MST&T Road Dispersed Camping

As others have said, if you are looking to be alone, this is the place. We went in about 5 km from the highway and didn't see another camper anywhere. The road in is wide and a little rough. We have a F250 and 30' 5th wheel, so just drove slowly. There are dozens and dozens of flat pull-off sites all along the road. Some go quite far back. We like to hike and drove to the Kofa reserve to get to the mountains, but the roads were too rough so we turned back. 4X4 OHV only.
We spent a half day in Quartzsite shopping and doing laundry. The rock shops were cool.
With the pitch black skies, I got a great shot of thte moon and Jupiter!
With little else to do, we left a day early.

As others have said, if you are looking to be alone, this is the place. We went in about 5 km from the highway and didn't see another camper anywhere. The road in is wide and a little rough. We have a F250 and 30' 5th wheel, so just drove slowly. There are dozens and dozens of flat pull-off sites all along the road. Some go quite far back. We like to hike and drove to the Kofa reserve to get to the mountains, but the roads were too rough so we turned back. 4X4 OHV only.
We spent a half day in Quartzsite shopping and doing laundry. The rock shops were cool.
With the pitch black skies, I got a great shot of thte moon and Jupiter!
With little else to do, we left a day early.

We stayed on the MST&T road, but these comments would apply also to the other roads into Kofa from Hwy 95 once you get at least 10 miles from Quartzsite. The main roads into Kofa are wide graveled roads with some washboards and rare soft spots. Once inside the Kofa boundary, vehicles must stay within 100 feet of the designated roads. But there are a couple miles between Hwy 95 and the Kofa boundary in which you can get farther away from the MST&Troad. The turn off Hwy 95 onto MST&T is poorly marked but it is a couple hundred yards south of the 93 mile marker. We pulled in too late to be selective about a spot so we just went to bed and took our time the next morning. This would be an easy place to pull into after dark.

We had 2-3 bars Verizon but noticeably slower in evenings over the weekend we were here.

We are new to the desert so it is all fascinating for us. There are some hiking trails in the area but we just take off across the desert floor to explore. This is no place for a dog. Too much Cholla. We would have taken our bikes cross country except for the cactus. Once you get away from Quartzsite though, and whatever local road you are near, this place feels very remote.

This place seems to be a OHV riders paradise. They seem to gather in groups and travel the back roads. Our only complaint with the location we selected is that it is too close to one of the side roads the OHVs use so we get a little dust and noise. Had we known, it would have been easy to find a better spot. We are very impressed though with how respectful the OHV users seem to be of the Kofa restrictions. We saw very few OHV tracks beyond the 100 foot line and what we did see seemed to be very old.

We agree with what Tim said in April of '21 about how clean this place is. Between the 2 spots we stayed here there were a few bits of broken glass, and a couple old beer cans in the wash. Over the stay, we walked about 15 miles across the desert and picked up a old glove and a couple more pop cans.

We were here at beginning of January, while Quartzsite was at peak population, and we had two neighbors we could see from our campsite, both about a quarter mile away. The sunsets, sunrises, and stars are fantastic. There is a glow in the sky from Yuma and Quartzsite, but not bad. By 9 am we were sitting outside in the sun with our coffee in t-shirts. One afternoon we had to move to the shade to read. This is not like Montana in January.

When we were exploring our options to stay near Quartzite, we were almost overwhelmed with the amount of free dispersed camping sites!

We wanted something away from all the masses of people and found it off MST&T Road. The gravel road is wide enough for rigs of any size and the washboarding isn’t too bad. Numerous established sites to pull off and camp all along the road. It is also one of the cleanest public lands I’ve ever stayed at as well.

Only 2 campers were spotted on our 4+ mile trek in our 26’ bus to find our perfect site. We stayed just inside Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and it was beautiful! Whisper quiet the whole time we were there and didn’t see anyone! Had 2-3 bars of Verizon LTE too as a bonus! Close to Quartzite and secluded!!