Best Tent Camping near Nixon, NV

First stop in my early summer road trip. Stayed for two nights. Easy self pay station at the front entrance. To get to the campground at the first right little dirt road before the pay station. Entrance into the park patch to the campground has a limited day-use fee also and there is group they use facilities with a large barbecue and outdoor sink that you would be able to wash dishes at if necessary. Great shaded spot in the middle of the desert. This was quite the unexpected little Oasis. Comes with peacocks. Limited number of spots available for tent camping or RV camping with no hookups. There are water spickets available and the park part of this Campground has flush toilets. The campground itself comes with a fire ring and a picnic bench. Trees are plentiful shade is wonderful the heat in this area in the summer time is Relentless but the shade is perfect at this location. There are peacocks on the property that apparently come from somewhere else I believe there are at least three of them they do make noise at night but it's not ridiculous unless there are coyotes on the property. Beware this is the desert there is wild life. Do not leave your food out at night. Bear boxes are not provided but keep your food items inside of your tent or your vehicle or lock them up. I did not have any issues because I am Savvy to the situation. I had a wonderful time hiking around and exploring the area through the trails making my way to the Carson River. This place is a gem and I will be back!

THE CAMPGROUND

The campground is great. Many sites have lots of space between them, while a few are side-by-side with just a vehicle parking space separating them. Each has a level, wood-bordered dirt/gravel pad set up for a tent - usually placed in as quiet/remote corner of the site as possible. Each has a picnic table, some type of fire pit (some have a metal ring with nice flipping grate, some are just a circle of large stones), and some type of cooking setup (some have a standard campsite charcoal "grill" while others have a metal table to set your cooktop on.

Very quite. Only noise is campground noise and one infrequently trafficked dirt road nearby (see below).

Campfires are allowed. If you drive in from the south (via Verdi), there is currently a designated area to collect firewood - it is scheduled for a prescription burn and you can pick up any wood from the forest floor - bring an axe and saw.

I visited mid-week during peak July season - there were two other campsites occupied (out of 20 total).

The campsite is in the middle of Dog Valley. The area is used for off-road recreation, so you may run into a few off-road buggies or trucks, and some may stay at the campground. But most stay in other "dispersed" camping, and there aren't nearly as many vehicles as you might see, for example, in a Nevada dunes off-road park.

The Crystal Mine is nearby… quick drive, bit longer walk. I didn't find many walking trails in the area, but may have missed them.

Verizon cell service picked up one bar, intermittently. Enough to get out occasional status update texts and check the weather, but not enough to be able to read stuff off the internet unless… you…. are…. really…. really… really… patient. If you hike up the hill at the nearby Crystal Mine, Verizon gave 2 bars and 5G… you are line of sight to Cold Springs. 

There is basically no radio reception at the campground, but one AM station came in during the drive.

There are two 'vault' toilets, both of which were clean and well maintained… no real odor, no spiders, etc. I saw one water spigot but it required a keyed handle to open so it was inaccessible … no other sources of water (potable or otherwise) at the site.

Trash cans are provide. No food/bear lockers provided (bear-safe food storage not required … but always a good precautionary measure).

I give it four stars because it is a good campground, and may be a good base for off-roading or mountain biking, but doesn't have many major sites nearby (hiking trails, rivers, lookout points, etc.) and I didn't find a variety of hiking trails nearby (a major one does run through the general area). Would be tough to keep kids busy, but great for a 2 day getaway for a couple.

Ok… let's talk THE ROAD….

The road is one of the reasons this site generally isn't too packed. There are two main ways in…

From The South (Verdi)

This is the roughest path. It has a fairly good incline and then decline into the valley, so I can only speak to my summer experience, but I suspect this may present a challenge for winter/wet driving.

For this route, you will spend 8.5 miles on a dirt road. I'd estimate this road is 10% "standard country dirt road, flat, fairly level, no major ruts, drivable by any vehicle at 25-30MPH." About 75% of the road is "unmaintained hill road, where you have to hug one side or another to avoid 6-inch+ ruts, loose rocks up to 5" in diameter, passable by a 2-wheel drive vehicle with reasonable ground clearance and not concerned about rocks on the paint, driving 10-15 MPH." The remaining 15% still probably doesn't require 4-wheel drive, but could benefit from it, involves going 5MPH to navigate deeper ruts or 'potholes'. The entire route is totally 100% passable by any truck/Jeep, even 2-wheel drive, driven slowly and carefully at times. Subarus would be fine. I *think* a standard sedan could make it, but you run a very good chance of bashing in the underside of your car… it is doable and I saw a little hatchback do it, but I personally wouldn't recommend.

From the North (Cold Springs)

For this route, you will spend 10 miles on a dirt road.

The first 3.3 miles (about 33%) is "standard country dirt road, flat, fairly level, no major ruts, drivable by any vehicle at 25-30MPH." Very easy driving. About 65% is "unmaintained hill road, where you have to hug one side or another to avoid 6-inch+ ruts, loose rocks up to 5" in diameter, passable by a 2-wheel drive vehicle with reasonable ground clearance and not concerned about rocks on the paint, driving 15 MPH." The remaining 2% is the harder road, as described above… just a few specific spots/turns, not long sections.

This north route is easier, but either way you go, there will be tougher sections.

To be fair - this isn't "off-roading." There are no boulders or 'technical' challenges. It is just an unmaintained (or rarely maintained) dirt road that has ruts, especially in uphill/downhill areas where the water runs across the road. Definitely not just a 'country dirt road', but a more typical mountain backroad.

Pictures below show the most common sections - 75% of the south path and 66% of the north path look like that or a little bit worse. The pictures aren't the worst sections - just more of the 'typical' road you can expect for most of the way.

Final comment: All of the above is about dry, summer driving. After rains, when the ground is wet, or in the winter - could be a very different experience.

Since this campground is on an incline, one is protected from the Washoe Valley winds. The campsites are well marked and have a parking space. Only one car is allowed per space, so if a group is going to take multiple campsites, only one car per parking pad, the rest have to park down by the main entrance. Many hiking trails here. The pond still has not recovered from the drought. The bathrooms have flush toilets. There are two group campgrounds, one walk-in tent only and a RV only. One downside, now that the new I-580 has been built, there is some freeway noise at night.

• 2 loops. Loop A has electric and water and loop B is dry camping *Loop A was $30, which included $10 nonresident fee. *large sites with a lot of space between sites!
• no showers or toilets in loop A where we were. Loop B, ?
• Some trees
• covered picnic table. Fire pit at each site
• bbq at some sites *beautiful view of the Sierras, although we couldn't see the lake from our site *Feral horses. Several came galloping towards us, which was a bit startling, but we move and they went around us.
• When leaving, just past the dump station, there is a pull out where you can easily hitch the toad.
• Glad we got there fairly early -2:30- because there were only 2 sites left and one was a handicap site. *Maybe 35 sites in each loop, but they are so spaced out, it is really nice

We have camped here many times over many years (in tents as well as RVs). Relatively quiet, spacious camp spots (fairly level), beautiful area with lots of trees, a lovely creek running through the back of of the campground, clean bathrooms, just 25 minutes from Reno and three miles from Frenchman's Lake. There's a wonderful general store a few miles down the road and the camp host sells firewood. No electric or water hook-ups at the sites. There are (potable) water faucets sprinkled throughout the campground but you're not allowed to use them to fill your rv water tank. Due to several years of drought and the trees getting old, many had to be cut down around the campsites. Some of the sites aren't as shady as they used to be. You may need a shade structure. Tip* camp away from the main highway. Those spots have far less shade and there is quiet a bit of road noise.