Tellerico Dispersed Camping

I drove here and immediately felt sketchy vibes. There's about 4 or 5 abandoned RVs/Vehicles that homeless people live out of. I turned around and went to the BLM office. The lady at the BLM office advised against staying there as it is known locally for being occupiee by drug addicts and homeless people. You can't trust someone strung out to behave normally so I don't advise staying.

There's another site on 21rd that is clean and safe. I went there and made an entry for it on Campendium.

I was harassed all night long by some open top June buggy motorcycle type vehicle. It kept pulling up and parking next to my truck and just waiting there and then circling around my camper and then leaving again. Three or four times, I’m not sure because one of the times like I said sounded like a bicycle. The final time I screamed out the window that I was going to shoot him but he didn’t leave me alone so maybe that’s why it stopped. I missed work, I didn’t get to sleep, and now I have to waste my time driving somewhere else to stay. Do not camp here.

I drove to the shooting area and back, unable to find a place with over 2 bars of cell service. At first I thought the whole place was full of campers, then I realized they were broken down cars, motorhomes with missing windows and doors, and giant heaps of junk piled up between rvs, on the lower level if you go down the hill from the road. And even later I realized that some people actually did live in them they were just busy doing donuts and driving as fast as he could up and down the main road. The road and the spots to camp are hard dry mud so it’s like driving on giant rocks. Someone was driving around from Sunset until about 11 PM and a dune buggy lit up with lights that was very loud. As I was setting up camp people who I guess are living in their cars were standing, just blatantly watching me so I had to pretend like I wasn’t alone and I was speaking to someone in my camper. I’m typing this at 3 AM while listening to someone make laps around my camper on what sounds like a bicycle with a card in the spokes. Earlier they were walking around it and tapped on it. This is the first time I’ve had to stay up all night with my loaded rifle. I only stayed because I have to wait for my paycheck tomorrow so I can get gas and move to another place.

Pros:

Only 8 miles to Grand Junction (pop. 65,000) - all major stores and services.
Numerous turn-outs to choose from if you keep going back toward mountains.
Quite at night.
Dirt road 25 is well maintained.
Good cell phone coverage.

Cons:

Trash is everywhere - shooters do not pick up their shell casings.
Many people target shoot during the day, right next to campers.
ATV and motorbike riders during day, not as many on road 25 as other locations.
There is a high dirt ridge between the dirt road and the turnouts - low clearance rv's be wary.
Farm animal #2 is everywhere.
Smaller rv's have more options.
For some reason people drive out and sit in their cars for hours without doing anything.

We checked out this spot as we had to spend a couple of nights in GJ. Arrived late afternoon on a Monday. I expected some trash, but not like what I saw.

We traveled WAY up the road and couldn't find a single site that didn't resemble a dump. The abandoned and burned out car at the entrance should have been our sign to "abandon hope all ye who enter here." This "campground" is clearly home to large population of the local "homeless." Quite a few camps looked very well established. This campsite has a ton of potential and is beautiful but it felt more like camping in a dump. We ended up leaving and staying at a local campground for $40 a night. When we got to the campsite we both noticed we smelled like the trash dump.

This place would be ok for a nightly stop over, but we were definitely not going to setup camp for a few days.

This is a great place to boondock and you get in between 5g and 4g with good speeds. I work remotely off of cell service and had no issues!

Things to watch for: Bumpy road to get out here, some spots have had a camp fire where it looks like parties happened and there were nails and various other sharp objects at the site I was looking at. Just be careful where you pull in. I stayed within 500' of the entrance on the 3rd spot. 4-wheelers and dirt bikes can be noisy.

You cannot beat the views!

Great desert camping, no bugs (May2021). OHV trails nearby... acres and acres of camping along the road.

Bring a trash bag, unfortunately people are not very responsible out here. I will be bringing a bag or two of trash that was already here.

Close enough to town if you need supplies but far enough away from civilization. You can still see city lights in the far distance.

Plenty of room for any size rig

Update: Stay away from camping in spots next to technical wheeling trails. We were woken up each night with 4X4s right next to our campground doing some night trails.

If I was to go back I would find a spot with flat boring trails surrounding us.

Great views

BLM land use and camping is a great thing!

This site DID have the following things you want: open space, seclusion, good views, and there when you need it.

However, the spaces were filthy. Using BLM land for almost anything is one of the great things about it! There were shell casings all over and that’s fine— you can’t get em all—- but you probably shouldn’t leave glass, trash, targets, and beer cans all over the place.

The road is was pretty rough but not the worst.

I guess I would do it again if I had to (I did).

Brought my 40’ fifth wheel in w my f350. Drove the packed dirt road for 45 min or so to get very far back in, and close to the foothills. Once you get pretty far in, the atv traffic lessens but is still around via off-road trails etc. Some areas have lots of debris from target practice with shotgun shells etc laying around. The views are stunning! Amazing hiking available. Very very quiet except for motor noises from time to time. Cows roam freely as you get closer to foothills. Turnaround spots become less frequent the further in you get.