Roosevelt Lake Revisited and Camping Opportunities.

Camping is a good enough reason to go somewhere. Our weather in Silver City’s been beautiful and not cold enough to feel the need to escape. We got the camping bug anyway and had to take the Sprinter back to Roosevelt Lake.

Our site at Schoolhouse Campground.

Schoolhouse Campground. I promised last time I’d take more photos of the Tonto National Forest Campgrounds to show you the great camping opportunities. We drove to the lake by way of Globe, AZ and pull into Schoolhouse, the first campground at the upper south end of the lake. It’s the smallest and least occupied perhaps because the boat ramp is way out of the water since the lake levels have dropped significantly. There were only 4 campers there, 2 of which were tenters, when we arrived. This is the most peaceful and quiet of the campgrounds and we stay here when we want the most solitude.

At all the campgrounds water taps and flush toilet facilities are available but there are no hookups at the sites. Our two solar panels supply us with all the power we need but generators are allowed with restricted hours.

Roosevelt Lake Visitor Center.

Roosevelt Lake Visitor Center. On our way to Cholla Campground we stop at the Visitor Center to buy Tonto passes. We have to use a Pass for each day and the date is scratched off like a lottery ticket and hung in the window along with our senior pass. We buy more passes than we need so we’ll have a few extra to use on our next trip. With our senior pass the cost is just $3 a day. What a deal. Now we know what we’ve been working most of our lives for.

Roosevelt Lake marina.

The Visitor Center is near Roosevelt Dam and marina at the mid-point of the lake. It’s the focal point for fishing and boating activity. The center has all the info you need including forest maps. Its museum has wildlife displays, early Native American artifacts, a history of Roosevelt Dam and an interesting educational activity kiosk for kids.

Wildlife displays.



Roosevelt Lake bridge.

 

Roosevelt Lake.

Our site at Cholla Campground.

Group Area Information. We also got information about the Grapevine Group Site campground. It has many loops with various numbers of sites. The loops have 13 to 25 individual camp sites with a maximum capacity of 40 to 100 people. Each loop has water, toilets and group ramadas. Groups can reserve an entire loop. The cost for the smaller loops is $40 per night, which is a great deal when you divide that between the group members. The larger loops are $75 per night. There are water taps and flush toilets in each loop and a centrally located solar heated shower building.
The group area would be a great destination for an RV/Sprinter/ Sportsmobile Meet & Greet next November or December. Temps are usually in the upper 60’s low 70’s with nights in the 40’s. We’ll see if we can find interest for a meet & greet next fall. The Meet & Greet could be 2 or 3 days or as long as people wanted to stay.

Convenient restrooms are on every loop.



A view of the campground from the hiking trail.

What’s there to do at a Meet & Greet? Besides cookouts and conversation you can go fishing, hiking, birding and bicycling. There are interesting cultural and historic sites like the Tonto National Monument Cliff Dwellings, Besh Ba Gowah Salado ruin, Roosevelt Dam and the decommissioned Salt River diversion dam. Those with high clearance vehicles will enjoy some really beautiful Sonoran Desert scenery on the many back-country forest roads nearby.

The Four Peaks from our camp site.

Cholla Campground. We follow State Route 188 winding along the west side of the lake to Cholla Campground. Cholla has several loops including a tent-only loop with walk-in sites. Flush toilets and water hydrants are scattered throughout and there is a large solar-heated shower house. The shower water is hot during the day but the rooms are huge and tall ceilinged so they’re pretty cold. I made the mistake of leaning my backside against the tile wall to put on a sock. Don’t expect them to be as clean as showers at private campgrounds like KOA but it’s nice to have a big shower and lots of hot water once in a while.

Sonoran Desert vegetation at Colla Campground. 

The sites are spacious with gravel pads and separated by lots of Sonoran vegetation that provides some privacy. Each has a covered picnic table and fire pit. This campground has the only dump station but for some reason it’s only open on the weekends for part of the day. Generator use is not allowed from 10pm to 7am. In the summer when temps are over 100 generators can be run 24 hrs.

Cattails at the spring in the anonymous canyon.

A hiking trail along the north side of the campground is an easy walk with lake views and good birding. I saw Osprey, Great Blue Heron and Black-throated Sparrow in addition to the birds I saw last time. Birds like quail, flickers and cactus wrens are constantly moving around the campground so you can bird just setting at your rig.

Our anonymous desert canyon.

Hiking into an anonymous desert canyon. The north end of the campground is bordered by a large wash that drains into a cove. We work our way down the steep slope and hike up the wash passing under a tall span of highway bridge and into the wild.

The sandy wash becomes a boulder-filled canyon and we calculate each balanced step from rock to rock. When the canyon narrows we push our way through willows and cattails to find water flowing into minnow-filled pools. It’s the reward that this nondescript desert canyon offers and a sign that water flows here even in dry times.

