Best Glamping near Winkelman, AZ

Spencer Canyon Campground is a nice campground approx. 20 miles from Tucson up the General Hitchcock Highway(often called the Catalina Highway or Mt. Lemmon Highway). It is located approximately 3 miles past the Palisades Visitor Center and the entrance is marked well by a big brown sign as you approach. Phill and Denise, the friendly campsite managers will give you advice and suggestions about campsites that suite your needs. The photos attached to this review are from campsite#6, which is close to the Phill& Denise’s camper location and the highway- yes, we did hear road noise. Most campers chose locations deeper in the campground, but we were there on a busy weekend so most of those“deeper” campsites were occupied. All sites have a large bear box, concrete picnic table, charcoal grill and an iron fire pit. The picnic area of the site is level but the whole campsite is NOT so pick your location carefully if you want to pitch your tent on a flat, level plot. We did find some firewood left over from prior campers but recommend bringing your own, dry wood if you have room in your rig. In my observation, there is a rather nice, vessel toilet house strategically located to serve 6- 7 campsites. There is also a water faucet to be shared by 6- 7 campsites. Campsite#6 has its own faucet so others might also. There are 60+ campsites throughout Spencer Canyon and I would suggest that those“deeper” in the campground are more desirable. It should be noted that most of the campsites are close together, that is, about 50-75 feet apart, hence, my“... if you don’t mind company” comment. It should also be noted that Phill& Denise are really nice and helpful, the campsites are well maintained and clean, it is only 22 miles from Tucson and less than 6 miles from the mountaintop hamlet of Summerhaven, and is situated at approximately 7,900 fee of elevation. Thus, Spencer Canyon Campground is a great getaway from the Arizona heat and close enough to Tucson for a 1- 2 night weekend.

This campground is Free. There are 17-21 sites dispersed & in groups that include cement picnic tables, metal ring fire pits, and some sites also have Bear Boxes. There are 3-4 outhouses, no running water or amenities. To get there from Globe it’s 7 miles of dirt one lane switchbacks on the side of the mountain. I have seen campers before but it is not very easy to get up there with them. There are bears and other wildlife. Even have seen a tarantula (pictured). Like many state land out here they have cattle loose and they do travel the road up the mountain so keep that in mind.

Campground Review

Upper Pinal campground is tiny. I’m not even kidding you… tiny. There are literally 3 campsites surrounding a 100 foot wide dirt turnaround in the center. The campground does not take reservations so it’s a long way to drive with a good chance you won’t find an open site. However, if you’re lucky enough to get one of the spaces you may really enjoy it. To the South is Unit 1 (where we stayed) and it’s an uphill driveway with a raised area with a fire pit and metal picnic table. If you have a small tent you can camp on the elevated area near the table and fire pit but otherwise you do have room to back in a small pop up trailer (beware, it is a curved driveway so if you aren’t comfortable backing up a trailer I wouldn’t suggest it). The site is almost completely surrounded by very tall trees which blocked both most of the morning and afternoon sun.

The East side of the circle is Unit 2. This is right on the edge of the circle and could be easily pulled right up to. The downside to that is that there is little to no privacy for that camp unit. It also has a fire pit and picnic table.

The North side has another campsite with a smaller (and straighter) uphill driveway. You wouldn’t be able to put a trailer facing towards the fire but you likely could camp with a small pop up in this unit and park lower down the driveway.

The West side of the circle had the single unit unisex bathroom building. It was really clean and well stocked with toilet paper (but another camper one of the nights we were there decided it was a smoking room, yuck).

The entire area had a lot of downed and broken trees for firewood. We could have easily supplied our fire all weekend with just broken pieces but we had a small handsaw so we were able to cut slightly larger logs from fallen trees.

The only other thing I’d touch on is the road to get to the campground. I wouldn’t suggest trying to travel up without decent ground clearance. There was a bit of wash boarding and obvious ruts in the road from where the road was traveled when muddy. We have gone through that area in snow/slosh and I wouldn’t even want to travel that road without 4 wheel drive in that situation. Know your vehicle and your driving skills!

