Bonita Canyon Campground

We are Arizona natives from Phoenix. We took a week to explore southern AZ. This campground in the Chiricahua monument is a real hidden gem.
Small so I’m sure it is full all summer.
No power so the generator was necessary. The closest store is in Pearce so bring everything. It was in the 30s a night 50s during the day. The hikes are great. Lots of birds and animals. No ground fires was a bummer for us.

Beautiful campground with open spots. We didn’t have reservations and with America the Beautiful pass would have only been $10 a nite. But internet only works by office. Park rangers were terrific and was well worth drive. Can’t bring large rig and even our smaller 25 footer had difficulty turning around. Also be careful driving there as there are roads with fairly deep water and there is some ice and snow on mountain so get there early in day. Also there is shuttle available to assist with hiking which is great.

High rating because - This place looked awesome for a campground and we really wanted to stay there, but it didn't work out for us.

Reality - We ran drove through the first 5-6 sites before the drop off into the creek which our 24' bumper pull made it without scraping anything. We ran into the camp host at that point and he asked if we had a reservation, which we didn't, and he said given our length site 4 (which I already scoped out and I don't think our slide would have cleared) and site 12. We went to 12 and it would have worked great but the slope of the site was so big we would have needed way more blocking and our jack would have ran out of stroke to level out.

Lastly, we went out to take a look at 4 again and had to go through another creek crossing and out trailer scraped pretty bad going up it so we decided we better not push our luck.

It is too bad because it looked like it would be a great spot. No hookups or dump site, but that was fine with us.

We stayed the last weekend of July and although it was hot, enjoyed every minute of our stay. The visitor center was wonderful with very helpful staff. The campground and bathrooms were clean and well kept. We stayed in site 14 with our 18 ft Lance travel trailer. This specific site is not level and does not allow for the trailer to open to the table and grill area, but we didn’t mind too much. Definitely scoped out which sites we will try to snag for our next visit. Our kiddos rode their bikes through the campground during the evenings and we did some light hiking in the mornings, spotting many white tail deer, birds, squirrels and the gorgeous views. We will for sure be back!

Bonita campground has flush toilets, grill stands, and bear boxes. It’s well wooded, but the sites are close, and if you have neighbors who delight in screaming at each other and thinking they own the universe, there’s no escape. Except there is escape—the first class hiking trails! Echo Canyon loop has views, changes, creek, mountains, all in a 5- mile hike. Awesome. The visitor center has free WiFi.

I almost hate to share this place, but two people told me I had to go there, so I'll pass along that favor and say "you have to go here" because it's simply one of the most breath-taking places I've ever hiked.

Tiny campground, nothing bigger than 35 feet fits, and your site may be VERY unlevel and rocky so come prepared with blocks and stuff like that.

There are zero hookups (although my solar did OK even under some shade), and no water (so bring your own). There are, however, toilets. And hiking trails with beautiful views. Many beautiful views. Take the shuttle to the point and hike back down to the campground for the most amazing scenery in Arizona.

First, a few things to know are that Chiricahua National Monument is about 30 miles from any services,there is no cell signal in the canyon, the campground is small and reservations are pretty much a must. We had pretty much resigned ourselves to doing a day trip from Wilcox, AZ when we were able to snag a cancellation. I did later learn from a couple of other campers that there are two or three sites that are first come first served, but I imagine you'd have to get up pretty early to snag one of them.

Be aware also that there are size limits on RVs for this campground. I believe the maximum RV length is 28., but check the park's website for exact numbers. The main limiting factors are narrow roads within the campground and two rather serious dips in them where they cross Bonita Creek (usually dry, but which can become a flash flood corridor). Long rigs and/or those with a low profile may bottom out going through these dips. We had no problems with our 19' dual axle trailer, but it has pretty good clearance.

The campground itself has fairly spacious, private sites with picnic tables, fire grills (no ground fires allowed), and bear boxes - or as one ranger called them, "skunk boxes", as there are 4 different species of skunk in the monument. There are flush toilet, but no showers. You will need to dump holding tanks and fill fresh water tanks elsewhere too.

The monument has a nice little visitors center located in a pretty stone building built by the CCC. There are great hiking tails, many of them also constructed by the CCC, which take you up close and personal into the amazing rock formations for which the monument is so famous. Since this monument doesn't get the volume of visitors of some of the more well known National Park properties, we found our stay here wonderfully relaxing and interesting.

The camping was very well maintained and has a lot of trees for privacy. The host was very friendly. We have a small 19ft motorhome so we did not have difficulties to park, but I can imagine some would have. There were no hookups, but water spigots were close by, and there was a grey water discharge station. It is in a canyon, so there was no cell service. But at the top of the mountains, we had a few bars!

The campground is now 20$ from January 2018.

The only thing I would say to improve this campground is to reduce the allowed hours for generators. This is a very quiet place, and generators running from 8am to 8pm can be a pain.
Also, showers and dump station would be nice, but we understand there was none because of the location.

Note that there's a free shuttle that can pick you up in the campground at 9am to go up the mountain, so you can take the trail all the way down to the visitor center.