Campground Review: Usery Mountain Regional Park

We moved just 30 miles SE from McDowell Mountain Regional Park to the lovely Usery Mountain Regional Park. You can read our experiences at McDowell here and here. McDowell is a mountain bikers mecca and Usery is a hikers heaven! Just the kind of places we like best.

Usery is less than 5 miles to the closest grocery store and gas station in Mesa, AZ. At night you can see the lights of Phoenix in the distance and hear the white noise of the city faintly as well. The access road to the park, while pretty busy during the day, is very quiet at night. Being so close to the city, this park can be very busy on the weekends and holidays.

Usery campground has paved roads, gravel sites, water and electric only, with dump station on site. Clean and convenient restrooms and showers. All sites seem to be pretty level and the perimeter sites are the most private. Sites have a table, fire pit and BBQ. We had fast 4G internet service here!

The park includes 30 miles of multi-use trails, an archery range, picnic areas and playgrounds and a nature center with many scheduled programs. We attended a talk about the venomous reptiles in the Sonoran desert.

There is also a shooting range about half a mile away from the park which you can hear during the day. When we arrived on Friday the shooting was sporadic, but on Saturday it was continuous all day long. Luckily it did not continue long after dark.

This was a beautiful park, close to services, with excellent 4G internet signal. We might stay here again, though we really liked the more peaceful feeling at McDowell.

Our site #12, a back in opening to the desert with a big, private sitting area.

Our view from our door. No campers in sight, and the road to the park is a good third
of a mile away and out of sight due to lush desert plants in this park..

Usery Mountain Regional Park

Usery Mountain Regional Park sits at the North edge of Mesa, AZ. It has 30 miles of hiking trails, a huge archery range, picnic sites and camping. This is lush desert landscape right at the edge of a big city so it gets a lot of use, especially on a cool Saturday which was our one full day here.

Here are a few pics from our stay at this very pretty desert park.

We were greeted with lush desert plants under brilliant blue sky just steps
from our camp site upon our arrival.

Hiking the Wind Cave trail on a cloudy Saturday morning.
The cave is the slim black horizontal slit near the top right of the hill.

The trail makes its way up the boulder strewn hillside to the yellow volcanic tuff layer,
highlighted with  bright green lichen.

A small portion of the wind cave...the remainder was full of other people! Being so close to a major city,
this park gets major use on the weekends.

This beautiful hawk was watching the crazy people hiking to the cave.

Even under cloudy skies the cholla seem to glow.

Sunsets have been spectacular here!

After glow

Campground Review: McDowell Mountain Regional Park

We chose to stay at McDowell Mountain Regional Park based on the glowing review by Wheeling It, and we agree with their assessment.

Roads are paved, sites are gravel with water and electric hookups. There is an onsite dump station. Restrooms and showers are clean and convenient.

Sites in the South loop are more level and better for big rigs than those in the North loop. In either loop, we prefer the perimeter sites as they are the most private.

There are 50 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails, including a competitive mountain bike track.

We stayed in site #62, a pull off site that has your RV door facing wide open desert; no roads, no RV's, no buildings, nothing but beautiful, spacious, open desert. The nearest neighbors are at least 100 feet away and out of view. Completely quiet and peaceful at night.

Site #60 may be my favorite site; it's another perimeter site and is a back in site and like the rest of the back in sites, it is wide enough for your truck or towed to park next to your rig. Site 60 has lots of privacy and beautiful saguaro views.

And to top it all off we met a lot of great folks here, including Harlan and Donna, owners of Bicycle Garage just down the road in Fountain Hills where Hans had his bike fixed; if you need bike repairs while in the area do check them out for quality work. We also had a very nice happy hour with Cliff and Sharon from Alberta and their sweet dog Toby.

We would definitely stay here again, but there are other nice parks in the area that would give us a new area to base out of that we might try (Usery Mountain Regional Park, Lost Dutchman State Park).

Pull out site #62 on the perimeter of the South loop. The only difficulty in setting up was positioning
 the rig next to that curb so our steps would fold out properly.

Nothing but desert in front of us. Big sitting area with table, BBQ and metal fire pit.

McDowell Mountain Regional Park, a Mountain Bikers Paradise

We've relocated to McDowell Mountain Regional Park in the NE corner of Scottsdale, AZ. We've got a campsite that opens onto nothing but desert and miles and miles of trails that are mostly used by mountain bikers.

We've joked with the other campers here that it seems to be a mecca for senior mountain bikers! At this time of year there are mostly seniors camped here and they are a healthy, physically active bunch.

The trails are awesome! Mostly hard packed desert dirt, meandering through cactus gardens, some lightly rocky sections, uphills are gentle, some swoopy sections through giant boulders, expansive views. Besides the 50 miles of general trails, there is a competitive track where you can test your skills.

The park was ravaged by fire in 1996 and you can see the scars on cactus throughout the park, but in the last 16 years the plants have come back nicely, making for a wonderful place to stay and enjoy the desert.

We've seen a coyote walk near our camp in the afternoon, then moments later call to his pack and listen for the answering responses. LOVE being in a campground with natural space around you, instead of neighbors all lined up in a row.

