Grover Spring Canyon Dispersed Camping

Easy access, in the woods. First sites are at the beginning of Forest-Road 139. You can't miss the turn from Hyw 260: big brown sign '139'. Check on Google-Maps There are a few sites: one right at the beginning, then a pull trough after 0.25 miles. After 0.5 miles the road splits. Take a right there to get to about 5 sites. after that is 4WD. Probably many more if you contine left on 139 which is a hard, wide dirt road.

This was a convenient location for our visit to Show Low the following day. It was quiet on a weekday during early October. Parts of the forest have been logged--took a while to find a pleasant area in the trees. After settling on a spot, my nearby explorations unfortunately found the area had been used by inconsiderate hunters. I picked up discarded paper plates and a dozen aluminum cans. Also found a deer head left in nearby shrubbery and a half-buried 5 gallon bucket, apparently used as a toilet (didn't venture that close). YUK!

Great site overall, peaceful, in nature and not too far from Heber or Show Low.

Lots of forest roads and potential places to camp, no designated spots. A few spots are very clear, but most you will need to get out and remove old logs. Be careful if the grass is tall that you don’t set it on fire with your hot vehicle.

LTE Verizon was available at entrance, dropped to 3G as you went further back and you can go until you don’t have cell coverage if you want. Internet was fast enough to stream video and work while we were here.

There are wild horses that come to your camp, I was told by a neighboring camper that they were released during the Rodeo fire years ago and that’s why they are so friendly. You can even pet some of them.

Beautiful tall trees, beautiful skys, decent dirt road in and out.

Most spots would be better with a smaller trailer, but we made were good with our 36ft TT pulled with a crew cab truck. I recommend walking down smaller roads before pulling on to them if you’re not comfortable backing up. Also recommend showing up during the day and not at night if possible.

This is what boondocking is all about. The only thing that is missing are big views.

Campendium's marker is at the intersection of Forest Road 139 and the unmarked Grover Spring Canyon road. The first spot on the unmarked road (about .1 mile from the intersection) is very workable but was taken. We settled in to the second spot (34.357857,-110.342769,) about 1/4 mile from the intersection. It took some shuffling to get turned around and get the trailer situated for the solar panel. We're in the shade in the morning, but the panel is nicely lit from mid-morning to later afternoon in spite of the pine trees around us.

The Grover Spring Canyon road (which doesn't show on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest Visitors map) crosses the Grover Spring wash immediately south of our spot. There are at least two more spots south of the wash crossing if you have enough ground clearance to deal with the edge of the wash. In addition, there is one easy to access spot on FR139 just south of Highway 260 that is out of sight of the highway but likely subject to some road noise.

We have 3 bars of Verizon 3G, 2 to 3 bars of AT&T Edge, and 3 bars of Verizon 4G with the Sleek amplifier and antenna deployed. The Grover Spring road looks like it could be real messy early in the spring when the ground is wet. No noise from the highway and we’ve only noticed two vehicles on FR139 in the past four days. We’ll stay a couple more days and leave when the black tank is full.