TRAVEL DAY
From: Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground, Gila Bend, AZ.
To: Burro Creek Campground (BLM), Wikieup, AZ.
Day 112 – We have NO signal here at Burro Creek. Nothing. Nada. So I’ll just type away, and Rob will process the pictures and send whatever we have when we go somewhere where we can get a signal. If we remember correctly from the last time we were here (2018), signals are available about 10 miles south of the campground at the top of a hill.
There are a couple of places in Arizona that we visited in 2018 that we wanted to spend more time at – one is Cibola National Wildlife Refuge and the other is Burro Creek Campground, between Wikieup and Wickenburg, AZ. We only had two nights at Burro Creek when we were here previously; we always remembered it as a place we wanted to return to.
We departed Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground at 10:05 a.m. It was 59 degrees & sunny. First priority was to dump tanks; there was no dump station at Petroglyph. We drove to Gila Bend and dumped two almost-full tanks at the Love’s gas station. They charge $10 for that service. Back on the road, we headed northeast towards Phoenix because that was the best way to get to AZ Highway 93. We skirted the outside of that very large city and with that experience had enough of traffic until we reach the Los Angeles area in a few weeks. Before we reached the Phoenix area we started seeing more wildlife (there hadn’t been much at the previous two campgrounds). We passed by an irrigation canal that was lined by Egrets, and later two White Pelicans flew overhead.
It had been fairly flat until after leaving the sprawl of Phoenix and getting on the 93. The terrain changed to some hills and mountains, then it became quite picturesque with large boulders and rock formations. We went from mostly low bushes and some small cactus to a beautiful forest of Joshua Trees, large Saguaro Cactus, and some Organ Pipe Cactus. It was gorgeous. We were back in canyon country. We only went through one thriving town, Wickenburg, and it was an hour from our new destination.
We arrived at Burro Creek Campground at 2:05 p.m. It is a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) campground in a remote, beautiful area of the high desert near the bottom of a canyon where Burro Creek runs through. We were near Burro Peak at about 2800 feet. East of us is Upper Burro Creek Wilderness Land, all managed by the BLM. This is a small campground and all campsites offer good views of the surrounding cliffs. We drove around checking out available sites and chose site #1 because it was the most private. We had to decide quickly since there were several campers coming in looking for campsites about the time we arrived.
This was a no reservations/first come, first served campground the last time we were here. Now about half of the campsites are reservable – the ones near the bottom of the canyon – and all of these campsites were taken. That’s where we camped in 2018. The site we have now was surrounded by bushes and at the top of about four levels of campsites on the hillside, private with a great view; no complaints here. They offer no hook-ups, but drinking water can be obtained near the entrance. And there is a dump station.
We set up the screened tent and went out there once we’d unpacked and set up. There was a lot of wildlife to be seen (we didn’t have the cameras with us). We saw several rabbits, large and small, several hummingbirds, two chipmunks, a tiny lizard, and numerous sparrows. That was a great start to our visit here! The high today was 68 degrees.