Camping in the Mcdowell Mountains?
- Thread starter Alleycats
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
I think it is mostly privately held land or park land only west of Rio Verde Rd and outh of Dynamite Rd. One option is to camp in the park campgrounds. I have done it many, many times. They have decent showers too. Or, you can head north of the neighborhoods on Dynamite Rd and find your way out into the Tonto NF to go fully primitive. Plenty of places to camp out there.
- Thread starter
- #5
- Thread starter
- #6
Well we headed up to the mcdowell mountain park Thursday night and slept near the Tom thumb trailhead, woke up at sunrise and onsighted Hanging Gardens with my Son who's 14. Hanging gardens is a climbing route on Gardner wall in the park. Good times. If I do it again I'll drive out dynamite road like above and turn on service road 20 and apparently there is dispersed camping out there by the Verde river.
Thanks again.
see you on the trail
Thanks again.
see you on the trail
that is a great picture of your son on the wall!
I see the old mattress is no longer inside the den - thats a good sign!
- Thread starter
- #10
Actually that's just a generic photo to give the thread some context, but the climber in the photo is approaching the top of the first pitch where you can see the chain anchor in the photo. My son is 14 now and climbed really well, I thought he'd get scared which he did, but he was able to deal with it and carry on. The mcdowell mountain park is a beautiful place which is clean and very well managed. I'll be going back for sure.