Larson Ridge Designated Dispersed Camping

Easy access on FR237, off of hwy 260, just west of Forest Lakes, Arizona. Short, dirt road with some small/medium potholes leads you into the first dispersed area. Amenities include Vault toilet, fire pits and very nice picnic tables. Remember that it's free! Spaces are marked "Camp Here" and you need to be within 50' of the sign. Some spaces are fairly close together, but more room than the average campground.

14 day stay limit and best if visiting when it is not raining. It had rained just prior to my arrival, and all night the first night. It is quite muddy! I was planning on exploring the area with my e-bike, but too muddy for that as well.

Lot's of shade, but enough open space for my Starlink to provide over 90mbps service. And the 4-bars of T-mobile is through a partner provider, which means your speed via cell phone will be throttled.

Nice and quiet, not at all crowded right now. At nearly 8000' elevation, it's 59 degrees today, while in the 90's, 2-1/2 hours south in Phoenix.

So during the day we didn’t always get enough WiFi to get new news feed from FB or to post pics Etc.
I did drive to Diamond Point Steakhouse right before Star Valley when driving back towards pays on from Forest Road 237. Was about 29miles from our camping spot so not too bad of a drive for steaks during our camping trip. There’s no hookups of course & we met a great guy who had been camping in the area for some time as he knew where the camp hosts park when they’re up there. No camp hosts when we were there but would’ve needed them had we not left Sunday bcuz a group came & parked across the dirt road from us and started blaring mariachi music at 100 during the day & I mean it was loud enough you would think we had it on in our camp but no....thankfully we were leaving but I felt bad for our neighbors Ben & Samantha who came up with there dog to test radio equipment. And for a couple nights we had super close neighbors in a group of guys that had come up from Phoenix for some card games & drinking.
I took our 3 Great Danes for a walk almost daily & they loved it. 2 of our Danes escaped our yard once and Beau escaped twice but thankfully he hadn’t gone far & his sister came back to tell us her brother was out too. All in all it was a great spot just wish we had a bit more signal.
Be careful though there are some muddy areas someone could get stuck in just watch where you’re going & you’ll be ok.

Due to COVID our reservations were cancelled at Sharp Creek Campground in Christopher Creek. Decided to keep our time off and head up anyway to the mountains. Young Rd was packed so we checked out FR 237. The front numbered sites were full but if you head back, until FR 172, there were a ton of spots. Some close together, some spread out. We got lucky and found a spot on a Saturday morning and grabbed it. Would stay here again for a quick last minute getaway.

Likes - close to Willow Springs Lake for day fishing, 237 is a nice ride to the rim for a fun adventure, plenty of spots to choose from.

Dislikes - LOTS of traffic on 237. ATVs and off road vehicles all day. People also drive fast so be prepared for dust in your campsite all day. Also, the power lines buzzed. There are sites not by them but we grabbed the first spot we found and would prefer to go deeper next time to avoid them. As with all disbursed camping be prepared for other campers mess. Each day walked around picking up trash from others.

Service was spotty. Kids would watch downloaded movies but texting and other social media apps were limited due to no service.

Not your typical dispersed camping. You are supposed to camp only the marked spots and many of them are rather in close proximity with not much privacy. No trash service and the campsites are not the cleanest.

With so many campsites closed, the availability is very very limited. There is a lot of activity on the dirt road and there are also some powerlines buzzing in the background.

I was looking for a sunny spot to use my solar since this is dry camping. I stayed in the area between 237 and Old Rim Road, there are about 1/2 dozen marked sites with 14 days no permit. The main road in (237) is dirt and slow going because of all the dips and holes in the road. Off 237 the dirt road can be flooded and quite deep and sketchy after rain.

The elevation is 7,683 here, about 20 degrees cooler than the Phoenix area. You are very close to the high-power lines and can even here the buzz and crackling constantly. It is very peaceful and I'm sure very crowded in warmer weather but I enjoyed my stay here.

Internet for both Verizon and AT&T are very poor, even with my cell booster I could barely get internet service.