Campground Review: Sophie Flats Wickenburg, AZ

Five miles northeast of the small town of Wickenburg, AZ is some BLM managed land along a dried up river that's called Sophie Flats.  I camped there for a week in late April amid perfect temperatures, low-80's during the day with constant breezes and high-50's at night for ideal sleeping conditions.  Sophie Burden was a co-owner of a historic Remuda Guest Ranch and the Flats are named for her.

The dried up Hassayampa River running through Sophie Flats.

The Wickenburg Conservation Committee maintains several miles of hiking and horseback riding trails through the Flats although all I saw during my time there were ATV's whose riders seemed to prefer the sandy river bottom to the trails.  I actually wound up staying at Sophie Flats because a road I was following suddenly became way too steep for the Tank and I had to carefully turn around and head back down to the Flats.

The road up that hill became way too steep for the Tank so I turned around.

Here's the Sophie Flats data sheet:

Hookups:                                             None                                      

Fire ring:                                              Yes                                         

Water Access:                                     No                              

Fresh Water:                                        No                                          

Trash Service:                                      No                              

Toilets:                                                Only at the trailhead                                      

Showers:                                             No                              

Dump station:                                      No                              

WiFi:                                                   No                              

Level sites:                                          Yes                                         

Laundry:                                              No                                          

Store:                                                   No                                                      

Pool:                                                    No                                          

Shade:                                                 No                                          

Verizon reception:                                4G, 3 bars                               

Internet reception:                                3 bars                          

Cost:                                                  Free for 14 days

The topography of Sophie Flats is a good representation of Arizona's desert, billions of stones and bigger rocks and lots of cactus.

The road thru cactus to Sophie Flats.

There are several small roads off the main road to Sophie Flats that when followed take you to campsites where fire rings have been constructed out of the abundant desert stones.

The Tank's campsite with requisite fire ring.

  Some people I've talked with don't care for desert camping but I enjoy it.  Sophie Flats gets pretty noisy with all the ATV traffic on the weekend but during the weekdays it was surprisingly restful.  And of course you can't beat the price, right?

Thanks for reading!

Campground Review: Buckeye Hills Recreation Area Buckeye, AZ

Continuing west along I-10 from the Escapee RV park I passed through Buckeye, AZ where I stopped to workout at an Anytime Fitness franchise and grocery shopped, restocking the Tank.  Buckeye is the westernmost suburb of Phoenix and appeared to be a very nice-sized city of about 56,000 people.  About seven miles southwest of Buckeye lies the Buckeye Hills Recreation Area which is administered by Maricopa County and where you are allowed to camp for up to fourteen days free.

The Sheriff Dept. shooting range is down the road to the left.

Warning:  if you use Google Maps to get to the rec area it takes you to the Maricopa County Sheriff Department's shooting range rather than into the camping area.  When Google tells you to turn left after you pass the above sign ignore it and continue straight for about two more miles.  I'm sure the Sheriff Department personnel were wondering about why a pickup camper was driving in circles in their parking lot until the driver got his bearings.

Here's the rec area data sheet:

Hookups:                                             None                                      

Fire ring:                                              Yes                                         

Water Access:                                     None                          

Fresh Water:                                        None                          

Trash Service:                                      In the picnic area only                                    

Toilets:                                                Vault toilet in the picnic area                         

Showers:                                             No                        

Dump station:                                      No                         

WiFi:                                                   No                         

Level sites:                                          Yes                                         

Laundry:                                              No                                          

Store:                                                  No                                          

Pool:                                                    No                              

Shade:                                                 No                              

Verizon reception:                                4G, 3 bars                   

Internet reception:                                3 bars              

Cost:                                                  Free for up to 14 days

As you can tell from the lack of amenities in the data sheet camping at Buckeye Hills is your basic boondock experience.  The more choice camping sites are fairly distant from the day-use picnic area so plan on packing out your trash.

A covered picnic table in the day-use area.

