Coffee Creek Dispersed Camping

This Coconino National Forest area is outside of the Red Rock district so no pass is required. It is about 9 miles from Cottonwood (Walmart Supercenter) and 12 miles from Sedona, just off of Hwy 89A. From Sedona, turn right onto NF-9571, from Cottonwood make a U-turn at the NF-525 turnoff. [NF-525 is the route to the Palakti and Honanki ruins - https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coconino/recreation/outdoorlearning/recarea/?recid=55368&actid=119]

The GPS coordinates are 0.5 miles up the NF road which is rough dirt, but easily passable by any vehicle. The area opens up to a large plateau with lots of spots for any size rig. NF-9571 continues on to the left to several sites but it is recommended, especially for large rigs, to park on the plateau and check out this area on foot/toad before going any further.

The highway (89A) cannot be seen from here and traffic is seldom heard. One down side – this area is popular as a shooting range which can be annoying, especially on weekends. Its also an open range for cattle. Otherwise, it's much less crowded than the multiple spots along NF-525 to the north.

Multiple over-the-air TV stations are available.

One of the closest public land camp spots near Cottonwood and great for larger rigs; people could easily get the biggest class A, 5th wheel or skoolie into this area with plenty of space for friends. The single negative to this area is that it is super popular for those wanting to shoot all kinds of weapons. I was there five nights and every single day there was shots from high power rifles starting as early at 6:45am and going until dusk. my last day there, someone brought out a M198 Howitzer cannon and shot it off less than a 100 yards from my rig. it literally rocked my rig and left my ears ringing. I thought for sure I had blown a tire. I posted a youtube video of the experience including footage of the guy driving away with the Howitzer towed behind his truck. so, if you don't mind gunshots all day, and big weapons, this is a great spot to camp and close to the city (I have to say night time is super quiet!)

I was out there this afternoon looking for a place to Eventually stay and all the spots were taken. Beautiful landscape, however. The first part of the road just off the Hwy. can be rough. Giant, axle-breaking ruts in parts. Internet connection is hit and miss. Sometimes I had 2 bars and then nothing just a few feet away. It was tough on my 4x4 and so good luck getting a trailer in there. It’s obviously been one. Proceed cautiously.

Decent place to stay. Camping is very dispersed. Some even ground and some uneven. Over 5-7 spots I think.

Not as busy or dusty as camping on near-by FR525 Road. More spots than you'd think. Some better than others. Not too much trash, but not clean. This is a very popular shooting area for locals. Don't be surprised if folks show up and set-up an impromptu pistol range right next to your spot (yes, this happened a couple times).

This seemed to be the only logical location for boondocking outside of Sedona, at least that we found. We tried 525 Dispersed but that's pretty much large group sites and we typically like a more private setting.

Access was awful, but we took it slow and even with a low riding rig we still made it in and out without issues. And aside from the locals shooting guns daily, we enjoyed our stay here. Nice and quiet, good internet, and only 20 minutes into Sedona.

Hot air balloon companies also use this location as a landing zone! So if you're lucky, you might just have one landing in front of your rig like we did!

Plenty of space and not terribly busy.

Really nice spread out area. Towards the west you’ll have great views of the red rock, towards the east you’ll be nestled up against the hills with Southern Mountain View’s.

The road in can get a bit rutted.

If you come in and turn left and go behind the berm on the east side there’s a lot more camping but the road gets much rougher, however spectacular views of red rock and even more seclusion

First and foremost to get here we took 89A down from Sedona and the scenery was absolutely magnificent!
The main gravel road going in had some rut spots but if you take it nice and slow it shouldn’t be a problem. Big Class A’s and 5th Wheels made it through. Very open, dispersed spots that are level depending where you park. We took the gravel road to the left, after the fenced in area and then kept to the right and went all the way back til we could go no further and had the million dollar view. I would suggest scouting this route out first as that section of the road is a bit sketchy. It has a few rough sections that have deep, hard, washed out rut spots and our rig did lean a bit while going through. We just picked our line and went at a snails pace and made it without no problem. At the beginning we did see quite a bit of litter/trash that some lazy slobs left behind but didn’t notice much past that. There was some ATV/ side by side traffic but they were considerate and drove by slow. There is target shooting allowed here. We heard it but it didn’t go on all day and they kept the required distance away. We saw hot air balloons regularly and the one day they all landed in the area as a drop off point. We will definitely stay here again when passing through. We adventure in a 30 ft Class C towing a Jeep.

No cell service if you work on the road