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time – on this trip I tested the Renogy E.LUMEN Multi-functional Flashlight. Upon opening the box I noticed the flashlight was much larger than I had anticipated. As such, I don’t think it would be ideal for everyday carry. However, it does have quite a few really neat features and I think it would be a great addition to any bug-out bag. Of course, my curiosity got the better of me and I was dying to test the seat belt cutter (because I’d rather know how it’s going to work before my life depends on it). Luckily, I had the belt from an expired car seat and decided that would be the perfect test subject. I angled the belt over my chest where a shoulder strap would sit and it was hard to get it to cut all the way through. It took a few tries and a lot of strength but it did make it through. I could imagine that while a knife may cut through it easier in a panic situation I’d hate to end up accidentally stabbing myself using a knife instead of the safety guided blade on this flashlight. To see the full video check out the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/xWqkgSS7iEs

In addition to the belt cutter the flashlight can be solar charged and has a USB out so you can charge other devices. If you plan to use the solar charger the manual says it can take up to 30 hours for a full charge. Thankfully, there is also a USB charging option to cut that charging time into around 6 hours. Depending on use you’ll get anywhere from 3-7 hours of use from each charge. The light itself is very bright but of course using the brightest setting will put you towards the lower end of the usable time at around 3 hours.

The flashlight also boasts a compass on the bottom of the handle. We tested this a few times and it seemed to be completely inaccurate against 3 other compasses we had. I was able to true it up a bit by running a magnet along the needle a few times but that seemed to be a temporary solution. My 2 cents is that I would not trust this compass as a first choice.

The last thing I wanted to touch on was the magnet on the side of the flashlight they state is for mounting and storage. When I tried to hang my flashlight on my metal fridge it buckled under its own weight slamming on the ground and breaking one of the plastic clips for the wrist strap. It will not support itself in ideal situations and definitely will not support its weight in a violent car accident. If you choose to put this in your car it will need to be secured by some other means.

So overall, would I buy it again… yes. For the price you can beat the peace of mind knowing that if you were to get lost in the woods you’d have a way to charge your phone to call for help and have a light source if necessary.

The name is a bit deceiving. The campground is designed for groups (there is a wide open group space and a loop with 12 spots that can be reserved for groups) BUT when the loop isn't reserved for a group you can stay in a single spot. Plus a day use area. Biggest downside it is RIGHT off the highway so expect road noise.

About the loop (single spaces called Brundrett 1): There are 12 spaces with co-ed bathrooms (toilet only). There are 2 large BBQs at the end of the loop, covered ramadas with picnic tables, and an oversized metal fire pit. Plenty of people were there in 5th wheels. Downside... The spaces are pretty close together.

About the group site (Brundrett 2): It's a large open space (there are some tree around the outer edges and on one side). There is a private bathroom and it's close to one of the loop bathrooms and it's close to the day use bathroom. Covered ramadas, picnic tables, BBQs, and an oversized metal fire pit. There is also a few scattered picnic tables, standing BBQs, and fire pits.

Enjoyed three nights and generally had the place to ourselves excluding the host. The host was very nice. The fee station was out of order during our stay, so we paid via daily tickets at a place in Globe on our way out. The campground is right off the highway so there was a fair amount of traffic noise, but not unbearable. Little to do in the way of hikes within walking distance, but we enjoyed walking around the campground and into the woods to the north and east. Verizon service was great the entire time. Sites are well maintained and level. Vault toilets were clean. Each site has a steel fire ring and grate as well as a nice metal picnic table. There a a few group areas with full grills and communal tables. The campground appears fairly new.

Campground Review

I love that there is a free campground in the pines less than 2 hours from the valley. However, I don’t love the way this campground is laid out. All of the campsites are accessed from a one lane dirt road with a lot of blind corners. The forestry service states that there are 23 sites available in this campground. After being there and looking through the campgrounds I’d say this is more like half a dozen to ten areas that can accommodate 2-6 “sites” each. At least 3 of the sites are immediately off the main road and one of the fire pits is less than 10 feet from the road. About half of the sites are walk-in access only.

We stayed in site 22 which could be driven in to with a small trailer and while looking for firewood realized that site 23 was actually 50 feet uphill directly behind us with no access other than walking directly through our site. Site 22 had a concrete picnic table that showed a lot of deterioration around the edges (so much so that some of the rebar support in the center was clearly visible) and a grill that had been bent and torn off of the metal fire ring. All of the sites are no more than a quarter of a mile from a bathroom building. The bathrooms were stocked with toilet paper but weren’t the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. There are a lot of downed trees on the sides of the roads and near the campsites. If you foraged for sticks you’d likely find enough already cut to size to last during your trip. If you have a chainsaw or hand saw you could easily have more than enough wood.

