Grapevine Campground

We had a great time in the Gila National Forest and Grapevine Campground; especially in January with only a couple other campers around it was peaceful. From a local we learned it is very busy and noisy in the summer. There is a pit toilet but no trash service - pack it in. The locals actually have to truck their trash down the mountain, there is no pickup anywhere!

GPS: 33.177939, -108.201698
Easy to locate: Yes.
Public Land: Yes and there was no fee
Cell: None. There is no cell signal along the valley however, Campbell’s Post is a small market, deli, gas stop that does offer free wifi.
Crowded: not at all because we were off season. A local confirmed June and July it’s very crowded up there
Clean: mostly clean - we picked up a bag of trash and someones broken camp chair.

The ride up on HWY 15 is long, slow, and winding - take the HWY 180 to HWY 35 if you're in a bigger rig or towing a trailer.
https://workingonexploring.wordpress.com/2020/02/03/camping-in-gila-national-forest/

Primitive camping right on a river. Close to a road but the river drowns out road noise. We camped in March and there were about 4 other groups there but we were able to spread out from each other. Lots of homemade campfire rings and some trash made us think it gets busy in warmer weather. Pit toilets, cleaned while we were there. The turn off into the campground is very steep, but no problem for our xterra. We did see some bigger rigs down there. The location and price made this perfect for visiting the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

We didn't stay here but some friends did and we rode the motorcycle through to check it out. The drive in is a little steep but it's not very long and we could have done it with our 30' Class C by taking it slow. We did see other Class C's that were more than the max 20' posted here. The length posted is because of the access and not the size of the sites. There's no mention of length limitation on the official website, just a warning about the steep grade. If you arrive and access looks too scary, Forks Campground is less than 1/2 mile further North. The sites at both campgrounds are less improved than the typical USDA Forestry campgrounds we've been to. There is no public water available but they do have vault toilets that were pretty clean. At Grapevine it's very shaded with a few campsites right next to the river. There's a swimming area on the North end and a low water crossing at the far South end. We saw several vehicles drive thru the low water crossing to the other side of the river but we didn't check that out. We stayed at Forks Campground which sits on a bluff high above the river. Grapevine campground is down at river level.