Best Dispersed Camping near Dateland, AZ

Fairly easy approach with my overcab camper setup, and family of 4. beautiful saguaro and ocotillo country, yotes yipping at night, owls, wrens and a ton of wildlife. Maybe be careful of pckrats and leave your hood propped up with a light. Otherwise one of our favorite dispersed camp sites ever!! LOTS of space to explore. 

It is absolutely amazing here. Plenty of space for disperse, primitive camping. This seems like a popular place for primitive camping, but it is so easy to find a quiet private spot. The Ajo MTB trails are here and there is OHV.

Managed by Lower Sonoran BLM Field Office 

Very quiet so much glass and old rusted tin cans, possibly from when mining was active here. Lots and lots of shards of broken glass, it’s part of the landscape almost.  There are open mine pits, some fenced off, some not so be careful especially if you let your pets run free. Constant sound of planes overhead from the nearby AFB, with occasional low flying jets. Overall a nice place if you can get past all the broken glass, some areas worse than others. 

Not too many chollas but there are some road in. Alley Rd was flat and level, some washboarding, ok for any rig just take it slow. Coming off of Alley Rd to pull out spots could be tricky for bigger rigs. There were a few nice looking spots that we didn’t attempt in our 26ft Class C because the road up was too steep.  Deep dip on Alley Rd coming in, about 1.8 miles from where the paved road ends, we scraped our bike hitch both coming and going. At around 32.355867,-112.884902. Any rigs longer than about 26ft probably can’t make it further in than this spot if coming in from the north, or you can enter from the other side of the loop and come in that way.

Good verizon 4bars on 4GLTE, ATT had 2-3 bars on 3G, very slow.

It state trust land. You need a permit, which is available online and I believe the image of the receipt on your phone or laptop would suffice. Should anyone check, which I have never seen. This is at least my second stay here. Nothing exciting but it is right off of I eight, which is not audible right now over the noise from apparently someone's generator. Haven't heard any yapping dogs or idiot kids running around with a parents bearing their asses off but this is my kind of place.

On the refuge. Can collect crystals off the hill.

Packed in. Dozens or hundreds of trailers these first 2 weeks of February. Sunny, but not overly warm weather. Road noise that is not overwhelming, just a steady din in the background. Tent campers having some trouble this time of year as the wind increases sharply in the afternoon.

I've been here twice, the last a few days ago. I was the only person there and at night felt like i was the only person on earth or moon. Completely quiet. Many fire pits and as another review said, lots of glass everywhere. Lots of cans with holes in them.

Stopped here for the night on the way back to Tucson and loved it. Hope to go back and explore the town a little more next time!