Twin Peaks Campground

Some national park campgrounds are tucked away from the main action in the park, but this campground is ideally situated for hiking directly from the campground and traveling all the park scenic drives, making it easy to soak in the full atmosphere of the desert. The central location comes with a 360 degree view of gorgeous desert scenery, including a broad valley to the south and small hills to the north and west, all packed with huge cactus. It was a perfect setting for colorful sunrises and sunsets. Sites on the outside of the loops are the most popular since they have the best views.

Sites in the campground are all pull-through, and they are spaced out very generously with lots of vegetation in between. Some of the most impressive cacti and other plants that we saw in the park were the ones right in the campground! The wildlife seemed to agree, since the campground was full of birds including hummingbirds. As a bonus, it seems to be very lightly visited, so we had very few neighbors to begin with. The concrete pads were level and in pristine condition. The campground has flush toilets and even showers, an unusually nice feature in a national park, though we found the solar-heated showers to be lukewarm at best.

There is a large network of trails that can be accessed directly from the campground (Victoria Mine Trailhead is at the south end of the loops). The entrance to the rugged and lovely Ajo Mountain Drive is directly across 85 from the campground, and the hikes into Arch Canyon and Estes Canyon from Ajo Mountain Drive gave a nice window into different ecosystems with more water and lusher plants.

There were many signs about migrants, and the border patrol was out in force (including helicopter flyovers), but we saw no sign of border-crossers. The noise from helicopters and fighter jets from the nearby Air Force range was short-lived and never bothered us. Cell service on AT&T was spotty -- voice always worked fine, but data was intermittent.

I'm glad we went out of our way to stay here. The sites are of varying lengths. It's a very beautiful and unique location. Running off solar in the non-generator area, we had the misfortune of hitting the 3 unusually hot days in mid March, but we survived. ;) It doesn't help that you can't safely keep an awning out with the unpredictable winds. We loved how the natural vegetation surrounded most of the sites. I would absolutely stay here again (during the cool season). We had a good Verizon signal but could understandably pick up only one OTA channel, and it was of course Spanish-speaking. Be VERY careful when walking your dog on the loop around the campground - turn away for a second and they'll have something stuck in them!

This campground is as good as it gets for Sonoran vegetation. Although there are 200 sites it was never full while we were there. If you do not like the sound of the generators there are 3 rows that are non-generator. The rules on generators are pretty limiting so even the rows with generators can only run them for a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening. Every site has vegetation and good space between the next. If you are there anytime after March we highly recommend a site that has good afternoon shade. There are no hook-ups but potable water readily available. And it tasted really good!!! As others have mentioned, the showers are either cool (cold in my book) or scalding hot all depending on the the time of day and how much cloud cover there is as they are solar heated.

We drove both loops (one all the way along the border) and even did the Ajo loop a second time. Simply beautiful. We also hiked to Victoria Mine from the campground and did the Desert View trail twice. Both of these are well worth it. We did see Border Patrol presence a lot but at no point did we feel unsafe even hiking out in the middle of it with a view of “the fence line” not 3 miles away!

For as far out and remote as this campground was the wifi was excellent on Verizon. The visitor center has wifi as well and the rangers are very friendly and helpful.

This is a model park that best models Edward Abbey's vision of national parks humorously/serious comments in Desert Solitaire ... this park is for the people and preservation (as much as possible these days) of the way things were and should remain for the future generations to enjoy and study.

Fabulous park and will return... great naturalists and programs here.

Easily the most beautiful place I’ve been in many, many months of moons. The organ pipes play silent welcome songs in Spanish to those heading further south into Mexico while the saguaros statuesque perch their guard, the two big cacti breeds forming the cornerstone of an otherwise lush-for-the-desert forest of palo verde and creosote, ironwood and fishhook barrels.

The toilet seats crisp, clean and perhaps a bit high, shower water splashing over into the stalls, provide additional justification for paying to stay here rather than in the free BLM land just outside of the National monument. I’d pay $16 to hang out here for a few hours, though, and to be immediately in the park as the breeze cools off a shady spot near one of the few palapas available in the tent / no generators zone, the cool purple painting the distant mountains one after another before the sky lasers away one last 1980’s pink before the stars appear polka dot dancing in the sky. It’s heavenly if you need a metaphor. Early April and it’s desolate, too, a rare few fellow campers in a 200+ site campground where we rarely need see one another, and are all quiet respectful of any sounds short of the cactus wrens starting their rusty old engines.

