Scaddan Wash Labyrinth
I was going to have a couple of contrasting weeks ahead. First, I was heading to Quartzsite to visit friends. While some people had left due to the heat, I was still dealing with more people around than I was used to. Then I was headed to the Black Mountains east of Bullhead City. That was to be dealing with different sorts of people. Read on to see my peopling!
I had intentions to meetup with Sara and Aaron of That RV Over There in Quartzsite as I worked my way west. I had actually made “socializing plans” to meet up with them, and then travel northwest to where Carolyn of Carolyn’s RV Life was hanging out. If things worked out we’d travel north together for a bit with me bailing off back to Canada once my time in the States came to an end for this season. I was meeting Sara and Aaron in Scaddan Wash for a few days. Scaddan Wash is my favorite area for boondocking in the immediate area around Quartzsite. It has sites close to town you can walk from, and sites far away in the middle where you can get away from your neighbors to some extent. Those sites are tougher to get to – I’d stick with stuff close to the main roads if you are just coming in for the first time.
Aaron posing at White Rock Garden
Things had worked out to meetup thanks to the heatwave. Sara and Aaron had escaped the heat in Flagstaff, now they were back in Quartzsite to get an electrical upgrade: three ~300Ahr Lithium batteries with an upgraded charge controller for the new batteries. That is a lotta power storage. I think they are sitting at about 400W of solar, so about 60 hours of charging to fill those puppies up. My rule of thumb is 200W of solar for every 100Ahr of LIF battery capacity, they would be at 44 per 100 – me thinks they will be adding some more solar panels on soon! At least solar is cheap (for now).
Another poser at White Rock Garden
It was nice to have some friends for company again. I’d been several months on my own with only the occasional stranger to chat with. We had lots to talk about between our various adventures since we last were together in early 2025. We did go for one good hike to an area I had previously been to, what I term the ‘White Rock Gardens’. We hiked over from a different direction I had previously approached the area at. I plotted a route following roads and cart paths for the first bit, then heading overland to the rocks. I failed to plan for the big hill in my way, which threw me off navigating on the way there. But as we worked our way around the hill, the white rocks appeared not too far away. You just couldn’t see them from the direction we were coming from this time until you were almost there. Last time, I had been able to see them from far away, making finding them easy. Even with the slightly more difficult hike, the white rock garden is worth going to. It still looks like somebody’s garden with cacti planted about white rocks scattered nicely about the slope.
That RV Overthere
Even though I have been to Scaddan Wash before, I still had new things to go see. It’s a pretty big area. You can hike around the middle of it to find all sorts of rock art created mostly out of the white quartz scattered about the area. I visited the Scaddan Wash Labyrinth, which is marked on the googles map. You’ll run across many other bits of rock decoration out there. It can be fun to walk about and randomly discover these out there.
Burn wreck at La Posa
Having been to Quartzsite many times now, I got to thinking: were there any areas I had not visited at all while in the area? I had crossed off La Posa LTVA on a hike one day, as it isn’t too far cross country from where we were camped on the southeast corner of Scaddan Wash. Things were not too crowded there – I suspect a lot of people left when the heat wave was on. It’s nothing special for the area – bits of flat desert interspersed with washes. You can even find a few trees to camp close to. But I had never been anywhere near Dome Rock. It’s to the southwest of Quartzsite, with a good road all the way to the boondocking area. It is up against the hills so there is more hiking potential. I’d consider it for boondocking next time I’m in the area.
I spent a bit of time exploring south of Dome Rock with the motorcycle. It doesn’t look like you can boondock anywhere around there, at least as far as the mine. But while down there I did encounter one historic ruin: Joseph Conè’s Cabins. From a bit of googling I found out that this was a former residence / workshop, built in the late 1800s. It’s in pretty good shape considering the age – goes to show you that stone done right can last a long time. You can see the remains from the paved road. If you don’t want to risk your vehicle, just park and do the short walk over to the structures. The stonework is pretty cool to look at.
Proposal to increase from $180 to 600 for a season!
Quartzsite wasn’t too busy the evening we drove in to eat at Silly Al’s Pizza. I’ve never been there despite hearing it is quite good. That goes to show you how often I eat out. I think I’ve averaged about one dining out experience per visit to Quartzsite. But I would say the visit to Silly Al’s was overdue. The pizza was excellent and the place does have a unique vibe to it. If you feel like pizza in Quartzsite, go here. While eating we discussed what is a perennial topic among boondockers/campers in the last couple of years: the proposed LTVA (Long Term Visitor Area) fee increases. The current rate of $180 for the season is a good deal. You can camp in all the LTVAs, dump your tanks, get water, and even have pit toilets at some of the more established sites like La Posa. Most everyone agrees the proposed raise in price to $600 is excessive.
Compared to camping in an RV park it’s only one month’s typical rent. BUT it’s still boondocking, with only free dump and water as a cost savings. If you only care about living as cheap as possible, just use the other free camping areas and rotate around to different spots. I’ll note that despite this proposal being around for two years now they still charged the old rate for the 2025/26 season. We’ll see what happens next year. A modest increase is reasonable, but $600 is going to send more people out boondocking where I am camping for free, leaving me with more crowds to deal with in the Quartzsite area.
