How this picture was made
Photorealistic landscape photograph at golden hour in central Arizona: a saguaro-studded Sonoran desert hillside of cactus and desert scrub dropping to a blue reservoir lake set among rugged canyon walls, a distant pine-topped rim in the haze, warm low sun and long shadows, no people and no buildings or signs. 35mm lens, natural color, faint film grain.
Tonto National Forest
Camp here — Tonto National Forest
83 camps mapped in this forest, 58 of them free. Tap one for its topo and aerial, the weather, the water, and how far you will be from fuel and a shower.
- FreeTonto National Forest
- FreeTonto National Forest
- FreeYavapai County
- FreeFossil Creek
- FreeAlderwood
- FreeBagley Flat
- FreeBartlett Flat Dispersed
- FreeBox Bar Dispersed
Where dispersed camping is listed — Tonto National Forest
The Forest Service lists dispersed camping as an activity at these 10 places. That is the agency saying it is allowed somewhere in the area — not a campsite we have mapped, and not a spot we can put a pin on. Read their page, then check the district for the rules that apply on the day.
- Bulldog Canyon OHV Permit Zone
Located in the Mesa Ranger District about one hour from Phoenix, Bulldog Canyon is 34,000 acres in size and provides approximately 20 miles of open routes. Bulldog Canyon routes are all full size vehicle width and provide access…
the Forest Service page for it → - Cave Creek Ranger District
Cave Creek Ranger District is the first district on Tonto National Forest. It is located in the farthest left hand corner of the forest, and is notable for the water, hiking, and horseback riding recreation. It consists of over…
the Forest Service page for it → - Desert Vista OHV Permit Zone
Located in the Cave Creek District about one hour from Phoenix, this 33,500 acre area has approximately 65 miles of open motorized routes that vary in width and challenge. The primary access point is the Wildcat Staging Area…
the Forest Service page for it → - Diversion Dam
This site is located on the Upper Salt River area and has five river access points. This site also offers dispersed camping for boaters using the access points.
the Forest Service page for it → - Indian Point
Located on central Arizona’s largest lake. Several miles of hiking and lake access trails wind through the site.
the Forest Service page for it → - Juniper Dispersed Camping Area
Large juniper and sycamore shade trees located next to a small creek.
the Forest Service page for it → - Mesa Ranger District
The Mesa Ranger District is located north and east of the town of Apache Junction, and consists of approximately 430,000 acres (approximately 170,000 hectares) of Desert, Semi-desert Grassland, Chaparral, Pinyon-Juniper types of…
the Forest Service page for it → - Sawmill Flats
This is a dispersed camping area in the Sierra Ancha Mountains with few amenities. The view is breathtaking and the lack of popularity makes it a nice get-a-way weekend stop. PACK IT IN – PACK IT OUT.
the Forest Service page for it → - Sheeps Bridge
On the banks high above the river stands a replica of the Verde River Sheep Bridge. The Flagstaff Sheep Company and the Howard Sheep Company constructed the original bridge to minimize the loss of sheep when crossing the river.…
the Forest Service page for it → - Valentine Ridge Dispersed Camping Area
Situated near Canyon Creek, known for its rainbow trout fishing. A 9-mile all-terrain bicycle loop trail starts at the campground. Wildlife includes: Abert squirrel, black bear, mountain lion, elk, turkey and deer. Arizona Game &…
the Forest Service page for it →
Where the camps cluster
The place
Tonto National Forest is the largest of Arizona's six national forests, and by most counts the ninth-largest national forest in the country. It fills the rugged middle of the state: the Phoenix metro area presses against its southern edge, the Mogollon Rim caps it to the north, and the San Carlos and Fort Apache Indian reservations bound it on the east. What makes it strange and wonderful is the gradient. The Forest Service puts its elevation range at about 1,300 to 7,900 feet, which means you can start the morning among saguaro cactus and creosote in true Sonoran Desert and finish the afternoon parked under ponderosa pine in cool, thin air -- inside one forest boundary, on the same tank of gas. In between are the Superstitions, the Mazatzals, the Sierra Ancha, Four Peaks on the Phoenix skyline, and a chain of reservoirs that look wildly out of place surrounded by desert. It is also, unavoidably, an urban forest: with millions of visits a year it is one of the most heavily used national forests in the United States, and the front country near the metro shows it. Drive an hour further and the crowds evaporate.
