Durfield Dispersed Camping

We stayed one night in May, 2019. Other reviews we read were a little negative about the oil field equipment in the area, but we are from Texas, so we felt right at home with a Christmas tree on our site. The gravel road was in good condition, so we had no trouble getting our 22ft travel trailer into our site. We woke to a beautiful view of mountains in the distance. Road noise not noticeable. Verizon service was 5bars, so we streamed Hulu with no delays. We hope to stop here again next time we go through the area.

I checked out this Boondocking location without my Airstream. I wanted to see prior to hitching up if I liked it.

Pluses: Bad Ass Verizon. I mean 5 bars of LTE.

Negs: I saw only two really nice campsite, the first one you come across to your right under a beautiful, broad pine tree. the other is on the left near a pump, with a nice view. I did see a few places that kinda would have worked for my 27' Airstream, but they were pretty iffy and too close to the road. It's really an oil and natural gas field. Signs were post at the large, flat areas that were fracked to capture the NG "No Camping" "No Fires of any type". I guess there is a danger of methane gas leaking from the installations.

In summary, I'd pass. To me there are two good camping spots. I'd stay in a pinch, but Sauls creek is far superior. The only reason to stay here is if you need that big fat LTE signal for streaming Atlanta Housewives...

We stayed here for 3 nights. Very quiet and very few people here on 4th of July weekend.
Close to Durango, we did the drive every day.
Apple maps wanted me to go in through Bayfield, I looked at the gps, and the dirt road and cattle guard are at Hwy 160. If you are coming from Durango, you will see a junk yard in your left and then you will make a right into the dirt road. Hard to see since it’s a curve, so slow down!
Few cows wondering around, we only saw 3 other campers come and go.
We camped where I drew the cross on the map attached. Close to some gas or oil equipment but there were no signs that we couldn’t, plus there were signs of campfires and other campers using this area before.
We had better Verizon than some places in Durango!

Aside from a law enforcement ranger who gave us the old “what’re you doing here?” and then told us every rule in the world, despite us telling him we were here because of evacuation orders due to the 416 fire, this place is probably our go to for free camping in Durango.

It should be noted however, that GPS (at least Google Maps) will funk you up if you try and go to the place coordinates list here currently (37.2193121528792,-107.699248194695).

Instead, these ones will put you directly at the entrance: (37.2265970,-107.6950090)

From there, various roads spur off but All spots are pretty much wide open with trees surrounding, pinyon pine and junipers, so not a ton of shade.

The commute to Durango is only 10 minutes and Bayfield has some amenities as well. Picking up a bag or two of trash would make you a hero ‘round these parts, and there is a dumpster at Whitewater Park in town where no one seems to mind dumping. Or Google the recycling center in town, it’s $3 for a pretty large bin’s worth of mixed recycling and I believe free to recycle glass.

Or you can shoot your bottles and leave them for my kids to cut themselves on and my tires to embed themselves with, whatever kind of humanity you wish to represent!