I would stay for weeks if the obligations of the outside world weren’t calling us away come tomorrow.

Twin Peaks is a large campground situated on a sloping site. As others have mentioned, there are three sections: one for those who want to use generators, one generator free and one for those in tents. We chose the generator free section. We found the layout of the campground a little odd in that all of the sites are pull through, but they also all face the same directions. A perimeter road encircles the campground. This means that all RV traffic along the rows of campsites must go the same direction (at least as far as we could figure out). If you drive down one row and then want to cruise the next one, you have to go back all around the perimeter road to get to the next row. Maybe you could avoid this if you had a small rig though.

We arrived on a Monday in late March and found the campground about 3/4 full. At this time there are no reservations, but the campground host told us they will be going to a reservation system in 2019. We found the staff at the visitors center to be friendly and informative and enjoyed a ranger talk on plants one evening. The Ajo Muntain loop drive is quite pretty and interesting.

As for feeling safe, I would say yes, but without getting into a political discussion or getting too controversial I would also say that I felt it was safe for us tourists, but not so safe for the illegal immigrants (and I'm not referring to drug smugglers or other criminal s here) who everyday try to make the dangerous trek across the desert. You'll probably enjoy Organ Pipe the most if you ignore that whole issue while you're there. It was hard for me to do so.

I'm trying to think of some reason not to give this place 5 stars... can't come up with a thing!!
The price is very reasonable, the spots are fantastic, the scenery is great, the people are very friendly... what's not to like.
We got decent cell service from Mexico on TELCELL (through AT&T).
In addition to the camp spot fee you must pay an entrance fee of $12 but if you stay a few nights that's not a lot.
There is a scenic drive across the highway that winds into the hills and gets you up close and personal to the local fauna. Most of the route is gravel (some hard surface in the hills) and is in decent shape. I think the return half is probably the worst but it may change as grading happens.

We had a nice stay at this campground. The hosts and rangers were friendly, the sites and restrooms were clean and plentiful, and the park was beautiful at sunrise and sunset. The stars at night exploded in the night sky. We'd never seen so many stars.

We arrived on a Wednesday around noon, and the campground was about half full. We had plenty of sites to choose from, and we were lucky enough to find one on an end that also had a decent amount of shrubbery to provide some shade on the west side of our rig in the afternoons. It was sunny and windy, so we were happy we didn't need the shade canopy and the awning wouldn't have done much at that angle anyway. All the sites are pull-through and face west (which is strange but I guess since the time to camp here is in the winter and campers want sun). Sites have a grill (ours looked brand new), picnic table, and the rigs sit on a concrete pad. No fire ring, but they do allow fires if you bring your own portable pit that's off the ground. We filled up the Airstream with water at the dump station when we got there, and the free solar showers were nice to have. We stayed in one of the three generator-free rows. Pretty much everyone in the campground had their truck or camper hoods up and undercarriage lighting on at night to prevent packrats from setting up shop. Yuck.

Wednesday through Saturday, there is a ranger program at 7 pm in the amphitheater. These were very well done and enjoyable. We saw one on desert flora and another on space exploration.

Hiking in the park is easy to moderate, but it wasn't very exciting to us Phoenicians as it was a lot like home. Luckily home is very pretty so it wasn't a big drag. :) There's an easy one-mile loops around the campground that is nice to do first thing in the morning or at sunset.

The campground is five miles from the Mexican border, and we could hear plenty of traffic heading south on 85 to Rocky Point for spring break. Other than the occasional coyote howl, that was really the only noise as everyone else seemed to head into their campers at 8 pm, immediately after the ranger program. To be honest, the campground had the vibe of a 55+ active adult community. Everyone was friendly but we felt a little like the record scratched when we pulled in with our adolescent children. haha

Overall, we had a nice, if uneventful and even a bit boring, trip to Organ Pipe.