Roughly sites 15 through 21 were located near a small parking lot and all walk in sites. They all shared a large open area in the center. If you tried to setup a trailer in the parking lot the closest fire pit would be 40 or so feet away. I didn’t take specific notes on all of the clustered units but every place we pulled in to seemed to have one access point and multiple tent spaces with fire pits and picnic tables very huddled together. I wouldn’t want to be in such close proximity to a complete stranger but they would be really great for groups.

The only other thing I’d touch on is the road to get to the campground. I wouldn’t suggest trying to travel up without decent ground clearance. There was a bit of wash boarding and obvious ruts in the road from where the road was traveled when muddy. We have gone through that area in snow/slosh and I wouldn’t even want to travel that road without 4 wheel drive in that situation. Know your vehicle and your driving skills!

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time – on this trip I tested the Midland LXT500VP3 (Up to 24 Mile Two-Way Radios). The radio itself is a good size and sits comfortably in the hand. The antenna sits about 2 inches taller than the unit and is hard plastic. There are removable belt clips for each handheld unit. The top of the belt clips stick out from the back of the unit about half an inch as if they were hinged but they are in fact not hinged and therefor just push into whatever it is clipped to. The main button you use to transmit is textured and made of an easily gripped rubber so it made talking very easy. The LCD screen is not backlit and when turned on displays only the channel being used (until the battery is low then it has a low battery indicator). The handheld units were easy to control with clearly marked buttons on the front.

The set comes with a rechargeable battery for each handheld unit and a desktop charger. The desktop charging unit is small and light with red indicator lights to show when the units are charging. The desktop charger will charge both radios at once or you can use the power cord to charge one unit independently. The radios are supposed to be charged 12 hours for a complete charge. If you will not have access to an AC plug you can purchase the additional cable to allow these to charge via the cigarette lighter in a vehicle.

Channels 8 through 14 are low power channels. We tried these radios in town, on the highway, and in camp using these channels and at best only had a mile of range. However, when we did have enough signal to make contact the voices were very clear and easily heard. We were able to use the low power channels to drive through the campground with a lead car looking for a campsite while the truck/trailer were parked near the entrance to avoid getting stuck somewhere that we could not turnaround. We also used them on the low power channels around camp when going for walks or to the bathrooms.

Channels 1-7 and 15-22 are high power channels. We tried these in town (suburban area, no extremely tall buildings or geographical features… just houses) and easily got another half mile of range above the low power channels (somewhere around a mile and a half total). The voices normally came through very clear unless we were near overhead power lines in which case they had static interference. We also noticed that if I was near the end of the range of the radios and in a car I was able to receive transmissions but unable to send them.

Overall, these radios seem to be pretty tough and easy to use with a decent amount of range. For the price they could be great for kids getting into radios, for use around a larger property/park area, between vehicles in a caravan, or around camp.

I’ve camped here several times. The camp hosts are friendly helpful and knowledgeable. I prefer to go all the way to the very bottom of the campground. There is a lot of open area for my boys to run around and build a fort while I read a book next to the stream. Also it doesn’t seem to fill up as fast as the top sites. Bathrooms are clean, bear boxes are provided, and If you want a break from camp food you can jet up to summerhaven it’s not that far and grab lunch. There isn’t any grocery stores or gas stations on Mt. Lemmon so fill up before venturing up the mountain. If you are a hiker there are many trails to choose from not to far from your camp (read up on hiking in high elevations though before you venture out). Mt. Lemmon is also dog friendly and so is this campground just make sure to pick up after your pooch. The drive up Mt. Lemmon highway is 35 MPH the cops hiding around the corners writing tickets would be glad to remind you or you can take my word for it. This road is also very popular for cyclists so make sure you keep your eyes on the road, they come out of nowhere. The views are spectacular even if you are just coming for the day. You go from desert to full forest in the matter of 45min it is nothing I’ve ever seen before. This is a must see if visiting Tucson, AZ.