Fort Valley Dispersed Camping

Upside:
2-3 Bars of Verizon 4G
Beautifully wrapped in pine trees
FREE for 14 Days
Trails within walking distance
Close to Flagstaff & resources
A lot of great trails in Flagstaff

Downside:
No bathrooms or showers
very sketchy (if any) AT&T signal (we had a little signal with a booster)
A little road noise outside (can’t really hear it inside the RV) during the day
Watch for dead trees

This place was great for our first extended boondocking trip! It was just north of Flagstaff. It was only about 3 miles from a gas station and only about 5-6 miles from downtown and plenty of resources should we need anything. There’s even two Wal-Mart stores within 8 miles….and a Camping World on the west side of town about 17 miles away.

LOCATION:
The location is beautiful, especially if you like tall pine trees. They’re everywhere. Humphrey’s Peak can be seen in the near distance although it is hard to see through the pine trees from the spot where we were camped. But a nice walk around the area will give you views of the mountain through the trees.

The location is fairly easy to find (just off of 180), which is good and bad. We were not the only ones around, which is also good and bad. I don't mind an occasional neighbor as long as I feel safe, and I never felt unsafe here. But I kept my eyes open and stayed aware of who was around and when. During our stay, we had a Class A just a couple hundred yards in front of us most of the time and a truck camper that showed up on the last night of our stay. That was really the only other RV's near us except for an older 5th wheel the first night we were here.

GETTING THERE:
GPS: 35.2503, -111.6887
The road (unmarked) is just past Mile Marker 220 on 180. When you pull off of 180/N Fort Valley Road (on the right headed North) onto the road (easy to miss; make sure you are watching for it), you will follow the paved road going off to the left after you turn in. Follow that road down and to the left beside it is a dirt/crushed rock road that turns back to the front. This is the road we stayed on and there is room for 4-5 RV’s with space between; you could get more in if you didn’t mind being a little closer to each other. It was pretty level (side to side) if you stay on the right side of it. The left side starts to ramp up to the paved road. This road is fairly close to 180 so you do hear a bit of road noise throughout the day if you’re outside, but at night it was pretty quiet. Again, we were ok with that because we wanted to stay fairly close to resources for our first extended boondocking trip.

TIPS:
Propane: Near the Wal-Mart on the east side of town, there is a rental place called Grand Rental Station that has propane. We also asked them if we could grab some water and they were nice enough to allow us to fill up our fresh tank. Address: 2480 East Huntington Drive
Flagstaff, AZ 86004

Dead trees: Whenever you decide to park, check for dead trees around you before unhitching. When we first parked, I didn’t notice a really tall pine tree that was dead and decaying. I noticed it the next day and it gave me some unrest about the potential of it falling on our rig (it was the only one around except for one that had fallen already nearby). So, on day two we moved about 130 yards back away from it, which was a small pain to hitch back up, pull in the slides etc to move, but worth the peace of mind.

This is a very easy location to get to with any size rig. There was a parking type lot for campers of all types to stay in. With our experience, we had a constant flow of random cars that came and stopped next to our travel trailer that would roll down their window and never get out and then leave after a period of time. We found it quite strange. There were no families at this location, but a large amount of men here. We ended up leaving and went up the road to the snow bowl. Wouldn't recommend this site.

Tried to camp here on 4-21-19 but the gate was locked and there were many signs stating no motor vehicles allowed.

The main parking area was busy but we went further on the other side of the road and had a big site to ourselves. Tons of room, turn around room and was very peaceful

We drove in here on the way to Grand Canyon. By the way, driving 180 beats taking the Interstate to 64, the Coconino Forest was beautiful. We were easily able to find a site, but I couldn't help but feel like we were camping the suburbs. There weren't any facilities that we could see.

It was great for a few nights! We were in Flagstaff and it started to snow and the roads get very icy incredibly quick here, so we wanted to get off the road and bed down for the night ASAP. It’s up a bit of a hill and that was a tad bit sketch but we got there ok. It’s so near the road that you can see the highway you turn off to get there, so not great if you’re wanting to get away from people. But it was great for us! Good amount of room. There were 6 vehicles there at one point and we had enough space to be well away from each other.

Planned to overnight here but the access road was blocked..possibly due to snow and ice being forested or seasonal access only. Drove to the other nearby sites and they were closed off as well.

Stayed a few days between Sedona and GC. Apparently a lot of logging has been done but there are plenty of campers and day bikers/motorcycle riders. Although a lot of campers appear to be in need, it was quiet and pleasant. There were dogs off leash but that's probably situational. I'd stay here again.

There is a lot of people camping here so we drove down the road about a half mile or so.. maybe longer.. there's a huge tree blocking the road. We have a travel trailer.. we suggest not going fully down the road.. it's extremely hard to turn around. The road isn't the best. Cell service is super shotty.. we have TMobile.
We would camp here again if we could get a spot along the road but tents have taken all the turn around spot in the area...

Popular spot but road has a lot of ruts and tree is still down that was mentioned in other review. If the tree was out of road it may open up better sites. Maybe 20 spots before tree but most were full and only a few suitable for anything our size (28’ travel trailer). We talked to a few people leaving and they seemed happy with the spot they had been in. We left and went to another area.