Saddle Mountain Dispersed Camping

Really nice place for a stay in winter time. Road is pretty rocky but our sedan was able to make it in without too much difficulty and the sites start not far from the road. We did get flies but they only were about a dozen - I was expecting just a swarm to live in our bus but I would label it annoying but not bad. Sunsets and scenery was so pretty and far enough away from the interstate that you got basically no noise.

Beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Roads going in have washes but just go slow. Lots of big spots for big rigs... I went in with a 40 ft motorhome with a car in tow. No problems. Can park close to Courthouse road or go all the way to the back at the base of the mountains. Flies are particularly annoying but gives you a chance to sharpen your swatting skills. Watch out for the cows....someone hit one on the road. Very sad...... they don't bother anybody. Would definitely camp here again.

Four Stars due to the flies and occasional smell from whatever the surrounding farms are doing.

The flies were insane. It was the 2nd worst place we stayed for flies. Rarely, we could smell the chicken processing plant if the wind blew the right direction. They dump the incinerated remains alongside the road. You can see the smoking, or steaming piles. There is reportedly a chicken farm nearby, but couldn't see it, or smell it. There was an RV park in Tonapah that closed because the floating feathers covered the pool and nobody would stay there any longer. There are nicer places in the area. This is one that's on my "not staying again" list

This has been one of our favorite spots so far on our 2 month journey, however there are several downsides that can make or break this spot for certain people. First! The flies are insanely bad, but to no surprise given the nearby egg conglomerate dumps chicken poop all over the area. We were told this by the gentleman that runs Saddle Vista Ranch that is right down the road. Visit him for dump station ($25) and potable water (0.10 cents/gal) in addition to fly tape (yes, the flies are that bad). We even made a game out of killing flies in the RV on a daily basis. On the other hand, this spot has great access to Saddle Mountain and views of beautiful vegetation as you hike the valley. Rock hounding is also popular here. We found some neat rocks just outside the RV! Road isn’t bad, but will get worse the further you go. We have a Prius and were able to go pretty far up the road. The spots are very spread out so privacy isn’t too much of an issue. Would and probably will stay here again!

I do want to give this place 5 stars but the flies make it impossible.

We stayed here five days. Like others have said the road just west of mile marker 13 is pretty decent. We didn’t venture too far down it since we had a low clearance car with us. Ended up being a good call. Everyone wanted to be at the base of the Mountain so while it was crowded down there where we parked we were all alone.

Super quiet, great sunsets. But the flies were bad.

Stayed at the base of Saddle Mountain. Turned left on the dirt road around mile marker 13--as other reviewers stated, the dirt roads closer to you when coming from the east are very rocky--I had to take it VERY slow just driving my high-clearance truck. The dirt road I turned down while towing my 36 ft. 5th wheel was much smoother and allows you to get very close to the base of the mountain.

The views are pretty and the mountain is literally right next to you.

The reviews about good cell service are deceptive--yes, you have "a lot of bars," but bars are not necessarily a good determiner of signal strength. I use both ATT and T-Mobile sims in an LTE router/modem combo. The cell towers closest to the campsites are to the NW, right on I-10, and they have VERY high latency. Even if you have good download/upload speeds, you can't do any streaming/video calls with latency in the 300+ millisecond range and Jitter in the 2k millisecond range. Unless you have a high dB LTE directional antenna to point toward a better tower to the NE (which I do, thankfully), closer to Buckey/Phoenix, you will be out of luck if you need reliable LTE internet for remote work.

This is the only reason I didn't give the site 5 stars, since cell phones, tablets, and omni-directional antennas will always gravitate to the tower with the strongest signal, which is the one with high latency, in this case. If you don't need reliable internet to work on the road, this might not mean much to you, but if you do, keep this in mind.