Best Dispersed Camping near Clovis, CA

After accidentally driving to this location following the directions of another reviewer for the “Yosemite Boondocks” campground across 41 (which we never found) we were very happy with this location.

First, to tell you how to properly get here and find all the spots, drive to the end of the road (don’t pay attention to the gate and “off road” dirt road you see to the left before the parking lot. Don’t go there. Go to just before the big Snow Play parking lot and head right through the dirt. There is no paved road but the area is flat and any car, truck or rv/trailer can make it back here easily. I got nervous at first about ability to turnaround so I parked prematurely near the entrance. Keep going and you’ll find at least 4 or 5 big private areas separated by huge cut logs all with plenty of room to turnaround and not have to back up.

If you’re nervous, we watched several cars, vans, and trailers camp overnight in the big paved parking lot right past this, and that’s fine, but you’re in a parking lot. Come out to the right and you’re in heaven.

We were the only RV here and had it to ourselves an entire week (granted it’s early November). Can’t beat the proximity to Yosemite south entrance.

This is more of an ATV spot, I arrived on a Sunday evening and the ATV people were set up and essentially taking up most of the spots meant for camping. They were using the many many trails meant for ATVs before I arrived and, when I parked a decent distance away from where they were set up, they opted to ride circles around my RV throwing dust everywhere and revving their engines (likely an attempt to run me off). The open space at the top of the hill where the restrooms are is meant for camping, I would NOT ADVISE taking any of the other roads as they are steep, uneven, and you will struggle to turn around.

There’s one spot at the entrance good for camping (away from most of the ATV action) but it is taken up by a permanent boondocker.

This is a really nice area for camping on the side of the road here, but we only could've squeezed our 39ft Class A into maybe 2 of these spots.  Usually when a dispersed site is marked Big Rig Friendly, we'll find that there is a large paved or gravel area for us to pull into and setup before you get to dirt road or off-road sites. There is a large paved area at this location, but we received a warning citation the next day, stating that we weren't allowed to camp there.  It's confusing because this is the exact same setup as any other "snow play" or "sno-park" areas that have allowed camping in the gravel or paved areas area. 

The paved area does have a couple of small stakes that say "no camping", but in our past dispersed camping experiences, those were used to mark areas where tents and vehicles couldn't pull off-road to camp.  Apparently those stakes refer to the paved area in this case?  There wasn't any reasoning provided on our citation, other than "find another area to camp."