Best Tent Camping near Denio, NV

This is a great out of the way CG with a fantastic hot springs close by. Definitely off the beaten path. Have a decent map. The CG has a vault toilet but no water. Sights could be tight or dispersed depending on how many cars are there. There are two areas to set up camp. There is the area at the end of the road with the toilet. This is near the hot springs and can support four or five cars. The other spots are located on the road leading into the campsite / hot springs, there are five or six sites close enough to walk to the springs.  These areas are mostly located on the west side of the road. There are fire rings previous campers have built but no dedicated ones. There are also two picnic tables. 

This is a good place to go to chill out and unplug. Make sure you bring everything you need with you, the fields store is a bit of a drive. The hot springs are well kept. They have a sandy bottom, relatively clear and not a strong sulphur smell. There is a hotter pool and a cooler pool. The divider is handmade. People take good care of the place. Make sure you pack out all your trash. This is a great place to soak, have a beer, and relax under the stars.

On Thursday (10/12/23)  I left home with the plan of driving to the Virgin Valley Hot Springs via 299/8A to see the Annular Solar Eclipse.  I arrived at the state line a tad later than expected and followed a beautiful graded 'dyrt' road.  The first camp I came across was Fish Spring.  I saw some open spaces and figured things were going to get busy with the eclipse, so I grabbed a spot.  Beautiful simplicity!!!  No real defined spots, but several areas of access.  Some pull-throughs were occupied by RVs, other spots had nothing but a car/tent combo.  One vault toilet was very clean & well-stocked with paper.  I could not find the spring or water spigot.  There is a horse corral but looks to be in poor condition.  A sign requests "pelletized feed only'.  There were only a handful of fire rings and no picnic tables.  This was my camp for 2 nights.  The following day I drove the rough Mud Spring Canyon Rd to the Royal Peacock Mine & Virgin Valley, and on Saturday, witnessed the Annular Eclipse from here.

When the weather is dry, you can camp on the Alvord Desert. There are no facilities - no water, no trash, no toilets, no shade, no cell-service - so plan accordingly and plan well. Even a slight rain can make the playa muddy and create a flash-flood, so watch the weather carefully. Pack everything out, including planning on bringing a portable toilet. 

This flat, stretching desert far from any city (or even town) provides unparalleled star-gazing. Other than cars racing across the desert, it is eerily quiet. There are some bugs. 

The sun sets behind the Steens, and sunrises across the playa are beautiful. This remote adventure is worth a trip; it's a camping experience unlike any other. It gets hot during the day, so bring a shelter and plan some time to get off the desert for a break from the sun.

We camped here in mid-September 2014. You can approach this BLM campground from either the Fields-Denio Road or from highway 95. Either way, you will be traveling on a graded gravel road for some distance through the immense Whitehorse Ranch.

There were no site numbers so you just pick a spot. We camped further away from the hot springs in case partiers decided to join us. Thankfully, no one did and we enjoyed the quiet and the amazing sunset and night skies.

There was one small vault toilet which was clean but no tp so that is why we bring our own.

There were two hot springs pools which were the perfect temperature.

Truly had the best time at virgin valley, only stayed one night sometime this past week and I’m so glad we did. ~2mi down a dirt road off of 140, you do not need ORV/4x4 just go slow and even a sedan will be fine. A lot of the sites are wide open but there are a few with tree cover &/or grass. We tented it and the weather was great, cold at night. The hot spring was warm (not hot) as others have said but it was still LOVELY. It’s great to find the warmer vent spots and just relax for a while. There are two running spring fed showers and drinking water by the spring. Also some pit/vault toilets scattered around the camping area- the one by our site was the CLEANEST pit toilet I’ve ever used in my life- dare I say it smelt good ! The only qualms I could see for some is there is zero service for AT&T (a pro for us but a con for some) and if it was seriously hot there isn’t much space/shade to escape the heat.

Will also end this with the only downside to our visit which was that we were woken up at 6am to a family of ~6 with 3 little kids SCREAMING in the hot spring. They had absolutely zero social awareness that there were clearly 8+ groups asleep and were yelling their conversations before sunrise. Unsure if it’s common for others passing by to visit just for a dip (and be as loud as these guys were) or if this was an anomaly but it certainly made for an early morning & a quick move-on.

We stumbled upon this campground after venturing across the Black Roack and through the Sheldon. It was the perfect place to relax for the night. While entirely exposed to the sun and elements this campground has a lot to offer. A swimming hole was made from a natural spring which also feeds showers! An oasis in a rather hot and dry desert. Each campsite has a firepit and picnic table as well. The campground has a couple basic toilets on each end. If you are into gem stones and came out to look for opal, this would be a great place to make home for the weekend. We went to the Rainbow Ridge opal mine and it was an amazing experience. The owner, Glenn, was kind and shared a lot of his knowledge with us. There is also a canyon to explore just north of the campground. A trail leads the way and make sure to bring water. The Virgin Valley is an incredible place and everyone should make plans to experience it at least once.

Our trip was so amazing when we visited this camp site. We went opal mining and this campsites are right there at the entrance. It was so convent and beautiful. My favorite things about this spot.

• the view
• the fact that this is a free site and they still have bathrooms.
• the shower ( it's not temperature controlled and in a creepy spider webbed filled barn thing. But I totally loved that it added to the experience.)
• the little pod! So wonderful after a day in the sun mining. Things I didn't like
• it's right in the valley the wind was CRAZY! almost blew over the tent. We had to put everything in the tent to keep it down. It was also INCREDIBLY difficult to get the fire started because of the wind. With all the fire starters we had it took us a long time to get the logs to catch because the wind kept changing and putting it out.
• be aware some people drive ATV, motorcycles and stuff around the camp area.
• the ducks or what ever screaming all night. Normally I love the sound of nature at night but it sounded like people were murdering ducks all night. It was a bit much.