Campground:
Quartzsite, AZ- the RV boondocking capital of the world. Every year during the winter months retirees from around the US and Canada pack up their RVs and campers and head south. The small truck stop along I-10, normally a town of around 3,000 will swell to nearly 700,000 people. Many will find their ways down to Arizona and Sonoran Desert to set up temporary homes over the winter. The La Posa Long Term Visitor Area near Quartzsite is one of the most popular locations. There are 5 free 14-day camping areas and 4 Long Term Visitor Areas (LTVAs). You can camp for 7 months straight on the LTVAs. There is a small fee, but in return you’ll have water, a dump station, and trash facilities.
Exit Interstate 10 at the city of Quartzsite, AZ. Take highway 95 south to four LTVAs. The LTVA entrances are approximately 2 miles south of town.
Campground at a Glance
Level: |
Dispersed |
Season: |
Year-Round |
Nearby City: |
Blythe, CA |
Fishing: |
None |
Campground Website: |
Hi Jolly Camping Area (Milepost 12) |
Campground Map: |
Click Here |
Reservations: |
First-come, first-served basis |
Location: |
Nearby Attractions and Activities:
Hi Jolly Monument: In 1856, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (later President of the Confederacy) had a novel idea: transporting freight and people across the desert Southwest on camels. He eventually imported over 70 of the beasts. Along with the first batch came a Syrian caretaker, Hadji Ali. His American masters called him Hi Jolly.
A plaque on Hi Jolly’s tomb says of the camel experiment: “A fair trial might have resulted in complete success.” But the Civil War intervened, Jefferson Davis changed jobs, and without his support the project was abandoned. The camels were set free to fend for themselves in the desert near Quartzsite.
Hi Jolly remained, living into his seventies. The locals were so fond of him that, after he died, they spent several weeks building Hi Jolly a special pyramid tomb, made of multicolored petrified wood and quartz. It was dedicated on Jan. 4, 1903. Thirty-three years later the Arizona Highway Department came along and cemented a bronze plaque to the tomb, telling Hi Jolly’s story, and topped the pyramid with a metal camel silhouette.
In those long-ago days the Quartzsite cemetery was remote, just bare ground and a few scrubby sagebrush at the edge of an obscure desert outpost. Now you have to drive through the very busy Quartzsite flea market to get to Hi Jolly. Still, his tomb is the biggest thing back in its tiny patch of desert solitude. The camels, by the way, outlived Jefferson Davis, Hi Jolly, and even the cementing of the plaque. Their last reported sighting was in 1942.
Cibola National Wildlife Refuge encompasses both the historic Colorado River channel, as well as a channelized portion constructed in the late 1960’s. Along with these main water bodies, several important backwaters are home to many species of wildlife that reside in this portion of the Sonoran Desert. Because of the river’s life sustaining water, wildlife thrives in this environment where temperatures reach 120 degrees in the summer and the average rainfall is two inches per year.
The greenbelt of the Colorado River serves as an important migratory corridor for a host of birds making their thousand-mile journey through this area. Here, western and Clark’s grebe chicks ride the backs of their parents as they cruise along a shoreline under the branches of cottonwood and willow trees, rookeries for great blue herons and egrets. The tall trees offer colorful migratory songbirds like the vermillion flycatcher a place to perch and watch for an insect meal. Ground dwelling birds like Gamble’s quail and roadrunners dart between river vegetation looking for cover from overhead predators in search of prey, specifically golden eagles and peregrine falcons. Elsewhere on the refuge, moist soil units and wildlife crops offer nutrient-rich tubers, grains and seedlings, important sources of winter food for Canada and snow geese.
Kofa National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1939 for the protection of desert bighorn sheep and other native wildlife following a 1936 campaign by the Arizona Boy Scouts. Major Frederick R. Burnham, a frontiersman turned conservationist, observed that populations of bighorn sheep were sharply declining and appealed to the Boy Scouts to take up the cause. For two years, more than 10,000 boy Scouts and their leaders campaigned to protect bighorn sheep through a “save the bighorns” poster contest, talks, and dramatizations on the radio and at school assemblies. As a result of the campaign, land was set aside for the establishment of Kofa Game Range (as the refuge was originally known).
Blythe Intaglios, often called America’s Nazca Lines, are a series of gigantic geoglyphs found fifteen miles north of Blythe California in the Colorado Desert. In the Southwestern United States alone, there are over 600 intaglios (anthropomorphic geoglyphs), but what separates the ones near Blythe is their size and intricacy. In total, there are six figures in three different locations, all within 1,000 feet from one another, situated on two mesas. The geoglyphs depict drawings of humans, animals, objects, and geometric shapes, all of which can be seen from the air.
The Blythe geoglyphs were first discovered on November 12th, 1931 by army air corps pilot George Palmer while flying from the Hoover Damn to Los Angeles. His discovery led to a survey of the area, which resulted in the huge figures becoming classified as historical landmarks and referred to as “Giant Desert Figures.” Lacking funds due to the Depression, it would take until the 1950s to investigate the site further.
Nearby Campgrounds:
Campground full or want to see what’s around? Try one of these campgrounds located nearby
