big area is on your left. The descriptions about the site are all about what I found.