Sauls Creek Dispersed Camping

I needed a spot for an overnight and this was in the right place at the right price! It's about 2 miles off of the highway, but at least 3/4 of that is hard surface and the gravel portion was in excellent condition. Since all I wanted was an overnight, I didn't go beyond the first spot - shade from a large pine tree, overlooking a wetland bird habitat. The pond is fenced with a number of bird houses mounted on fence posts around the pond. There's a nice breeze so I'm not experiencing any bugs. When I first pulled in about 4 p.m. I thought there was going to be some road traffic, but that quickly died off. This spot is not far inside the NF border, and there is one house that can see my campsite but it's far enough away that I won't have to worry about curtains. If it were out of sight of the house and back off the road it would be a five.

We stayed here in mid to late September, with the intent of having a dry camping location with easy access to Durango, it was just that. The area is very easy to get into, and the roads are very well kept, to the point that every time that it rained, there was a guys on a tractor scraping and resurfacing the gravel. There are a few spot when looking at satellite images that are not as accessible as they seem, some rather deep ruts may be in the way, but those spots are a little further off the road than we ventured. There is not a lot of traffic on the road during the day, maybe 8 to 10 cars a day, on the weekends its a bit busier, but not by much. Its seems to be a hot spot for locals to bring out their horses and Mtn bikes, so if you are planning to arrive on the weekend, the first camping spots as you come in will likely be taken up with their horse trailers or cars, so continue on back and find a spot a little quieter. Make sure and check out the big map as you come in, there are a bunch of hiking/mtn bike trails that will be right out your front door, just make sure to get your bearings right, where the "you are here" mark is, is not actually where the sign is, so look for the sharpie correction. There are a number of BP natural gas pumps on this land, so be aware, if you camp near one you will hear it humming away 24 hours a day.

If you have a directional antenna and Verizon, point at 270 degree, due west for 5 bars.
Our site location: 37.237965,-107.531939

Nice enough sites tucked back in the San Juan NF, on a network of gravel roads that seem mostly used for oil & gas access. It's pretty underutilized for camping, though, so you won't find much in the way of established informal campsites (unlike many other USFS areas). It's basically up to you to just find a spot you like and which will accommodate your rig.

From highway 160 you'll turn right onto CR 526. Turn left onto CR 527 and when there is a Y in the road, stay to the right and that will be CR 528. Our GPS only shows 755A however, once you are out there, you will see 755B on the left side and this is the turn to the camp sites. It was a little slow-going on the gravel road in, and once we turned onto the dirt road (755B) to get to the camping sites, it got a bit rougher. The first camping area (on the right, with a fire pit) was open so we took it. Plenty of space for our big rig and tow car. Some low hanging branches but not too horrible. There was a fair bit of shade from trees, which is nice in the heat but not necessarily great for our roof-top solar panels. I'm sure we could have readjusted to get some better light.
There were a few other campers in the area, who went in further than us but had camper vans instead of bigger RVs. Might have been pretty rough to seek out the sites deeper in the forest with our Class A and tow car but we probably would have tried anyway :)
We stayed here a few weeks ago and sadly don't quite recall the cell coverage, other than that we were able to work on laptops without a problem.
There was a little noise from cars on the nearby gravel road. The noise from the gas wells were hardly noticeable.

So, I LOVE me a scenic campsite. I think I have been spoiled by my boondocking in Silverton. So, there's not much 'scenery' here. You're looking at trees. No big deal.

Common, I am sure. The place is easy to get into and out of. It's just due east of Bayfield. There aren't THAT many spots to be had. I scouted the place and found only one spot I could stay in back in the middle of August.

It worked for me. When you enter Sauls Creek, the road goes straight for a while, then finally there's a turn to the right, then a fork in the road, which I went right on. There's a few sites on the right hand side along that road and one at the dead end. At that end site, and many of the others, there were way too many trees for me since I need solar to keep my batteries up.

Still, I have a ground deploy solar panel, so I could move it around, so the spot I got worked ok.

If you come into Sauls creek and keep going straight instead of to the right, there are more sites, but I found many to be very unlevel. I stayed there again later in the season, and took the first LEFT and stayed at the spot on the right there.

It's big enough for two TT's, maybe three. However, had someone come up on us, it would have felt pretty rude/tight. It was really nice, actually.

There's a very close oil rig here but I barely heard it. Enough sun to move my solar panel around to chase the sun!

All in all, there's lots of trails to access and it was a pretty quite place. I'll be back.

Lots of Oil Field Traffic & Cattle. Saw a Bull Fight, so that was pretty fun! We drove to the right down CR 528 just a little ways with our Class A and found a nice clearing. The map at the entrance isn't entirely correct.

We were freezing at night a few hours north and contemplating leaving colorful ColoRADo given said temperaturization...until we took a drive south and realized that it's still blazing hot here.

We snagged the first open spot, along a trail, near a sort of gate that only humans can go through in the fence. It's not exactly the big mountain vistas we've seen elsewhere in the state, but easily one of the most scenic places in the nation. Horses and Stellars jays, a small pond, big pondos everywhere.

And great cell service.

A sheriff stopped once to ask us what we were doing and where we were from, but didn't complain or ask us to leave or anything. Since camping with cell service near Durango was tough to find, we'll no doubt return!

Lots of poop though! And the sheriff said come October, bears and cougars abound.

If you plug these coord's into google maps 37.24,-107.535 you'll find a really nice peaceful flat, open(solar) area to camp. Don't despair if it's taken there are plenty of areas around here to camp. I also have 3 bars on Verizon LTE without using the weboost, nice bonus.

The signage in the main entrance was easy to find but it was not obvious where all of the camping locations were. I started by going to the end of the map on roads in the 130s only to find a lot of BP drilling rigs and not many places to turn around a 20' trailer and truck. I used a review that listed an exact GPS location and found my way into road 528, then onto road 755. The end of road 755 was like an Austin Powers movie to get turned around at the end and all the obvious sites were taken. Technically I could have parked anywhere I wanted to within 300' of the road according the the website for Saul's Creek. I opted to park at the end of 755.A1 which has a gate for trail 807 at the end. I noticed a deer carcass, broken beer bottles, several brands of spent .45 ACP shells and other garbage strewn all over that location. The first night I camped there, no problems. The second night someone parked within 10-20' of my rig at O'dark thirty loud enough that it woke me up, when I went outside I saw people with what appeared to be rifles in hunter orange. The strolled up on trail 807 like no biggie. Technically we all have the right to be there but be warned there are people at the end of road 755.A1 trashing the place and not being respectful of people camping there. I would camp at Saul's creek again, but in a spot with better protection from someone parking directly next to the camp site.

Great overnight option. The Walmart in Cortez was our original plan, but this was soooo much better. We enjoyed the wide open (solar friendly) spot we found....previously occupied by horse campers, LOL. Well maintained roads and not much traffic.