Sunrise from our camp site

Our camp site...nothing but desert outside our door.

This beautiful, old saguaro has burn damage but managed to survive the 1996 fire.

Mushroom granite rocks!

One of the swoopy sections

Campground Review: Rancho Verde RV Park

Rancho Verde RV Park in Camp Verde, AZ is a lovely small RV park situated in a quiet neighborhood about a half mile West of I-17 as the crow flies. They have 40 sites, just a few are pull throughs. Paved roads, gravel sites with some grass and shade trees. Restroom/Laundry facility is clean and inexpensive.

The owners are friendly and have only owned the place for a year and a half. They work hard to keep it in good shape. They were happy to lend us a plunger for our toilet fiasco and followed up to make sure all was okay afterwards.

You can hear I-17 at night (when the skies are clear) and I was glad we had the windows closed and also glad we weren't staying at one of the other nearby parks that are right next to this busy freeway. The campground access road is very quiet.

We did not use the campground wifi, but our own Millenicom 3G internet service was intermittently slow, and Verizon cell service was good.

We absolutely would stay here again, would even consider staying for a month. Good central location in the Verde Valley, on a quiet neighborhood street, yet just a few minutes drive to shopping and several cute small towns and lots of hiking and great scenery. Very well kept park with good management. You can't go wrong staying here.

Our site #D2. The pull through sites are set up so another rig could be to our right
with their back end adjacent to our back end, allowing each rig to have a private sitting area.

View down the row behind our rig, back in sites on the left that back up to the
quiet neighborhood access road to the park.

View of the road in front of our rig. Laundry room on the right. A row of pretty, deep back in sites
 that are about 15 feet above the second level of this park where there are another 8 sites.

There are No Boring Days

Today we wrap up our stay in Camp Verde, AZ, and what a stay it's been! The last 24 hours alone were filled with excitement...

We had our first RV problem. Yep, the toilet stopped working, right before bedtime of course! After a fitful nights sleep full of toilet anxiety, Hans managed to fix it. Turns out I was using too much TP...lesson learned! Thank goodness it wasn't some warranty problem that would have changed our travel plans.

We met Annie and Roxanne of The Good Luck Duck in Cottonwood, AZ! So cool to meet these lovely women who are boondocking full time. They are a wealth of information on how to conserve resources (I could learn something from them based on the problem above!) and we look forward to seeing them again sometime on the road.

Just as we were wrapping up our rendezvous with Annie and Roxi it started to snow! As a southern California girl, snow is a novelty and I can't get enough of the white stuff. It wasn't even sticking to the ground and I was as excited as a little kid!

Between the toilet fiasco and the meeting of the full time RVers we went on an awesome hike: Parsons Trail in Sycamore Canyon. You have to drive 9 miles out on a dirt road that gets a bit rough the last mile or so, but a high clearance two wheel drive vehicle should be able to handle it. We hiked 3 miles into this ~4 mile trail and found it to be so lovely we will gladly do it again the next time we are in the area. We even saw a fox!!!!

We're headed for McDowell Mountain Regional Park near Scottsdale today. I'll leave you with a taste of Sycamore Canyon...it was so worth the drive out there.

Admiring Sycamore Canyon from the parking area. The only hill is the trail down into and out of the canyon.

The trail wanders along the creek among the trees...watch for critters in the undergrowth!

The creek opens into small pools whose beauty simply takes your breath away.

There are several stream crossings.

See the flat ledge of rock just above the water? That's the trail!

Towering columns of basalt. The clouds are just barely starting to build up for the snow
that would fall in the afternoon.

Hiking the Wet Beaver

Wet Beaver Creek is one of the few year round creeks in the Sedona/Verde Valley area. We hiked Bell Trail which follows within earshot of Wet Beaver Creek through golden grasses, red rocks, gentle inclines with stunning views. We made Bells Crossing our turn around point for a total of 8.5 miles...this is longer than the published mileage but I tend to have faith in the EndoMondo app mileage tracker we use.

This is said to be a very popular hike, but on a Thursday morning in November we had the trail to ourselves until the last mile or so.

Heading up canyon we took a side trail to check out the creek and surprised a couple of white tailed deer.
We heard later that they are generally very elusive and we were lucky to have seen them!

Red Rocks peeking out from the hillsides at the start of the trail. Notice the dark rock layer at the top of the hill,
Indian pueblos were once a part of that layer.

Evidence of the former inhabitants of the area. Keep your eyes peeled for these, they are not easy to find!
This had to have fallen from the top of the hill where the black rock layer is.

About 3 miles in the canyon narrows considerably and the trail climbs gently
up into the red rocks.

Love how the forces of nature have etched this pocket of sandstone!

Just before we dropped down to creek level we noticed how the creek perfectly
bisects these trees.

At Bells Crossing the canyon towers over the creek.
This serene oasis was a good place to relax for a while and be at peace.

On our return we spotted another piece of native art.
I wonder if our next stop, Montezuma Castle, may have been represented here.
It is just a few miles down the road...

Montezuma Castle