History
The Tonto Forest Reserve was set aside on October 3, 1905, and became a national forest on March 4, 1907; it grew over the following decades, absorbing the Pinal Mountains National Forest in January 1908 and a piece of the old Crook National Forest in 1953. The reserve and the dam were the same story. Theodore Roosevelt Dam, on the Salt River, was one of the first five federal projects authorized under the 1902 Reclamation Act and the first major one finished -- built between 1903 and 1911, and dedicated by Roosevelt himself on March 18, 1911. It was the largest masonry dam in the world at the time, 280 feet tall, and it was later encased in concrete and raised 77 feet to 357 feet during a 1989-96 rebuild. Protecting the watershed above that dam is a large part of why this forest exists. The name is borrowed and it is not a kind one: 'Tonto' is a Spanish word meaning roughly foolish, applied by outsiders to the Dilzhe'e -- the people usually called the Tonto Apache, who lived in the Tonto Basin and Verde Valley and often formed mixed bands with neighboring Yavapai. Some consider the term offensive. The Tonto Apache Reservation, created in 1972 near Payson and surrounded by the forest, is 85 acres, the smallest reservation land base in Arizona. Older still are the Salado, who built cliff dwellings in this country in the 13th through early 15th centuries and left behind some of the most striking polychrome pottery and woven textiles in the Southwest; the National Park Service's Tonto National Monument, proclaimed in 1907 and just 1,120 acres, preserves two of those cliff dwellings in Gila County.
Wildlife & plants
Because the forest spans desert to pine, the animal list splits by elevation. Down low it is Sonoran Desert country -- javelina, roadrunners, coyotes, bobcats, and the saguaro-and-mesquite world that goes with them. Up high, on the Rim and in the Sierra Ancha, you get elk and mule deer, black bears, and mountain lions. Bald eagles nest along the Salt and Verde and hunt the reservoirs; parts of the lower Salt and Verde close seasonally to protect them. The lakes are warm-water fisheries rather than trout streams: Roosevelt Lake alone holds largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, sunfish, carp, and channel and flathead catfish. The Mogollon Rim itself is a genuine biological boundary -- it is where Rocky Mountain species to the north give way to species of the Mexican Sierra Madre to the south, which is part of why the forest's species list is so oddly mixed. The famous animals here, though, are the horses. A herd of unbranded horses lives along the lower Salt River and around Saguaro Lake, and after a 2015 Forest Service removal notice set off a public firestorm, Arizona wrote them into state law (A.R.S. 3-1491): it is now illegal to harass, shoot, injure, or kill a horse of the Salt River herd, or to chase, capture, or remove one without written authorization. If you meet them, the same law's spirit applies -- keep your distance and do not feed them.
Notable features
The Superstition Mountains are the forest's signature -- a wall of eroded volcanic rock just east of Phoenix, protected as the Superstition Wilderness since 1939, with the spire of Weavers Needle at its heart and the Peralta Trailhead as the classic way in. This is the home of the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine story: the German immigrant Jacob Waltz supposedly revealed the location of a fabulous gold strike on his deathbed in Phoenix in 1891, and people have been looking ever since. None of it has ever been verified, which has not slowed anybody down. North of the Superstitions, Four Peaks is the notched silhouette on the Phoenix skyline; Brown's Peak, at 7,659 feet, is the highest point in Maricopa County, and there is a working amethyst mine on the mountain that produces genuinely top-grade stone. The Apache Trail -- historic State Route 88, and originally the Tonto Wagon Road built between 1903 and 1905 to supply Roosevelt Dam -- still runs about 40 miles from Apache Junction past Canyon and Apache lakes to Roosevelt, paved as far as Tortilla Flat and dirt, narrow and unguardrailed beyond it. Six reservoirs sit on the forest: Roosevelt, Apache, Canyon, and Saguaro on the Salt, plus Bartlett and Horseshoe on the Verde. Roosevelt Lake, at 21,493 acres, is the largest lake or reservoir entirely within Arizona, and the Arizona Trail crosses the Salt on the State Route 188 bridge just below the dam. Eight designated wilderness areas -- Superstition, Mazatzal, Four Peaks, Sierra Ancha, Salome, Hellsgate, Salt River Canyon, and Pine Mountain -- take big blocks off the motorized map, which is exactly why the classic overland lines here skirt the cliffs instead of crossing them.
Camps are sourced from public U.S. Forest Service recreation data and have not been personally visited. Roads shown are Forest Service passenger-car routes (maintenance level 3–5) and may be seasonal or gated. Always confirm access, fees and fire rules with the ranger district before you go. Found a fee where we show free? Tell us on the contact page.