Forest Road 401

We camped along Forest Rd 401 to be in a position to photograph the spring wildflowers in the desert and along the banks of Cottonwood Creek.

As others have outlined, the road in is washboard, so we took it slow. However, other than that, the first mile and a half is very wide and easy to navigate. Turning onto FR 401, it does get a bit more narrow, but we did not have any issues getting to his spot. There are more spots farther down the road if this is already taken.

This location is very popular with ATV/OHV folks, and even OHV tours use this road. So on the weekend, it can be bustling, however during the week, it is very quiet, in fact, the first three days we were there we were totally alone.

We camped on our 33ft travel trailer.

The road getting back to where you can find a spot to camp is rough. I have a truck camper and pull a trailer. My rig’s COG is quite high so the drive is painstakingly slow-like a crawl at many points due to the rough road.

As others have said, this is a popular place for off roading, so it can be busy. I stayed Tuesday and Wednesday there was quite a bit of traffic and folks shooting as well.

The views are pretty nice and it’s not too far out of town, so it worked out well for me.

It had rained off an on all day before we got here. There were many OHV still here at dark slinging mud and doing donuts. The rod was more than a washboard in many places, and the water puddles in the holes in the road. Some holes were huge and almost as wide as the road. Cross with care is you do t have 4WD. We found a sloppy muddy pullout and stayed 1 night, leaving before the boys with their toys came out. Our bus tried to get stunick once...

Verizon signal was weak and usually non existent but sometimes 1 bar.

T-mobile was 1 bar I boosted, 3 bars boosted.

We went in a 30 ft Class C. Road was pretty hairy at times but doable. You have to go far back on the road a few miles before finding a spot as there are very few towards the front and they were all taken on a Thursday. Area is heavily traveled by recreational off-road vehicles so it was much busier than you would expect in that remote of an area. We found a very large open area with several fire rings but after parking we noticed the ground was completely littered with nails and screws. It appears someone did it purposely because they were scattered over a very large area and there were a ton of them we were lucky to make it out without a flat. It was so gorgeous we would definitely consider going back unless we found another area less busy. Cell service was spotty in the lows but consistent on the hills.