American Girl Mine Road

We spent three nights here. There were quite a few others but there’s so much space! Road is in level and the side roads are good albeit a bit rocky. Have four bars LTE with Verizon. It’s been windy every day but warm and sunny. Great place to spend a few nights, near Yuma, and right off of I-8. There is a train that rolls by and toots his horn but it’s not too bad.

This is a huge area for any size camper. The main road in is in great condition but most of the side roads need a 4 x 4 to travel on. Although, we did see some good size campers on some of those roads. If you enjoy exploring for rocks, this place is amazing! We enjoyed searching for “treasures” every day. Yuma is the closest town for getting groceries, doing laundry, etc.

Lots of room to spread out.

30 minutes from Yuma. Garbage dump and freshwater are 4 miles west at the Interstate Rest Area.
It is convenient as it is in the middle.
Propane at CAL Ranch for the best price as of today's date.
Laundry, showers ($10), dump ($15) ice cream, and local history at the Gold RV Park 4 miles up Ogleby Rd. Wed-Sunday.
Mail-Winterhaven P.O.
Amazon Lockers available at GNC in Yuma
$6 parking fee at the border unless you park out on the road and walk-up.

I hope that is helpful.

We stayed here after RTR and the access with the 5th wheel was easy, really any size rig could fit here. The trick is to move onto a side dirt road before pulling into a spot in the desert since there are "little earthen hills" on American Girl Mine Road from the road grater. Saw very little trash and there were not too many off-road vehicles around (a few more on the weekends than during the week). Right before the turn onto AGM Road there is a double train track. We hardly ever heard the trains since we went pretty far towards the mountains. I downloaded the "BLM route of travel map for Eastern Imperial County California" (pdf file) and used the map for a lot of walking/hiking into the mountains. There was a lot of wind the first 2 days and than again for 3 days when a cold front came through. It seemed to be stronger near the mountains, but it was still better than being in "real winter weather". There is free water and trash service at the rest area (about 3.5 miles west of exit 159) in the middle of the interstate. Our location was at 32.843117,-114.813538. The area is a great mostly quiet place to go to Los Algodones for medical or dental..... Our Verizon hotspot worked fine without a booster. We even watched the superbowl without any problems....

Went to the CRVL coordinates at AGM. Nothing spectacular, but plenty of level sites. Plenty of previous people have marked out fire rings with stones. Cleaner than most other free BLM locations. Beautiful sunset when a few clouds are in the sky. This area is more pest-free (few if any ants, mice, spiders) than most other areas I have been to, probably due to being more rocky and barren than typical. A few ATVs, but no crazy stuff. Would rate this place higher, but not at all happy about the excessive wind that was there about half the time. Windier than surrounding areas, windy for no good reason. Must be a geologic reason for the wind in this particular spot. T-Mobile excellent here!

We were able to get our big ol' girl into a spot with little difficulty - we did get our legs snagged on one of the pull-offs so be careful which one you choose, they dip down a bit on some of them. The road is paved until you get to American Girl Mine Rd which is dirt but really easy to drive down - hardly any ruts or washboard like..

All the spots are pretty much level - we didn't have any issues finding a spot and leveling - even when still attached to the truck.

The space here is incredible. There were probably 20 other boondocks inner 'area' and you could hardly notice.

Cell signal was great for both AT&T and Verizon - we were able to do conference calls and stream with no issues.

Yuma is about 20 minutes or so away which wasn't bad for us - we ended up staying in the area for awhile so we got a gym membership for a month in town (4th Ave Gym is awesome if anyone wants to know!). Sprouts is in town and so is Walmart. Yuma has everything.

The only downsides we experienced was that the ground is very rocky (duh, its the desert) but I didn't realize how hard it was on the dogs paws. So be careful - let them adjust! AND American Girl Mine is an active mine at this time so there are trucks driving back and forth all day. Didn't bother us but it might bother some. :)

Otherwise, GREAT spot!!!! Enjoy!!

Very nice level spots with lots of room for even the largest rigs. There is a nice view of some small mountains and great sunsets. There is not much in the way of trees and only a few random bushes. Weekends bring in ATVs and during the weekdays large trucks move up and down the well maintained road to the area (perhaps the smoothest dirt road that I have been on anywhere at anytime). Cell signals were fantastic!

Great cell, great location, not far from a good sized city yet still far enough for some desert tranquility. Some wind but just enough to keep things pleasant.
We stayed here in January and the weather was perfect. We drove down right next to Bluebird hill and were able to take an interesting hike up to the top and found some really nice Kyanite samples. There were a few trucks that drove by during the day but that was all of the traffic that we had at the end of the road.
The access and location, for us, is perfect. You are 22 miles west of Yuma and all the fast food or groceries you could want. The roads are all paved until you turn off onto American Girl Mine Road. After that there is a graded dirt road that leads through the main part of the dispersed area. From there you can head off on some of the lesser roads. There are also more roads just north of the main drag where many others had found nice spots. As with any desert spot, do scout ahead and check for washes. Even though we had many neighbors it was easy to find a spot and everyone had a good chunk of land (think acres) to themselves.
The land here is flat, so leveling is an option and the clime is desert. Not many insects or any other life for that matter (although I have not went to hunt for scorpion at night with a black light - yet). We did find a rattle snake sleeping a couple of hundred yards from our trailer so do be careful and oh yeh, don't poke them with a stick.
We could occasional hear our neighbors (if they were yelling for one another) and there is a train that runs by infrequently but we don't mind a distant train once or twice a day.
P.S. Our profile pic was from one sunrise where the winds woke me early.