Wheeler Pass Road Dispersed Camping

Who knew this was going to be such a great site? Easy access and so many options. Gave the feel of being in the wild west where you just pick a site and pull up to stay. Plenty of space for our dog to roam. We even got to see a roaming turtle. The rocks replaced dirt, making it a nice clean site. No bugs at night and such a great view of both mountains and the city lights. Great cell service for my wife to do her online work. Too bad we had to leave.

Camped east of the power lines, on a small pull off off of the main road.

Stayed for 7 days

Views are amazing and beautiful!

I will say that the main road does get a recent amount of traffic that you will hear if you don’t pull far enough off the road.

Had 2 bars of Verizon but a completely unobstructed view of the sky with Starlink.

I have a 25ft class C towing a car.

It took me a little to find a spot where I could get comfortably, and I had to use blocks to level but it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had expected.

Biggest CON was the amount of plant life and seeds that sticks to your clothes/pets/blankets and is almost impossible to get out.

I found wearing shorts and only walking the dogs on the main road was the best way to combat this.

I’d definitely camp out here again

We stayed one night and enjoyed a quiet evening after finally deciding on a good site. Before that, we manage to get stuck in a couple feet of snow after taking our truck and popup trailer close to the top of the mountain hills. Unbelievable views from up there but after seeing many large animal tracks we decided to camp closer to civilization. The only negative for us was the rough ride in because of the many jagged rocks on the path. Would stay here again.

I would agree with the last reviewer on 12/1/21. There are definitely some FTimers here, and there is trash left behind, but not so much that it's overwhelming. For us, it's a nice stop over going to Death Valley from Vegas, but not sure I'd hang here much more than that. The town is a great place to stock up and fuel up.
As most BLM the road become gravel and bumpy. You can go back as far as you and your vehicle can tolerate.
Good cell coverage with Tmobile.

You can stay on this BLM land for free up to fourteen days.

Pros:
Really beautiful views- desert flora (including Joshua trees!), snowcapped mountains, and wild horses (sadly, we didn’t see anything other than their tracks but there’s about 60 living here!)
Seemingly endless spots to camp, so you can find a good private spot suitable for your size rig
Great connectivity (70 Mbps down, 25 Mbps up on AT&T using our Netgear Nighthawk and MIMO antennae!)
Close to town, so great access to grocery stores, water and within reasonable proximity to Death Valley and Vegas
Super quiet and peaceful- I barely saw another human being during the five day timeframe we camped.

Cons:
The roads around the land could definitely use some love (but that’s to be expected with BLM land, right?)
As other reviews said, there were a few seemingly brokendown RVs near the start of the land. This site is massive, though, and if you don’t feel like looking at them, there’s certainly plenty of spots for you.

Verdict: Definitely will stay here again as a quiet spot while passing through Death Valley or Vegas (still gotta see those wild horses!).

The most striking thing about this area is the obscene amount of glass, trash, and literal piles of human waste. There are definitely people who have been living out here a very long time; we saw them hanging around outside in clusters of old, broken down campers, mostly toward the front. Despite all this, it was still very quiet. We also heard from a friend that law enforcement in Pahrump is no-tolerance, so even though it looks rough, there is actually very little crime.

The area itself is gorgeous with a ton of possible hikes and amazing sunsets. Joshua Tress everywhere, especially the further up the road you go. The actual roads are well maintained, but with a 34’ Class A, it was impossible to access all the perfect sites with stone fire pits because the entrances were so washed out and dug up with huge ruts from people getting stuck. We drove up the dirt road toward the mountain for a few miles but the quality didn’t get any better, and by that point, the sites were very sloped because of the incline. So sad because up there, we could see a ton of fresh horse hoof prints, which is part of why we decided to camp in this area, wild horses.

We managed to find a spot near the power lines, which was not ideal because there were a lot of people in this area, and we prefer way more privacy. Planned to stay on the site and hike/ explore Pahrump for a few days, but we immediately changed our plans and stayed only one night.

This place would be spectacular if it was cleaned, revamped, and maintained. Until that happens, we wouldn’t camp here again. Caveat is that we’re in a big RV. If you are in a 4x4, van, or tent camping, you might have a completely different, way more positive experience. From our perspective, two stars for the potential and because it was free and quiet.