Loy Butte Road Dispersed Camping

We stayed at a spot just past 525c. GPS 34.854088, -111.916303 . There was a bit of a dip at the bottom but we managed it ok. It was pretty busy when we were there on March 24th-28th. It was a little difficult to find a spot for our 33 ft 5th wheel and especially one that was level. It was pretty quite at night. Road was pretty bumpy. It was convenient to areas we wanted to explore even though most were closed due to Covid-19.

The views from our site were a reward for driving down the very bumpy road with our truck and pop-up camper. There were many tent and rv campers but plenty of spots to accommodate all with a reasonable amount of privacy. Near many hiking trails and close enough to Sedona for a quick supply (or pizza) run. Great experience for our first “dry” camping trip!

This is the same as Road 525. We actually wanted to camp on 525C, but they had that road closed. It was March and they had some rain the previous week. It was also during the Covid-19 Virus, so the pink tour jeeps were not running. However there were an occasional ATV during the day. Our site was just past the turnoff for 525C and just past road 9513 on the right. We were actually on a little hill above the turnout next to the road. We were about 400 feet from the road and four miles from 89A. (34°51'41"N 111°54'30"W). Palatki Ruins was closed and we drove five miles up the road to Honanki Ruins. Unfortunately it was also closed. The drive was nice. We were close enough to Sedona and to Cottenwood. Water is available at the fairgrounds in Cottenwood for $10.00. The old copper mining town of Jerome is definitely worth a visit. Many hikes around the area and I would recommend National Geographic trail illustrated topographic map of Sycamore Canyon and Verde Valley. All Trails App is handy as well. One can also go on the National Forest Service and download to your cell phone for free a MVUM map.

Couldn’t ask for a better spot. Spread out pull offs a long the deceivingly bumpy road, not many potholes just not smooth with the weight of a truck camper. Some spots are more wide than others where big rigs or multiple campers can fit, other spots are just big enough to have all to yourself with no neighbors! The road has more cars going back and fourth than I expected but not a problem. ATV and Jeep tours loop through here all day. 2-3 bars of Verizon LTE, 2 bars of Boost/Virgin LTE. Wish we could stay longer!

GPS: (34.876043 , -111.904854) Google Map LINK
Easy to locate: Yes. There are many spots before you get down the road 5 miles however most had 1 to a few folks in them.
Public Land: USFS
Cell: Verizon - 3 bars, T-Mobile - 3 bars, GoogleFi - 2 bars
Crowded: not at all but I suspect that's due to the time of year
Clean: mostly clean; we found a broken windshield near where we setup camp and a broken chair. Both we hauled out the following day when we set out to hike
Would we stay here again: Yes. Another plus was there were no bugs

We loved it here and would be back. The biggest surprise was the great cell signal. The only downside is most pull offs have multiple fire pits and space for multiple rigs. So if you want to be completely remote and not have another camper pull in nearby, you need to get further out and on more rugged roads. Even with a couple rainy nights it did not slow us down from finding interesting jeep trails, ghost town jaunts, hikes, monuments. Although we loved where we landed, we also noted numerous other more remote areas we may try in the future.

The road in is pretty annoying from all the washboarding. There’s surprisingly not that many sites along this road, even though the drive feels super long. We camped about 25 minutes back on this road and it was quiet except for the off road vehicles during the day. About 35 minutes from town and 45 minutes from popular hikes. Got to see lots of hot air balloons in the morning! Pretty sunrises & sunsets here.