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