Saguaros stand guard.

In about half a mile we push through the last of the vegetation and the canyon becomes a corridor of ragged, burnt red cliffs and regiments of saguaros guarding rubble slopes. We sit for a while joining the boulders on the canyon floor to have lunch and soak up the sun and solitude, lost in time and place, lost in the small sounds of Canyon Wren and the silence of still air.

Our hike down canyon is easier than the hike up. With gravity on our side we step quickly from boulder to boulder, a ballet in hiking boots. We exit the canyon, pass under the high bridge and back up the slope to camp. We bring back with us a space in the day when we were connected only to the desert and nothing else.

The Salt River before it flows into the lake.

Bicycling too. We had several days of good bicycling. It’s really fun to ride here. In spite of the rolling hills around the lake this is a flat ride for us. (We live on the Continental Divide where there’s no such thing as a flat ride.)

In our next post I’ll tell you about Besh Ba Gowah.

Until then,
Jackie

 

 

Arizona’s Roosevelt Lake is a perfect winter retreat.



Our camp site at Cholla Campground.

Our home in Silver City is at 6000 ft. and even though we’re in the southern part of the state we have winter. Our temps are mild most of the time but when a winter storm threatens where can we escape to? We remembered that years ago we rode our bikes through the Tonto Basin and around Roosevelt Lake in central Arizona on a Greater Arizona Bicycling Association cross state tour. Roosevelt Lake is only a 4-hour drive from home, 4000 ft. lower, and a temperate climate in the winter, the perfect spur-of-the-moment-getaway. That’s how we decided to spend the week of Christmas at Roosevelt Lake.

Desert sunset from our camp.

The Four Peaks at sunset.

The lake is on the Tonto National Forest with 3 Forest Service campgrounds: Cholla, Windy Hill and School House (the most remote at the south end of the lake). There is also a group area. Each day we stayed required a daily pass on which we marked the current date. Passes have to be replaced daily. One advantage to the daily pass is that we can change campgrounds or sites whenever we choose and the passes are good for any Tonto National Forest site. We bought a stack of passes so we’re prepared for our next visit. As always, our Senior Pass gets us half off so each night only costs us $3. What a deal.

The group area would be a great place for a fall or winter meet & greet. I’ll get more info on it next time.

We're happy campers at our Cholla campsite!

The sites at each campground are spread out along paved loop drives through the lush Sonoran Desert that borders the lake. They have covered picnic tables and fire pits but no hookups. Our 2 solar panels supplied us with adequate power. Generators are allowed but need to be shut down at night. There are restrooms and water taps scattered throughout and large solar-heated showers. Cholla campground had a dump station but for some reason it’s only open for a few hours on the weekends.

Wish I’d have taken more photos of the campground to show you. I’ll do it the next time we make our escape.

A pair of Ravens roost under a light pole solar panel.

We camped at Cholla which is located north of Roosevelt Dam at about the mid-point in this long basin. Each morning we’d begin with a little birding walk and saw an abundance of Gambles Quail, Flickers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Verdins, White-crowned Sparrows, and Cactus Wrens, as well as Canadian Geese, Coots and Grebes at the lake. (I’m trying out my new birding binoculars.)

Hiking across the desert to the South Fork .

We had no lack of things to do. We spent 2 days hiking in the rugged mountains. Our first hike was up the South Fork of Deer Creek in the Matzatal Wilderness south of Payson. The canyon was a delight. The wide river rock filled wash narrowed as we enter the canyon and water begins to flow. Water is a beautiful thing in the desert. Its voice spills through the canyon and waterfalls in narrow places add to the conversation.

A perennial stream in the South Fork.

Our second hike is up the Tule Trail into the Superstition Wilderness. We got a grand view of the lake and basin from the top of the 1200 ft. climb.

If you’re more into 4-wheeling there are plenty of dirt roads and jeep trails promising fun, scenic beauty and awesome vistas.  



A water fall in the South Fork.

Hiking up the Tule Trail.

Bicycling along Roosevelt Lake.

Jackie, the friendly cyclist.

Two of our days were spent bicycling. From Cholla we went in each direction on Highway 188 which runs the length of the basin. The pavement is good and there’s a wide shoulder to move onto when traffic overtakes us. The road rolls gently through the foothills and beautiful desert landscapes along the lake. Cactus studded mountains contain the valley within a continuous jagged rim that scrapes the sky. At each end of the valley the highway has to climb to find its way out and we climb along with it.


A view of the Superstition Wilderness.

 

 







There’s so much more to explore at Roosevelt so the next time the winter chill comes down into New Mexico we’ll head for the desert. It’s so easy to do in our Sprinter.
Until next time.
Jackie



The beautify and solitude of the Sonoran Desert.




Love those Saguaros.