My only real knock against the camping experience at Buckeye Hills was the lack of hiking trails.  You could easily walk through the desert-like terrain on your own "trail" but I was unable to find a single pre-marked trail anywhere in the area.

"And a story is told of a river that flowed made me sad to think it was dead."

The sunrises in the desert were really nice.

Sunrise over Buckeye, AZ.

My campsite was about a mile from the day-use picnic area.

The Tank's site.

The weather was uniformly perfect during my seven day stay at Buckeye Hills, days in the low-80's and mid-50's at night with strong breezes in the day.  I would imagine sometime in May the temperatures get high enough that camping at Buckeye Hills in June to September would get somewhat uncomfortable during the day.  Surprisingly, considering it's proximity to the Phoenix metro area the rec area wasn't at all crowded with plenty of sites available even on the weekend I stayed.  The picnic area got some use then but even it wasn't full on the weekend and was deserted during weekdays.

If you like off the grid boondocking check out Buckeye Hills Recreation Area in mid-April, the weather is ideal then.

Thanks for reading!

Campground Review: Escapee's Saguaro Co-Op Benson, AZ

I transitioned from complete off the grid boondocking on BLM land at Indian Bread Recreation Area to the full amenity hookups at the Escapee's Saguaro Co-Op in Benson, AZ.

The Saguaro Co-Op check-in office.

The reason I made this move was two-fold.  First Benson is the closest town of any size to Indian Bread rec area and after a week there some of the Tank's supplies needed restocking.  The second reason was that the Co-Op offers a tremendous first visit deal to Escapee's, seven days of full hookups and use of their facilities for $50.00!  (I'm uncertain if non-members can get the same deal, call ahead and ask.)  The hookups even include free cable and the RV park has very strong WiFi that was more than usable.  For less than $8 a day you can't beat this deal anywhere.

The view from the Tank's site at the Co-Op.

Here's the Co-Op data sheet:

Hookups:                                             30 and 50 amp, water, sewer                         

Fire ring:                                              No                                          

Water Access:                                     No                                          

Fresh Water:                                        Yes                             

Trash Service:                                      Yes                                         

Toilets:                                                Yes                             

Showers:                                             Yes                             

Dump station:                                      Yes                             

WiFi:                                                   Yes, strong                             

Level sites:                                          Yes                             

Laundry:                                              Yes                             

Store:                                                   No                                          

Pool:                                                    No                              

Shade:                                                 No                  

Verizon reception:                                4G, 4 bars                                                       

Internet reception:                                4 bars  

Cost:                                                  $50 for 7 days (first time visits only)    

The residents at the Saguaro Co-Op are like Escapee's everywhere, uniformly friendly and older than me and they really welcome renter's because the rent goes into a master fund that defrays any annual assessments the residents may incur like road repair or storm damage repair, etc.    The Welcome Lady (every Escapee facility has one) who comes by the first day to explain the Co-Op and tell you about the facility only put the mildest of sales pitches on me in encouraging me to get on the Co-Op's wait list to buy a spot in the Co-Op when it opened up, no time-share type grilling.  I figure I have several years of full-timing in me before I "settle down" so I politely passed on putting down the $500 refundable wait list deposit, but she did mention the list was 275 names long!  

The Co-Op clubhouse.  It even had a workout room with weight machine!

   

In my exercise walking around the quiet streets of the Co-Op (speed limit 15 mph) I was struck by how meticulous the grounds were kept, both resident's sites and the common areas.  Almost every plant in the landscape schemes had hand lettered little name plates telling you the name of the plant which was kind of cool!

A cactus in one of the public areas with it's name plate.

As the Co-Op is in the middle of the desert a few miles south of Benson the landscape scheme centers around desert plants and stone, I don't remember seeing a single blade of grass but the whole place was very attractive with the mountains in the background.

I enjoyed the luxury of having hookups and exercise facilities for a week at the Saguaro Co-Op and would recommend taking advantage of their tremendous first visit offer.  You DO have to pay for your electricity but my heavy usage only came to $3.75 for the whole week so no big deal there.

Thanks for reading!