Tonto National Forest Riverside Campground

Location in Tonto National Forest You need Tonto Pass at bottom off Bartlett Reservoir Dam some sites have Picnic Tables & Fire Rings located next to Verde River

In Tonto National Forest Close to Phoenix located near Bartlett Reservoir Fire Rings and Picnic Tables at some sites next to Verde River below Bartlett Dam

The campground is pretty easy to get to even in a sedan. When you go around the corner there’s a handful of small-medium sized sites with a fire ring and table. There was lots of trails down to the river to fish or boat, but I never caught anything. The bathrooms were incredibly clean and there was a dumpster on site. Lots of visitors come through and many don’t follow camp etiquete. Noisy till midnight, leave trash all over the place, let their bad dogs run wild, cut down trees for firewood. The list goes on. If you visit on a weekday you’re more than likely to have a better stay than one on the weekend. Spots fill up quick so I’d get there Friday or Saturday morning.

A small campground, it has a one-way, counterclockwise road. The road in, from the marina is a well-maintained dirt road. A couple of dispersed campsite can be seen just before you arrive, riverside of the road. The improved campsites are found after you round the turn to head back to the main road. The sites will be to the left. Sites are rather close to each other and I noticed that some campers take up more than one site. Campfire rings are deep and the bbq grate is not adjustable. Aluminum picnic tables,, with anchor chains. Some of the sites have grass and trees to string a hammock. The improved sites end just before you reach the vault toilets. Toilets were clean and a dumpster is there too. Just past the toilets, are some more dispersed sites. Two of the dispersed sites are nice, with grass and shade and more room. There are a couple spots to access the river. Overall, it's not a bad spot and the views driving in are good. There is some trash, but not bad. I did pick up some, as it was windy, but most of it was very small. Cell service is poor. At the picnic table I had one bar and 3G data that was slow, with ATT. Once I moved, I lost service. I imagine Verizon has service to a better degree.

I spent four days here it was amazing. There is all kinds of different birds all over the place the kids loved it. Lots of Animals but didn’t hear 1 coyote or see any Javalina. So mainly just cool little critters lizards skunks and such. We got a spot walking distance from the river. Awesome Fishing spots and day camp spots to spend time all day in the water. Then you can just walk back to camp and make dinner relax. Loved the stars at night and lush grass trees cactus it really is a beautiful spot. You can kayak fish hike off-road dirt bike atv. There is a marina with a store with beer and firewood and even a little restaurant about 20 min from camp pretty sweet. Five stars it was clean when we were there and we even seen rangers come by every morning and make sure there was no trash there is bathrooms and a dumpster on site !

The river was beautiful! The camp spots were close to the river with nice big fire rings. Just like a lot of low desert camping in Arizona it’s dusty and dry with lots of prickly plans. But the trail and the trees near the river were lush. My biggest complaint about the spot was all the garbage everywhere. Come on people, burn your trash or take it home! There’s no need to trip over piles of water bottles & beer cans, cigarette butts, McDonald’s wrappers and plastic bags.

Got a large group of friends to go jeeping up in the mountains not too far from here, couldn’t remember the exact spot. After going deep into a canyon nearby, we found an abandoned mine! Pretty cool but definitely away from society.

We showed up to our site at night and though it was crowded, we found what we saw was the last available campsite a reasonable distance from other campers. But someone near by was rude and yelling at us about too close to his site. Over all it made us want to pack up and leave early despite the nice site and it being so close to the water.

We arrived kind of late (11:30pm), there were quite a few open campsites for a Friday night. However, we went 2 away from an occupied site and were still yelled at by an #unhappycamper, so some of them are close together. The sites all had a picnic table and a fire pit. There was also vault toilets, which were pretty clean but out of toilet paper. There was also trash left from previous campers :( #packitout