Burro Creek Campground
- Burro Creek Campground
Campground Overview:
Burro Creek Campground is situated along the 57 mile Burro Creek in a transition zone between the upper reaches of the scenic Sonoran Desert and lower reaches of the scenic Mojave Desert. The campground offers visitors a variety of scenery including saguaro-studded cliffs along steep canyon walls that contrast Burro Creek’s dense vegetation and flowing waters that form deep pools of water just adjacent to the campground.
To enhance the visitor experience, the campground features a Watchable Wildlife Exhibit and an Interpretive Desert Garden as well as access to Burro Creek via hiking trails from the campground. The creek offers opportunities for rockhounding, wading, and wildlife viewing especially for birding with a wide-array of raptors and other species of birds.
Campsites:
Access to the Burro Creek Campground is provided via a 1.25 mile paved road from U.S. Highway 93 at mile post 140.2. The campground offers visitors 23 individual campsites, 1 group site, and 2 day-use sites featuring shaded picnic tables, fire rings with grates, and grills at the group site and day-use area. Flush toilet facilities are provided at 2 different locations in the campground as well as 1 dump station. Although water hookups are not available at campsites, drinking water is provided a various locations throughout the campground.
In planning your trip, please note that sites 1, 2, and 10 through 17 are best for larger RVs (Class A) and trailers (fifth wheels) due to maneuverability throughout the site. Other sites can be utilized for larger RVs and trailers, but it is recommended for visitor convenience that the aforementioned sites are used first.
Campground at a Glance
Level: |
Semi-Developed |
Season: |
Year-Round |
Nearby City: |
Kingman |
Fishing: |
Burro Creek |
Campground Website: |
Burro Creek Campground |
Campground Map: |
N/A |
Reservations: |
|
Location: |
Nearby Attractions and Activities:
The campground is located in the Upper Burro Creek Wilderness. Upper Burro Creek is one of the few perennial streams to flow un-dammed into the lower desert of Arizona. Thirteen miles of the creek pass through this Wilderness, which is divided into eastern and western sections by a dirt road. Here Burro Creek runs deep through incised bedrock, falling about 1,500 feet in one half-mile stretch. Small waterfalls connect clear pools in which you can take the plunge for a magnificently refreshing desert swim. In some places the creek has backed up into long marshy pools ringed with young trees and thirsty vegetation. Away from the creek the Wilderness preserves rough side canyons and basalt mesas with vertical rock faces, raggedy spires, and desert grassland on their sloping upland surfaces.
Bird-watchers are attracted to at least 150 species of avian life, including a great variety of raptors. Among the mammals who inhabit the area are beavers, raccoons, desert cottontails, ring-tailed cats, badgers, skunks (spotted, striped, and hognose), gray foxes, javelinas, bobcats, mountain lions, mule deer, and pronghorn antelope. There are no designated trails, but the stream and side canyons are easy to navigate; along the upper section of the creek the going may be more rigorous. Despite the refreshing presence of water, summers are far too hot for a visit.
Natural Features
The campground scenery features an adjacent canyon carved by the flow of Burro Creek with other mountains and mesas visible in the background as well as a diverse Sonoran desert plant community including saguaros, a variety of cholla and barrel cacti, creosote bushes, Palo Verde trees, and catclaw. Nearby, on the banks of Burro Creek, visitors will also see willow and cottonwood trees as well as a wide-variety of riparian shrubs.
Wildlife is frequent in the campground and include occasional sightings of desert bighorn sheep on the cliffs above Burro Creek and a variety of birds including cactus wren, Gambel’s quail, Gila woodpecker, great horned owl, great blue heron, Vermilion flycatcher, and cliff swallow to name a few. Javelina, raccoons, coyotes, and foxes have been known to use the area as the creek serves an important role in the harsh desert environment.
Nearby Attractions
The public lands surrounding the Burro Creek Campground are readily available for visitors interested in sightseeing via use of a four-wheel drive vehicle along county-maintained dirt roads. These roads wind through a variety of interesting geologic scenery combined with unique vegetative communities including Sonoran and Mojave deserts intermingled with areas of interior chaparral and pinyon-juniper woodlands. County roads are maintained regularly, but it is always a good idea to check with the local BLM office prior to planning your trip as well as exercising caution when travelling on any of these unimproved dirt roads as visitors travel at their own risk.
The area, while desolate during the warm summer months, gives way to cooler temperatures from October through April annually and provides exceptional opportunities for hunting, off-highway vehicle use, wildlife watching, photography, sightseeing, and a variety of other dispersed recreational opportunities. Depending upon winter and spring precipitation, the area surrounding the Burro Creek Campground provides visitors with excellent spring wildflower displays March through May.