Bulldog OHV | Wild Camping

May 11th, 2023 by christopherleegrove

Camping banned for first 2 miles of road

April 3rd, 2023 by leslie.winik

All sites marked with NO Camping signs. I had a lovely lunch there though.

December 17th, 2022 by jay.priebe

This is a post about the camping available from the Bulldog OHV North gate. The original post is very accurate. The “sites” are all clean. We saw no garbage at all. Views are incredible.

May 10th, 2022 by timpagliarulo

Some weirdos live full time back there, place is unfortunately littered with garbage people don't seem to like the idea of pack in pack out around here. Also snoopy neighbors bothered me at 8 am. Aside from that the place is beautiful

May 10th, 2022 by timpagliarulo

Some weirdos live full time back there, place is unfortunately littered with garbage people don't seem to like the idea of pack in pack out around here. Also snoopy neighbors bothered me at 8 am. Aside from that the place is beautiful

May 3rd, 2022 by egarvey8

Quiet except for OHV vehicles. Most don’t care someone is camped there and might have a dog or small child or about the dust they kick up. Loads of wildlife. A wonderful elder man, Keith, has been taking care of the main campsites there. At least winter/spring 2022. He cleans up others garbage, empties the fire pits, and rakes the entire sites. He doesn’t have to, he just cares, is sick of people trashing nature, as am I. We cleaned up after a trailer left and looked like they just opened the door and threw everything out as they pulled out. Left a bag full of meat and produce along side a hill, hidden….we found it and the coyote found it. What a shame people do this! Nice spot for a week or less

April 6th, 2022 by Ollie

This is a sweet spot if you're fine with some recreation noise. The road in is in pretty rough shape, so drive slow. But, with that said, there are multiple 360 mountain/cactus views. 3 bars LTE Verizon. (and in case you're like me and struggle with the lock, put in the code, PRESS all the numbers in and pull to open it).

February 4th, 2022 by deboraha.glass

Drive SLOW, I paid my 6.00 fee online and they give you a key code for the lock. Once you get here it’s beautiful and quite except for the atv’s which is fine.

January 30th, 2022 by Rodger Obley

Got here on a Sunday evening as the sun was setting. Hoped it would be a bit less crowded as people went home after the weekend, but there were quite a few people here. No biggie! Nice having company. Went in about a mile without issue in a Promaster van, though the road requires intentional driving. I was hoping to be closer to the main road for additional cell reception and to shorten the commute to the Lower Salt River. Very pretty either way though.

As others mentioned, $6 for the 6 month pass.

December 12th, 2021 by instagram.com/thomerickson

Beautiful during the week, offroaders make it pretty noisy during the weekends.

I just had my camp chair and other items left around the fire pit stolen, so don't leave anything unsupervised I guess.

October 13th, 2021 by j.pe.cha

Beautiful campsite, secluded and quiet. Stunning sunsets, and right beside saguaro lake recreation park. We paid $6 on recreation.gov for a 6 month permit, allowed to stay for 14 days. Worth it!

October 9th, 2021 by pampas.overland

As others already mentioned, there is a gate with a numeric padlock, and a sign that mentions you need a permit. This permit costs $6 as of this date and is good for 6 months. Here's the process to buy the permit, you can do it from your phone before you go in as there is solid LTE in the area:
- go to recreation.gov and create an account if you don't have one, it's free, then log in
- search "bulldog" (the name of this place) in the search bar and the result will be for the "Tonto National Forest OHV Permit" or something like that.
- go through the reservation/purchase process
- you'll get 2 emails, one related to the reservation, one will be a receipt, none will have the gate codes
- on the recreation.gov site, go to the main menu and find "my reservations", and find this reservation, probably under "upcoming"
- tap on "print permit", browser may ask to allow a pop-up
- this will download a pdf to your phone, that pdf is the permit, and on the first page it will include a list of dates and what codes open the gates per date range, apparently the code gets rotated once in a while

Internet connection is quite solid. I'm at the 4th or 5th spot and have almost full reception with Verizon/Visible. My ping is around 90ms and I am seeing 40 Mbps down and / 11 Mbps up. I'm connecting to a tower that's very close by. See attached pictures.

