Bombo's Pond

We're on our way to Death Valley and found this spot about 10 miles from the park. Spending 2 nights so as to explore the ghost town Rhyolite.
There was 1 other camper the 1st night. They left early the next day.
The spot is very close to the highway, but the noise was minimal.
Don't drive up the hill on Vanderbilt Road. We did with our 23 ft travel trailer. Almost a mile up this dirt road is a locked gate and a sign indicating private property. There is NO place to turn around and I had to back the entire way down the hill. Not really much fun.
The pond is nice. Not large but pretty deep and actually has trout.
Overall a nice 2 night stay. We will stay again sometime.

We arrived before sunset, thank goodness! The area wasn’t marked, but there were a number of other campers there. The problem we had was our length and the sort of wash out gully in the gravel to get in. And the area isn’t very level. But for overnight and we were already there! The pond itself is very pretty, but we couldn’t navigate our 40’ dp around where some smaller units were.

Great little stop. Close-ish to Death Valley NP, ghost town rhyolite is a few miles away with cool art installations. Beatty for food gas and wild burro watching. We were there on a Saturday and there were quite a few ohv campers, all quiet and Courteous. We’ve been a few times and love it here. Definitely worth the stop. A bit sandy/gravel in the camping area.

Vanderbilt Pond/Bombo's Pond is one of our go-to stopovers in southern Nevada. Finding a level-enough-to-work-with spot can be a little challenge. Clientele is hit-or-miss. We've never had huge issues but there's often trash left behind (particularly in fire rings) by less-considerate campers. Largely our experience is everyone leaves appropriate space and honors the invisible boundaries but (like everywhere, unfortunately) we did have issues with off-leash dogs encroaching on our leashed dog's space and causing some strife.

If you can score the concrete pad up the hill from the pond, you're golden. We've gotten lucky on that once and it was great. Just watch for the rebar sticking out of the edges. Folks have piled rocks around as indicators but definitely do your own recon before pulling in and out.

Also, remember this is Nevada. It gets really, really windy. Be prepared to hunker down inside your rig if need be.

Decent enough AT&T and Verizon cell service to get some work done.

Road Noise: There can be significant road noise in the main camping area closer to the road which gets a lot of traffic. Up on the concrete pad it tends to be a low hum. As my partner says though, 'If you close your eyes, you can pretend it's the sound of the ocean."

We arrived, following the GPS exactly, went to the end of the road per GPS and instead of a pond we found a locked gate with a “Private Property” sign on it.

Hubby had to back our 30’ Airstream down the road-great practice! and we landed in another spot that was actually a nice cement pad.

Where did we go wrong?

***Update*** In the morning we were able to see where the pond is. Upon entering off Vanderbilt Road, the pond is to your immediate right

About 5 miles out we had a blow out and we’re assisted by a local officer. He asked where we were staying and we informed him of this spot. He said that he often sees people camping there and that it seemed like a good spot for it. He also confirmed that it was a legal place to boondock. He even followed us there to make sure we had no other issues. It was after dark when we pulled in and we took the first spot by the road. Google wanted to go past the road but looking at the map we took Vanderbilt Rd. And immediately turned into the area. The highway noise was minimal and we didn’t notice it. When we were walking around the next morning there were 2 other campers around the pond. Both tents with a car. No one bothered us. There is plenty of space for a large rig but I would not suggest going on the other side of the lake with a tow vehicle. It would probably be fine but it’s rocky and bumpy road on that side. There appeared to be trails around. The sunrise was gorgeous. We stopped for coffee and breakfast in Beatty,NV at Gema’s Cafe. The food was good, the iced coconut coffee was great. Service was good and they have an espresso machine.