Feeling the Warmth in Southern Arizona
February 6th – 15th, 2022 (9 nights)
Southern Arizona is a beautiful and fun place to visit during the winter. Sunny skies, warm weather, and clear starry nights attract people from all over the world seeking winter warmth. However, these are not the only reasons to plan a winter trip to the southern Sonoran Desert. There are plenty of fun things to do along with some great campgrounds at which to stay.
On this trip, we left our home in San Diego and followed the 8 East freeway which parallels the southern border with Mexico. In order to limit a long drive time to the first campground, we stopped overnight at a Boondocker’s Welcome location in Yuma, Arizona. Yuma is in Arizona’s southwest corner and, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, is the “Sunniest City on Earth”, promising sunshine and warm weather 91% of the year. Because of this great weather, Yuma also is very strong agriculturally, producing over 175 types of crops and providing over 90% of all leafy vegetables in the United States!
After our three hour drive to Yuma, we pulled into the adjacent empty lot next to our Boondocker’s Welcome hosts’ home in their RV community. We were provided full hookups including fast WiFi for only the small price of the Boondocker’s Welcome annual membership! We always give the hosts a small gift though for their generosity. Since we arrived late in the afternoon, we didn’t explore Yuma’s old town. Instead, we had a late lunch and walked around the very flat and wide streets which are surrounded by desert. We headed for our first campground, Twin Peaks Campground, the next morning.
We followed the 8 freeway east through the Sonoran Desert and turned off on the 85 south at Gila Bend and headed straight toward the Mexican border. After a few hour drive from Yuma and passing through a few small towns (e.g. Ajo population 2841), we reached Twin Peaks Campground within the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument park (just a few minutes from the border crossing at Lukeville). The desert landscape here is accentuated by tremendous giant saguaro cacti, which also dot the campground. Almost every campsite within Twin Peaks Campground has a beautiful giant saguaro cactus. The campsites here are very spread out and private. Ours was #57 ($20/night when we reserved), an end spot with a water spigot very close by. There are no hookups here, which give this very remote location an even more far off feel. Cell phone service in the campground is spotty. We used our solar panel briefcase for charging our batteries and our grey tank jugs so we wouldn’t have to move our Scamp 13’ to dump until leaving (there is a free central dump station here).
When we arrived at Twin Peaks Campground, the park ranger advised us to keep our car hood open at night due to the pack rat problem (they like confined closed spaces and will chew through car wiring!). We were also told to avoid contact with people wandering in the desert as they likely are smugglers or illegal immigrants. The ranger said these people use black water bottles to avoid sunlight reflections which could get them noticed by border patrol agents. Note: we didn’t see any such activity during our three day visit and the campground felt very safe due to a well-populated campground, a good park ranger presence, as well as a lot of border patrol agents scouting right outside the campground. On a remote path, we did see a high blue flag in the air marking two large blue barrels of water sitting on the desert sand, set up by the organization called Humane Borders to help immigrants in need of water while crossing the desert. The yellow city lights from the Mexican town of Sonoyta are visible from the campground at night.
There are a lot of fun trails originating from within the Twin Peaks Campground. We hiked the Palo Verde Trail to the Visitor’s Center on our first day (an easy 2.6 mile round trip hike). Along this path, one can view magnificent giant saguaro cactus (some over 50 feet tall and 150 years old!) as well as the namesake Organ Pipe cactus (usually with multiple limbs clumped together at the base). Every morning and evening, we walked along the Campground Perimeter Trail (an easy desert loop around Twin Peaks Campground). And, we spent a half day hiking to the old Victoria Mine (4.5 miles round trip). The Victoria Mine Trail is an easy desert trail with some ups and downs, crossing several arroyos (washes). There is a historic old mining structure (mines are closed for safety) at the end of the trail. And, the Desert View Trail is another one not to miss and best hiked around sunset. It’s an easy 1.2 mile loop (about an hour hike) with spectacular vistas of the Senita Basin and the La Abra Plain to the southwest and the Sonoyta Valley to the southeast. There are good plant markings and benches along the trail. There’s also a great view looking down over the Twin Peaks Campground from the top of the trail. There are a variety of other trails to hike as well if time permits. Always make sure to sign your names in the trail book when starting hikes so your whereabouts are known in case of emergency and carry plenty of water. Avoid hiking when it is hot or in the middle of the day. Biking is allowed along the roads, but be careful of loose slippery sand as well as traffic (and don’t go too fast). The closest hospital from the campground is about 2 hours away (although there is a small community clinic, Desert Senita Community Health Center, about 30 minutes away in the town of Ajo which can handle minor injuries such as stitches).
Our next stop was Gilbert Ray Campground on the outskirts of Tucson (a 2 ½ hour drive from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) and next to the Saguaro National Park. Our campsite was #C16 ($20/night), which has a water spigot very close to it. These campsites do have electric hookups, but no other hookups. There is a free central dump station. We were surprised by very fast Verizon internet at this campground – we clocked over 100Mbps download and over 20Mbps upload at our campsite! The HD TV reception, being close to Tucson, was also excellent and we watched the Olympics at night in our Scamp 13’. The campsites at Gilbert Ray feel closer together and not as private (or as remote) as the ones at Twin Peaks Campground. However, the proximity to Tucson allowed us to visit the Pima Air & Space Museum! We spent a fantastic day touring the museum which is filled with airplanes and helicopters (both indoors and out). We had a nice lunch too at the museum’s “Flight Grill”. This museum is right next to the largest airplane bone yard in the world, home to almost 4,000 mostly retired aircraft laid out over 2,600 acres. The dry heat and low humidity in Tucson is ideal for airplane storage because aircraft take longer to rust and degrade. Additionally, desert land is plentiful and cheap and the earth is hard enough to prevent aircraft from sinking into the ground.
After a few nights at Gilbert Ray Campground, we headed an hour east to the Kartchner Caverns Campground. The main attraction here are the caves, and reservations are recommended for tours. We had campsite KTC-49 ($30/night + $5 reservation fee) with electric and water hookups (there is a free central dump station). There is plenty of space between campsites and trees filling the campground space. We had very limited Verizon internet, although the campground provides free WiFi (which worked sparingly when sitting outside). We enjoyed the Visitor’s Center and a cave tour (no photos allowed on most tours) which lasted over an hour and featured some amazing large rooms with stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. There is even a music / light show during the $23 per person tour. We spent one night here, which seemed to be enough time to take a cave tour. The next morning, we had to try an early lunch at Mi Casa (a highly recommended Mexican restaurant close by in Benson, Arizona) before heading back to Yuma. We arrived right at 11 a.m. for lunch because we read the place fills up fast with long waits! Fortunately, we found parking in front of the restaurant for our tow vehicle and Scamp 13’ and we just got a table before the place filled up within minutes of opening! We were not disappointed with the food – some of the best Mexican food we have ever had (and we’ve travelled throughout Mexico!). The homemade chips and salsa, enchiladas, carrot cake, and flan were beyond exceptional! It’s too bad this restaurant is in such a remote area or we would be coming back! We spent the last night of our trip back at the same Boondocker’s Welcome home in Yuma after a 4 ½ hour drive from Kartchner Caverns.
If you are looking for some warmth in winter, give southern Arizona a try. The campsites are great and the people are very friendly. Arizona has numerous public campgrounds throughout the state and many campers choose to spend the entire winter here. It’s easy to see why; the weather and nature are breathtaking!
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