Blair Valley Dispersed Camping

This is an incredible place to camp off grid as you can drive in a couple miles off the road and camp up against the base of the mountains with beautiful views as far as the eye can see. I have a Toyota 4Runner pulling a 17 foot Winnebago Micro Minnie and the access was smooth but slow driving, and found a secluded spot off the #3 marker about 1.5 miles in. The spots are not all that level so bring extra leveling wood to be on the safe side. I came on a Wednesday and there were 4 other people camping within the 1.5 miles I drove to my spot. Reviews of this location indicate either great cell access or no cell access, so here's how I found a spot with 5 bars of Verizon 5G... First, I use the WeBoost Drive cell booster in my vehicle. As I came in I opened the WeBoost App and it has a cell tower locator (like a compass). I made sure the site I found did not have an immediate mountain in front of the tower location. Since the road weaves in and out of the mountain, so too does coverage based on the mountain blocking "line of sight" to the tower. Once I was far enough off grid, I monitored the WeBoost tower locator with a good amount of distance across the valley and located a spot to camp. My camper has the WeBoost Reach antenna amounted on a pole, and I am maintaining 5 bars 5G. When I turn off the booster, I still have 2 bars 5G... If you do not have a booster, you can still download the app and use the tower finder and see where you get the strongest signal. The strongest is within 1/4 mile of pulling into the area at 4 bars non-boosted signal, but that's likely where everyone else will camp... The only reason I gave this location 4 stars is the bees... The bees are no joke even in late December. I left a water bowl for my dogs outside the camper and they swarmed it. Probably 25 bees on the bowl and another 50 buzzing all around the camper. It took about an hour for them to dissipate once I removed the food source. So, make sure you are self contained. If you are tent camping, make sure you come prepared for really sealed up containers and don't leave any food or water out. Keep as much in your vehicles or in travel cargo containers as possible. Otherwise, you will have a bee problem. Hope this review helps! Great place for off grid relaxation!

Stayed here in the fall and again this spring. I was surprised by the number of people who are here mid-week. There's at least 30 cars daily that drive through to the trail heads and back. Only about 10-20 campers mid week, but weekends blow up and large groups often come in (mostly tent camping).
Roads are dirt but accessible, since its a valley almost all natural sites aren't level but workable. Vault toilets were in poor condition. There is a perceivable amount of debris around most sites. Noise from the highway is noticable and sound travels across the valley easily, so the large groups can be easily heard.
At 2k ft. elevation its a little bit cooler than the desert but still Yucca and Cactus, not pine tree zone yet. Cell coverage depends on exact site since the tower is obscured you can sometimes get 1 bar of Verizon and T-Mobile, but most sites have no coverage other than ATT.
Overall its nice but not as isolated as you may expect.

It's in the desert so it does get hot. We came in June and it hit 110. The place is easy to get to and the road in has some ruts. We went past the first few spots and around the corner to the left we grabbed a middle spot. Not too level here but I've seen worse. Bring leveling blocks. Internet was good for Verizon and AT&T which is why we chose the place.

Probably some rattlers around based on the terrain and temps but we never saw any. If you keep going in there's an area with privacy plants and lots of paths through it that would be good for a van but not RV. We didn't go to the end so I don't know about turning around but it is tight. We were pulling a 20' TT and were able to get back out just fine, but might be difficult for larger rigs.

We only stayed for 1 night due to scorching temps, so check the weather before coming.

Out on Memorial Day weekend. First large spots were taken so we thought we would press our luck and drive further back on the trails to find a better spot. It gets tight with a 37 foot travel trailer. Ended up damaging the sewage pipe valve handle and had a few scrapes in the paint. I would come back but with a smaller rig. Due to the holiday weekend we ended finding a spot that was around 300 yds from the next camper.

We stopped and setup tents a little before little Blair valley. Night sky was alright, but couldn’t see the Milky Way, so not dark enough for that. Probably a Bortle 5. Got up in the morning and went all the way until the end of the road on maps (Apple or Google) on our 2WD, was doable.

Campsite itself was very nice. The place we found had a man made but multiple time used fire pit. Great sunset and sunrise, you have the chance to have as much or as little company around you. Little bit of trash at our site that we picked up.

Leave no trace!

=We arrived on a Thursday and managed to get a somewhat level spot. Soon after that, it started getting busy. By Friday evening the place was packed, and it felt like an actual campground with people spaced not very far apart and little privacy. It was pretty quiet at night.

It felt like a place that all the people from San Diego come to, to escape the city.

We drove fairly far down but our rig is lifted so we have the clearance. Most bigger rigs stay at the front where there's absolutely zero privacy.

If you absolutely need a spot, this place is great, but if you're looking for a GOOD spot to boondock, this isn't it. WIth that said, it's only 35 minutes into Julian where they have the most amazing Apple Pie on freakin Earth!

Also, we were buzzed several times by fighter jets and choppers out of Twentynine Palms Marines Base, seriously cool!

First time boondocking at Blair Valley. I was struck by how quiet it is. How dark the nights were. Peaceful and tranquil. Lots of space. Unlike the previous reviewed, I have AT&T and had 5 bars of service. Able to transferred large video files, zoom conference and stream HBOMax.
Very few people during the week. The weekend brought in the car campers. Clean. Everyone seem to pack put their trash.
It rained the day before I arrived. There were monster ruts on the side road, deep enough to swallow a sub compact car. Winds were mild.
I will be back!