Walton Peak Dispersed Camping

We arrived on a Friday at 9pm and were able to find an awesome spot. The road was definitely washed out with lots of potholes, but we took it slow and didn’t have a problem with our 22 foot trailer. We didn’t go past the marker that says 023 though, I think our trailer would not have had enough clearance past that point. There were a few mosquitos but we put out our Thermacell and had no issues.

10,087ft altitude. End of the road, fairly level, wonderful. Night sky is why we came here. I wasn't disappointed. There were 4 campers earlier this Sunday morning we stayed everyone else left.
Unfortunately we can't see the other mountain ranges worth beans due to the smoke from the fires in CA. Otherwise it would have been absolutely stunning. 26ft vintage cruiser made it up here, very slow. Not to bad but no turn around as you get up here. Once your up here it's rocky but you can turn around ez. Cell service was decent. Could do a duo call.

We stayed here while scouting the area a perfect site.

Road in good washboard condition to second junction. Be aware that the entry has a steep drop on both sides. We didn't have and issue with the turn with our 30 foot trailer but we took it slow. First and second junction large enough for turn around with 30 foot trailer. The second junction does have a large dip in the road so mind your tail swing.

Generally the area is swampy and mosquitoes were plenty. I was concerned about some sites as the ground was soft and our truck sunk a bit. I would recommend choosing carefully during monsoon season.

The best Verizon was the first site before the gate. We speed tested and got an average of 5megabit download and 0.25 megabit upload. This varied by the wind.

There was minimal road noise from I 40.

We decided to move to Rabbit Ears West as it better suited our needs but this area would be our second choice.

We are full-timers and have a 36 ft Class A with a Cherokee Trailhawk tow and had scouted the area a day before arriving with the RV. There are several sites along FR-302, which is actually in pretty decent shape, one about 1/2 mile in, several about a mile in at FR-3021B, which is where we stayed (to the left), and then a few more about another mile in or so. We found a nice site (40.3749046, -106.6699622) and stayed for 5 days (late June). It took a bit of jockeying to get our motorhome into the site, but with a little perseverance, we prevailed. This site was surprisingly level too, almost didn’t need to level at all. There was one beautiful site in a meadow about 1/4 past the one we chose, but the stretch of dirt road between them was deeply rutted and potholed, with a couple of sections that were fairly steeply pitched from side to side, so we decided not to risk it. They were also predicting rain, which it did for a couple days, and didn’t want to get stuck in the mud holes. There is a nice little stream that runs from the meadow along the road. There is little traffic on FR-302, which was nice, though you could hear some traffic on US-40 when it was otherwise quiet. We walked our dog on FR-302 a fair bit and only once encountered a vehicle on the road. There are a number of hiking trails off of US-40 in the surrounding area, but due to the weather, we didn’t get to hike them as much as we would have liked. AT&T coverage was poor without a booster, with 0-2 Bars of 3G service, but nearly no data throughput. With our weboost, it got a little better with 1-3 bars of 3G and speeds up to about 0.4 MB/s, but the speed varied considerably. T-Mobile service was nonexistent. We were able to get DISH coverage on all three western satellites at our site. There were also no OTA channels to be had with our fixed omni antenna.

Stayed at the end of the road at the top of the mountain. There were 2 sites up top, one at the very end and one right before that. I chose the one before as the top site, while it had great views, was very open with no tree cover and it was a little windy. Very quiet. The road up was mostly fine, but as you start to ascend, there were a couple of spots that still had some snow and were a little bumpy. Would definitely come back here. No amenities so you need to bring whatever you need and pack it all out. Sites were very clean though. No trash. My site had ants though. There was a huge ant nest near one of the trees.

I just checked in here for the night. Reception was best down near the highway, then dropped out entirely, and kicked back in as I climbed the road to the top. Overall, proximity to water was surrounded by overgrown (well, its the wilderness, so, just "grown") tall grasses, making for lots of bugs. The road up was bumpy, but doable. There is 1 prime spot at the top, with a pretty incredible view. But there's no water access up there. And somebody else was in that spot, so I pulled off beside them... not so level and no views to speak of.

Worked fine for a night, but was happy to hit the road in the morning too. The campsite was overall pretty nice, but the very limited reception was a key limitation for me. No single site could bring together all the desirable amenities: water access, reception, views, level pad. But, the price is right!

I drove in about 2.6 miles to a spot off on the left. The spots before this one were all taken but this spot turned out to be beautiful! It was a nice hike to the very top of the hill where the tower is and a beautiful panoramic view. The bugs were pretty bad in early August, but that's the wilderness!

The road in was totally doable at a slower pace in my 24' class c. The last couple spots above where I was at were more for tent campers though as the turnoffs weren't very driveable.

The service was definitely spotty at best. I sometimes had 1 or maybe 2 bars of AT&T 3G and sometimes no service at all. Definitely not enough to pull anything up on my laptop.