Vekol Valley Road Dispersed Camping

Open dispersed camping next to freeway. I understand you can drive a little farther up Vekol and find more spots. The T-Mobile connection was fast. This area is known as a smuggler route but I don’t think there is any danger.

Pulled off hwy, past barb wire fencing that is private land to a few spots for disperse camping, can follow road a few miles in w a few more areas to pull off, for a gravel road it is smooth and leads to a trail head, signs for smugglers did not see any, on a busy day there may have been 4 vehicles going to trail head. Just past trail head is a large wash, when dry if cross it there is an abandoned ranch, also walked the wash a harder walk due to loose gravel. There are a few sensors in ground area I think they are for earthquake monitoring... very peaceful no hwy noise, end of Nov 2018 flies where awful.

Stayed overnight, some road noise but definitely not a deal breaker. No super far away from light pollution but dark enough to see the stars extremely well!

The signs about smuggling are obviously a bit scary, but we saw no signs of anything illegal, no rangers, and lots of beautiful desert. Road in is good gravel with various pull-offs along the road. Any size rig should be fine. Worst case is that if you go the 1.5 miles or so to where Vekol and the Park road split, there is tons of open space on the right that could accommodate dozens of rigs. We stayed next to the USGS monitoring station on the right just after the smuggling signs. Flat and big. We went hiking in the park one day and it was very nice (though glad we had a high-clearance vehicle to get to some trail heads).

Blazing day VZ service. Decent T-Mobile.

I’ll be back ! Quote from movie. I couldn’t ask for more, watching YouTube,beautiful sunset and no one else around and peaceful,maybe that’s why it’s peaceful is because there’s no one around , duh !

Amazing campsites down a gravel road and numerous places to park. I parked next to the USGS radar station which has a campfire ring and flat level ground. I’ll be back here again for sure. Full Verizon signal so I can work and watch Netflix at night.

It took us a bit to discover that the Sonoran Desert National Monument is really just a preserve, with no hiking trails or sights to speak of . That said, this is an acceptable nice open level place to spend a free night when on the road. We stayed in the area this GPS link sends you to and had it all to ourselves, but if you wanted to be farther from the interstate, you can drive farther down the gravel road to find more open areas.

This place is so quiet and peaceful. I camped real close to the abandoned Ranch. There's only one little pull off on the road that takes you to the ranch. Don't try to go any further unless you have a lot of clearance and a 4 by 4 because you have to cross several steep washes to get any further then the first pull-off area. Take a hike down to the ranch. It's really interesting. Cell service is incredibly fast with full bars of Verizon 4G LTE even a mile or so off of the highway. I have a 38 ft motorhome and I pull a full-sized SUV behind it. I had no problem getting back here and finding a nearly perfectly level site in an incredibly quiet and private area.

right off the highway and not too loud. I only went about a mile in, and only passed 1 other group in a large lot. the spot I had was back in some trees and had a fire pit. the road wasn't too bad.

Stayed 3 nights and loved it! Many sites are easy access for a big RV.