Peppersauce

As soon as we arrived there were two separate groups squatting in our site due to poor signage. We had to convince them to pack up and move. Nonexistent site manager, no toilet paper, and trash bins were overflowing. They obviously dont care about this group site. We will not be returning here again.

Beautiful campground in the valley full of trees. Clean, bear boxes, fire ringss, pit toilets and concrete picnic tables…plus water! All a bike packer needs!

Take the left as you enter the campground and go past all of the sites. At the end, you reach the entrance to the private school - take the right here across the creek. This is the group site, there are some signs but not extremely obvious.

We arrived right at 'check-in' time. We didn't have any issues with squatters, but given the lack of clear signage and no campground host, no locked gate, and no "Reserved for XXX date by XXX name" signage, I could see why others might take your group site on busy weekends.

There were 3-4 semi-separate campsite, with at least 4 concrete picnic tables, 2-3 fire pits, bathroom, and trash can. The bathroom was functional pit toilet. Trash can was full, expect to pack out your own trash. Running water but not sure of quality, also seemed like it might sometimes be out of service. You could probably fit 10 cars in the lot.

It's a pretty little site. We had 6 families camped there and a few others visiting for the day comfortably. Shade, big trees, areas for kids to explore (small hill, dry creek, etc.) Went up to Pepperauce Cave, which is about 10 minutes further up the control road and a neat place to explore.

Had the group site reserved for our youth group from church. Showed up and there was no camp host. We arrived after dark and finding the group site was nearly impossible with a serious lack of signage. Once we managed to locate the group site after 30 minutes, there were 3 different squatters with sites set up around the area. With no camp host to mediate, we had to argue with a couple of them and finally managed to find enough space for our group who actually paid for the site. Very poorly managed overall for a site we paid for and reserved.

So agree with the reservation issue, they do have signs on bathrooms saying it's a reserved site but nothing else and no one out there to control it. As for the vehicle issue completely disagree. Able to cross the wash with a 4 door car just have to be smart about it obviously if it just stormed or waters running not a smart idea but outside of monsoon time you should be fine.

Peppersauce Canyon is a beautiful canyon and campground. There is no campground host to regulate and restock the bathroom so be sure to bring your own tp. Also, don't reserve the group site online...there's no one there to add a reserve ticket to that spot. The sign at the entrance says if its not taken you can have it!! Yes, I reserved the spot but how could anyone know? A large group of people were setting up when I arrived so we found another large spot. The trees are lovely. I think every spot there is a great spot! I did get refunded by recreation.gov for the extra cost of the group site. All is well that ends well!

The group site requires crossing a dry wash. The crossing is rocky with steep approach and departure angles. It is not passable without scraping front facias or hitch receivers on standard crossovers. Not passable by cars. Trucks ok. The site was very clean and nice, but our friends had to park elsewhere as they could not get into the group site. Not sure how a large group would get here unless all had suvs or trucks. Trailers not recommended.

{"text"=>"I'll wait to go back when its not free. My camping was not relaxing at all, 4 kids and a dog the dog barking at everything and off leash started in my direction on my way out of the bathroom growling and barking, the kids from sun up to sun down were yelling and screaming, the parents took off leaving 2 there for over an hour who were fighting and I eventually told them \"enough!, people are here to relax!\" They were throwing rocks at the dumpster, at the bathroom building, slamming rocks off different rocks, the climbed up a segment of rocks slide and sat there throwing and kickimg rocks down, hitting the bag hanging bar at the picnic table with rocks repetitively just making any kind of noise they could, they also made sure to have several nice big camp fires under a no fire order. These kind of people ruin the serenity of camping...its a camp ground, not a ghetto trailer park! The amount of nit picking, and cursing and fighting, screaming...\n\nIts free from April to nov...and no maintained, the bathroom is disgusting, no t.p. crap wiped on the walls...oh..and the facility just down the road thru the campground...is more lile a juvenile detention center..my neighbor said he was told \" its a place to get them prepaired and calm them down before going to prison\" as 3 sheriff's came thru all red and blue lights on either handling a situation that occured there or they were transporting someone to there...\n\nIm glad it was free...the only thing I enjoyed was the shade and a short hike up the ohv trail and back down for sunrise ( before the annoying kids woke up)", "languageCode"=>"en"}