****Beware of off road vehicles**** I used my tent on the first night, well off the road in the campsite, and placed my vehicle + my trailer shielding me from the road too. This did not stop 2 ladies from driving their side by side right into my site. Woke up all of the sudden to motor noise and a wheel braking feet from my tent, where my dog and I were sleeping. They backed up and just shouted "sorry". Other than the light of day, I am not sure how I could have been any more visible, as they had to drive straight to my rig and trailer to reach me. Off road traffic has been constant on this Saturday night, with people driving their side by sides very fast on the road. Absolutely anyone can drive those, so take measures to protect yourself, as people are oblivious.

May 3rd, 2021 by chalasani.aj

Very bumpy road in the beginning once you get through the gate. I was super scared coz I had to balance quite a bit by moving around. Once you get through that it’s easy and nice spots. 3 bars for Verizon and spotty AT&T

March 23rd, 2021 by lisa.l.webber

Drove in about a half mile with our 22 foot Class C VW Rialta. The roads are slightly sidling in spots with protruding rocks but we were able to pick our way through as we held our breath! Found a nice flat spot with a fire pit. Will update as we are here for three days. We did have to get a permit which can only be done online as previous people have mentioned. We couldn’t print due to a problem with their website so I printed a copy of the receipt. We shall see if that works

March 11th, 2021 by /blogs/113507

Stayed the night and it was great, plenty of turnoffs to camp, amazing views.

February 13th, 2021 by nicolegeri

A beautiful spot! We stayed Thursday - Friday. The first like 10 spots were taken with a lot of congestion at the front but we took our dodge promaster van down the road until we found a spot a couple miles in. The road is pretty rough but not currently impassable. We were glad we took our chances. I couldn’t imagine trying to take an RV down in there but I did see others do it and never came back so they must have found some good spots. There were jeeps, and other off road vehicles so it can get dusty but it wasnt awful. If you have pets, watch for cactus. They’re everywhere and dropped spines all over even if they don’t directly hit a cactus. We were pulling spikes out of our pups paws and out shoes after most walks. The river was dry but the landscape was epic. I’m a photographer so I attached some beautiful photos I captured here during our stay.

December 31st, 2020 by nicolegeri

Tried to stay here. Lot was full of trucks and trailers. The fence was closed and locked with a race or something going on inside.

November 22nd, 2020 by usphoto813

Nice view. 6$ for 6month, paid online. But I don’t know why there are a lot of bees and flying bugs

November 20th, 2020 by instagram.com/watchvincentsvango

Amazing spot. There are tons of spots off the main gravel road. We saw quite a bit of wildlife - wild horses, red fox, and heard coyotes, so be careful if you have pets!

There’s a trail that leads off the I believe fourth campsite on your left side while traveling up the road. If you follow that trail it leads to a nice, shaded river! Water is a bit chilly but it’s beautiful. There’s lots of trails to walk that take you to nice views.

I was told there are rangers that come through. Only saw them on the weekends though. The trails with red signs do not allow motorized vehicles and the guy that told me received a $130 fine! So be careful.

I was also told fires are not allowed? There are rings are a lot of the spots. Just be smart and keep fire very small.

Beautiful place!

November 12th, 2020 by vremsbottom

The gate was closed. I don't know how, frequently they open it. super disappointed.

November 3rd, 2020 by weroamawayfromhome.com

Beautiful views with several sites just off the main dirt road. There is a lot of dust right now because it’s been a while since it rained, so prepare for everything to be dusty. Busy on the weekend. Pretty dead on the weekdays. Must buy a $6 permit for OHV. This land is governed by the US Forest Service. No fires are allowed at this time.

Perfect for ATVs and Dirt Bikes!

Ranked 4/5 because the wind and dust prevented us from truly enjoying it.

April 22nd, 2020 by instagram.com/simplyusandabus

There are several campsites along the Phon D Sutton Off Highway Vehicle dirt road. This is the first site, just inside of the access gate along N Bush Highway. We are in a 30’ Skoolie and made it to this site with no issues: huge turn around area, fire pit, relatively flat. We walked further down the dirt road and saw several other RVs. There is a decent amount of OHV traffic during the day, and this spot is close to the road, so there’s a lot of traffic noise however, this spot is very accessible and within 0.5 miles of the Lower Salt River. Plenty of trails for hiking in the area too.

We did have to purchase an OHV permit from recreation.gov ($6 good for 6 months)

We stayed for 3 days, however you can stay for up to 14 days (posted at main gate).

We stayed during the Covid-19 pandemic, this area was still open, everything else was closed. A little too much traffic for our liking but considering the limited options, it was great.