Parker passenger rail car
I moved on from the Quartzsite area after a nice visit with Sara and Aaron. I was planning on one stop on the way out to the Vegas area to meet up with Carolyn. Since it was hot now, I could explore in the hills a bit east of Bullhead City. I marked some potential sites that looked good on the aerial maps and headed north. I made a pitstop at a Park in Parker to checkout the old passenger rail car parked by the road. While old railcar was cool, you can’t go inside it, nor is there much for exhibits. Oh well, you can’t win them all. Since I was heading to Bullhead City, I skipped shopping in Parker since the Smith’s in Bullhead City is much nicer than anything Parker has to offer.
Old Highway 68 now a mine road
I had marked some potential boondocking up Highway 68, and further north up Highway 93 if those didn’t work out. Highway 68 climbs out of the Colorado River valley into the Black Mountains. You’re not that high up, but you can get over 2000 feet, which is enough to take the edge off of what was still very hot weather for the time of year. My first turn crossed a cattle gate with a bit of a drop off. It didn’t look too bad, so I slowly went over with my rig. Hearing a clang as my rear tire drops off the edge, I knew I’d hit something. It turns out I had crushed my tailpipe some more, this time enough that it was going to need a repair to open it up again. That cattle gate was deceptive – it didn’t look like much of a drop coming off the highway. I decided the tailpipe wasn’t restricted enough to warrant an immediate return to town, but I wasn’t going to be doing any extended hill climbs on the highway until I got that fixed.
It doesn’t look like much, but that is a curb and a half drop off the cattle guard end
I continued down the road, climbing a steep hill with a tilted left turn leading down the otherside on a not too bad backroad. I stopped at the bottom of the hill to make sure I wasn’t entering a sand trap, and walked ahead to see what the first spot looked like. It wasn’t too bad, and the road was decent to there at least. I drove up and parked there, deciding this would do for a week, if the next spot down the road wasn’t any better. The road got worse to get there, so I walked over first. The second spot had a nice view of the mountains, although I was looking down on a shooting area I could see. I decided to move over to this spot, hoping there would not be too many shooting visitors.
Thumb Butte view from camp
I was able to get level sitting right on a ridge, nice! The vanlife people would love this spot for the view, but keep in mind what the picture doesn’t show. I was at the highest point over a mini-pass – the wind turned out to be quite ferocious at times. If it wasn’t windy, there were shooters driving past to the spot I was overlooking. I had to content myself with some afternoons of observing people shooting things like fruit below me. There was also a lot of ATV traffic going by. I wasn’t too far from town, so this didn’t surprise me. But the views did a lot to make up for the people coming by. The Black Mountains are some dramatic bits of rock jutting up around me. They are not very high, rising above me only another thousand feet above the ridge I was on. They do look impressive, even being small.
 Visiting shooters setting up |
 They shot up a bunch of fruit and canned food |
The size of the mountains meant I could walk around one easily on a hike. I did explore around on foot quite a bit, climbing some of the easier hills to enjoy the view. I took a longer walk to a spring marked on the topo map. It turned out to actually be running, something I rarely see in the desert. It certainly was nice to splash a bit of water on me and fill up a non-potable bottle for use in the rig. I could see why the ATVs from Bullhead City were touring around the area, the scenery was quite nice. I could see down to Laughlin mostly – it has a bunch of large casino buildings owing to it being in Nevada. Bullhead city is closer, but hard to see being mostly low building sprawl tucked in the valley.
Hiking around I found both interesting flora and fauna. The flora was a spring bloom of the Prickly Pear Cactus. I had a shooter stop to chat with me while I was out hiking. He pointed out a really good plant, even stopping his truck to wait for me to catch up to the spot where the cactus was. Shooters can appreciate flowers too. On the fauna side of things, there were burros out in the Black Mountains. I could hear them once in a while, and saw them on a ridge way over there from my camp. But I finally had a closer encounter, passing a couple by on the hill above me as I hiked up the wash.
View to Laughlin
I unloaded the motorcycle with the expectation I’d find all sorts of other boondocking spots exploring a bit further afield. While I did find spots, there was less than expected. It either was too hard to get to, or occupied. There are spots marked on iOverlander, so I’m not surprised spots are taken. You are pretty close to town too, this is one of the few good areas near town to boondock. I did mark a few spots, but if I wanted more solitude, I’d drive another half hour away to that Highway 93 stuff I marked as potential boondocking.
I did have to survive one wicked windstorm that blew my table clear off the ridge with some minor damage. I might try camping at the first spot I passed on if I came back here again. It was a bit of a shooting spot, but people can just move on to the main shooting area if I’m occupying that site. But overall, it was a good area if you can deal with people going by. Next, I was heading out to the Vegas area to meet up with Carolyn, but first I had to deal with my squished exhaust pipe. I was sure I’d make it down the hill into Bullhead City, but working the engine hard climbing the hill out of town was more than I was willing to risk. Join me next time for a little repair then a meetup!
