Horseshoe Knoll - Dispersed Camping

Nice place for a night. Fun if you have a Side by side or mountain bike. Some sites are very accessible, others need 4x4.

Stayed for 1 night. Very quiet and private. I imagine if during the busy season this place would not be a great place to stay but the last week of April was not busy and it was very quiet.

Camped 10/20-22/2023. Lots of horse flys during the day, and evening/dusk swarms of mosquitoes along with morning just before sunrise. Without our screened in sun shelter, we would have been miserable. 

Lots of four-wheelers and UTVs using the knoll and the trails. Extremely loud and stirs up lots of dust.

The no shooting/firearms sign at the entrance did not deter multiple shooters that were close by. There was lots of shooting and we found many empty shell casing laying about.

Many of the trails had fire pits built in the middle of them with lots of nails and broken glass laying everywhere. Be very careful driving a vehicle back onto the knoll.

Most level camping areas will be to the North/South of the actual knoll. Its also ideal to came around the knoll not only for level ground, but to avoid getting in the way of the four-wheelers/motor bikes. 

We got cell service with both T-Mobil and Verizon. 

No bathrooms, water, and very little shade shelter.

We stayed here one night. We went at night for a place to sleep. Know that the sites are on the left of the main road coming in, I was unaware of the layout. Sites are decent, bugs are terrible. Road is rough coming in as well.

You can see other campers but they are so far away from you, and if you park facing away from them, it's nice and feels pretty private. Easy to find camping spots, even big enough for our 32' no problem. Could easily see much larger RV's fitting in and getting out easy. We took a spot in the beginning I think about the 4th one you pass.

The GPS coordinates appear to be a bit further north from the accessible camping and it seems like a solar farm was built there recently. We kept driving south on the 196 for a few miles and took some washed out roads in closer to the mountains to find some campsites. Probably don’t need 4WD but low clearance vehicles might have trouble. Not the flatest pullouts but workable and you’ll have the area to yourselves. Lots of biting bugs and moths. Not much shade to be found.

A lot of sites in an open field next to mountains. Sites are pretty spaced out. LOTS of gnats and other bugs, but quite and pretty view of the sunset.

Quick and easy camp site for an adventure in skull valley. We had the place to ourselves and had no issues finding it. Great views and a fun place to hang out alone in the desert.

This was a great place to stay for one night on my journey traveling I-80. The coordinates have been updated (originally wrong when I tried to find it)- the map is correct now.

I arrived after dark on Jan 10th. Once I found the entrance (easy now that the location is correct) I couldn’t obviously see flat areas for parking. With some help from my mom who I was on the phone with, she was able to see from daytime satellite photos the easiest spots.

When you enter the camping area, stay to the left on the main road, continue staying left - you will pass 3-4 little ‘roads’. The first site- where I parked- is the first opening to the left. If you venture up to the right, you will end up some extremely steep drives. My Subaru Outback made it up and down one of those but it was a little scary for me.

It was COLD- when I woke up, temp was 19, felt like 12. But in my car I was cozy. There isn’t any privacy from the main road, but very few cars driving by.

Horseshoe Springs is across the street (turn left out of camping area, first turn off on the right- you can see the little pavilion from the road). Was nice to see even in the cold!

Solo woman traveling- it was a little freaky at first but I got used to the solitude there, and felt safe! Beautiful landscape upon waking up!

Good dispersed campsite, especially if you’re on a road trip along I-80 (which we were, evacuating from a wildfire in CA). There are no hookups or services. This is really just a spot of BLM land that has some fairly level sites cleared. Some sites probably required 4WD. Looks like it would be really fun for OHV’s. We were car camping, so didn’t have to worry to much about space. From what we could tell there were probably only a couple good spots for an RV or tow-behind. There are no reservations, just find a place where your car fits and park it.

Rumor has it there’s a neat stream nearby, but we didn’t get a chance to check it out.