Madden Peak Road Dispersed Camping

We loved our spot off of Forest Road 316. It was completely private and had a beautiful view of the valley and the mountains in the distance.

There are cows grazing in the area, so there is quite a bit of mooing, though there weren't any cow patties in our site.

There is some sort of mill nearby, and during the week we could hear a hum from it in the distance, and a bit from the road, neither of which bothered us.

One warning, Forest Road 316 is off of US HWY 160 where the speed limit is 65, and most cars are going 70. FR316 is on a curve so you don't have much time to enter and exit. It seems a little dangerous.

Verizon was LTE and we got over 50 channels of over-the-air HDTV.

Coordinates to our campsite: 37.346547, -108.19928

I've read a couple blogs highlighting the "front" site with a beautiful view of the valley. When I arrived to claim it, it became apparent that the front site was reserved for Airstreams only - at least that was what was enjoying the view.

I nosed around a bit, and found a spot that let me level up, get several hours on my solar panel, and hide me from both the main road and the old rail grade. Turned out to be a wonderful spot for the week. Some background noise from the pipeline pumping station was apparent when outside the trailer.

While nosing around, I realized there were 8 rigs within 1/2 mile of the intersection, with all but one not visible from the other sites. I also discovered another hidden rim view site but it would require backing into it from the main road - it's mine the next time I'm in the area.

This area is a wonderful example of the advantages of boondocking!

Fantastic boondocking site. We met up here with Wanderwasi and were eventually joined by TheRoamingPint and _Daveburns - room there is a plenty of!

We enjoyed our stay here at this remote, yet convenient mountain top spot. The area is wide open and easy to access. Snow capped views of Madden Peak. Lovely area.

And we had excellent Verizon coverage thanks to the nearby towers within view. LTE was pulling a solid 8mbps down and 3mbps up when we tested.

I do have one suggestion, head towards Hesperus and turn onto 124. If you follow it all the way back, it will turn to gravel and take you to Snow Storm Peak and Lewis Moutain, with breathtaking views and tons of hiking.

We also used this as a basecamp to drive up the Million Dollar Highway. And it's about 2 1/2 hours from the campsite to Silverton, CO.

We took a spot not too far from the entrance, maybe 3/4 of a mile. Several nice spots, fairly level, lots of fire rings, easy turn around, even with our 40' 5er. No utilities, pack in, pack out. Felt very safe. No problems about soft soil in rain and light snow. Great Verizon, 4 bars LTE and ATT. Faint road noise from nearby Rt 160 and an occasional vehicle driving by on dirt road. Certainly more quiet than a campground and if you wanted more privacy you could probably drive further back or down other roads.

I used to camp host at Mancos State Park nearby and learned all about dispersed camping in the National Forests for free from them. When the state park campground got full, we had to turn everyone to the National Forest to camp for the night. I had never explored this road but had passed by it many times to Durango. Our camping stay was in the middle of October, but the weather was perfect in the 70's and evening temps in the 40's and dipping into the 30's. The gravel road is well maintained and safe for all RVs to drive on. We passed by multiple sites that were excellent for boondocking - easy to pull into, big flat areas where there's enough room to turn around and situate yourself to whatever view you please. All the sites are pretty level but it's still on a mountain so there may be a slope in some sites - we had trouble leveling our rig until we decided to turn it perpendicular and then we were good. We liked looking up at the peaks. Others talk about the highway noise but we didn't even notice it from inside our rig. At night, traffic is so sparse that it dies down for sure.

For food and gas, Mancos is a quick 6 miles with a grocery store, pizza (sold by the slice), bakery, nice modern library, laundromat, liquor store, and even a recreational dispensary in town. It's also a 30 minute drive to Durango. Tip: The Giant gas station on the left side just before you reach town has a FREE dump station (located on side of car wash between vacuum & air refill station), water spigot, and propane refill. We hooked up our rig after 7 days to drive it to the Giant station to dump and refill everything, then straight back to our site for one more week.

Our stay was serene, peaceful, beautiful, and memorable.

We arrived here on 4/17/17 and found the gate locked with a sign reading that the area was closed to motor vehicles from Nov. 15 thru May 31.

This was disappointing because the weather was beautiful and some of the nice sites start less than a mile past the gate. There is one sort-of site as soon as you pass the National Forest boundary but it is pretty close to neighboring houses. Then there was a large pull out area right before the gate that would have been large enough for a few rigs, but it seemed to be used as parking for mountain bikers going up the road so we decided to leave.

This place just felt like home. Stayed 10 days, didn't want to leave. Perfect weather, great sun for solar, blazing fast Verizon... Not too many bugs. Lots of cows, they visited my site every day. Easy access to the wonderful town of Mancos and 25 minutes from everything Durango has to offer. You can hear a little highway noise and the occasional atv or truck goes by. i loved it here, can't wait to come back.

It was good. It wasn't perfect by all means. However, since it is camping I don't go into it with high expectations. A couple downsides: there was cow shit all over the place, and also at night there's a bobcat like sounding animal that roars through the night. Therefore, if you're tent camping you, feel vulnerable AF but I woke up the next day in one piece so overall I give it a 4/5. If I wasn't for the shit everywhere and the creepy roars at night it would've been perfect. Otherwise, it was good... almost very good.

This is a very easy place to camp with a big rig (we have a 40ft fifth wheel) or tent. The first mile of gravel road is excellent. The next mile is rougher but definitely drivable with our rig. We happened to find a great spot open in the first mile. We did drive on down the road later and there were a few more large sites. There were a few other people staying in the area but it was not full by any means. It was quiet. Centrally located between Mesa Verde NP and Durango. Great stay!

The overlook spot, you see, well it's overlooking the road. Not terrible or anything, but headlights and the rush of evening traffic may kill your nature buzz if you didn't bring a set of earplugs and wear your sunglasses at night.

I actually preferred one of the first spots, surrounded in Gamble oak and plenty of it, dead, in abundance for fire building. Plenty of locals come up here in pickup trucks to chainsaw their winter's worth of free wood, and they don't seem to like it if campers are in their way. I don't like chainsaws, so I figured we were even.

Excellent cell service. Watch pulling out to get back on the highway, people drive faster than a spitball on a torpedo up here, and it's big mountain pass territory.

A toilet paper monster apparently lives here, the type that both leaves behind and then magically picks up piles of TP everywhere.