Painted Rock Petroglyph Site & Campground

After exploring Organ Pipe for a long weekend, I was in desperate need of enough cell service to hunker down and get a couple of days of work done. Painted Rock Petroglyph almost fit the bill.

As others have said, the campground is an easy 11-mile drive from I-8 and is big enough that I doubt it ever fills completely. The sites are large, clean of debris, and spaced well apart. Big rigs won't have any trouble here, I wouldn't think.

When the sun is shining the solar is great — there is nothing to interfere or cast shade. No water. You can see the cell towers on a hill several miles away, and those towers are good enough to get you about 3 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up on AT&T and about 8 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up on Verizon. Verizon is the clear winner here, like many spots in southern Arizona.

Generator hours are from 8 AM to 8 PM. Many rigs seem to stay one night — just passing through — while a few are hunkered down for longer. There is no campsite host. Bathrooms were clean but lacking toilet paper, so I suspect the ranger stops by only once or twice a week.

It had a real desert-crowd vibe while I was staying. A big rig or two, some vans with dirt bikes and ATVs, at least one meetup of snowbirds, and a lot of solo travelers in smaller rigs that gave a reserved wave if I waved first. There isn't much of anything to do around here except to see the petroglyphs. The dirt bikes and ATVs suggest that there are some trails, but I didn't explore them.

A decent spot with plenty of room and workable (though relatively slow) cell coverage.

Stayed overnight at the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and Campground, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Arizona. This big rig friendly campground has picnic tables, a fire ring, trash receptacles, and two vault toilets. There are no hookups, no water, and no dump station —dry camping only. Adjacent to the campground are ancient rock carvings/petroglyphs. This BLM campground is located just 11 miles off of I-8, Exit 102 and made for an excellent overnight stay. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 24.2 Mbps download speed and 19.9 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cell service was barely usable at 1 bar LTE. The fee is reasonable at $4 per night with the interagency access pass/senior or golden age pass. The regular fee is $8 per night.

Even at 96 degrees, we were not the only campers at this remote desert campground! One other couple was enjoying the other end of the campground so it was as if we had the place to ourselves.
Amazing desert views, but not much else. The petroglyphs were a nice early morning walk and we even learned a little about the various trails through the area.
As previous reviewers have mentioned the flies were a bit overwhelming at times. Thank goodness for the mild breeze to keep them at bay.

Just a short addition - it isn't made clear on the notice board you come to when driving in - that asks for payment of the fee of $8/night - but on another board elsewhere, they tell you some discount cards like Senior Parks Pass can apply here - so we could have paid only $4 not $8 for our one-night stay.
Otherwise, this place is HUGE so if you have trouble with noisy neighbours you can easily find elsewhere further away to seek solitude. They also have a book-swap box in one of the covered picnic areas.

Fairly remote campground but the road is in good shape for the 11 mile drive from I-8.
The campground is well-maintained and has really large sites, completely suitable for larger rigs. Most of the sites are pull-through, pretty level, with fire pits and cement picnic tables. There isn’t much vegetation so don’t expect any shade. Pit toilets, but very clean. Despite it only being April, temps were in the mid-90’s and had to run our generator almost the entire time to keep our rig cool, maybe that’s why we were the only ones in the campground. Generator hours are 8 am to 8 pm.
The petroglyphs are within easy walking distance from the campground, it doesn’t take up a lot of time . We took the short drive to visit the dam but the road is closed off. Not a lot to do out this way so we decided to try and find the Oatman Family Memorial that we saw on the map. We got a bit lost in the hay fields coming from the campground so approached it from the west, Sentinel exit. The road was good…until it wasn’t – a high clearance 4WD is recommended if you come from that direction.

I agree with another reviewer in that this is a great stopover but there wasn’t enough to draw me to stay longer. A lot of flies and gnats will make you want to have good screens on your RV.

The sites here are huge and mostly well separated although there’s no vegetation for visual privacy. We enjoyed relaxing away from the freeway and train tracks. Verizon Service was blazing fast. Easy access from I-8 with just a short drive on dirt. We did have a dust devil tear through the campground and were chewing sand for a few hours. There are well maintained vault toilets and a dumpster. No other services.

The petroglyphs were interesting. We were able to overhear an archaeologist’s interpretation of them as he spoke to a tour group he was leading which was a bonus.