Go to Forest road 237, and drive down that road a few miles or so. Also, the top of Schnebly Hill Road would offer some good camping, albeit, you'd need to drive up Oak Creek to the Overlook, which is a hassle. Take a large plastic bag to pick up peoples' trash. Last time I camped on the west side of the 89A and we spent 45 minutes picking up litter, diapers, beer cans, water bottles, etc before we even set up camp. The place was a disgusting mess. You get positive karma back for each item you pick up. Pick up five trash items and you clean that hard crux for sure next time. ;^)

Don't forget West Elden for shady morning climbing.
Elden in the AM, Overlook in afternoon.

Hey Bridgette,


The camping scene is very good. As your headed to Flagstaff, take the left on 535 NOT 237!!!!!!!! 237 is living hell, as the first two miles of 535 will be. After a couple miles you will start to see better camping. If you trend to the west you can get to 'Fry Park' which has excellent camping. It will be crowded many places but I think you'll find a nice spot back in there.

Also, there are some sport routes in Pumphouse wash Right at the bottom of the switchbacks. Shade can be found and it's a really chill place. Most routes are around 5.10 bish and should be reasonably self evident. The doctor's office is very near in the area also and is one of the coolest places in AZ literally...don't forget a jacket. I think the info is on this site. Most dogs don't make it up to the main area but they can get/stay pretty close. Good Luck

Seriously, am I hallucinating? When we went to the Overlook (3 times in a 6 week period last summer), first we drove at 5 mph up this steep-ass road with people camping on every corner for about 25 minutes before we finally said "fuck it, let's camp here".It was at night so possibly we never made it to the flat spot at the end of the hill.The next day..

..we looked at the guidebooks again for possible alternatives, we drove 3 miles NORTH (at 60 mph instead of 5) past the first crappy turn-off on the WEST, opened this gate to the EAST, and 50 yards later we're in this gorgeous flat campground (with some cattle like hundreds of yards off) and crash out with no worries..ONE other campsite way back in the trees a hundred yards away..

I guess if you're an all female party and Anne Oakley is not in attendance and Jason is camping back there, then yes, it's better to drive a couple of miles up the heavily populated steep road..

Thanks, everyone, for the input. I'm sure the rate of suckage of a particular camping area is directly proportional to its proximity to a major holiday. I'm certain that we will find one of your suggestions absolutely perfect.

Hey, Tim! Nice to "see" you. How's your summer shaping up? Any good sushi/climbing plans in the works? I've got weekends free until the end of time, and my daughter is really digging this camping and climbing thing.

Christain,

congrats if you ARE hallucinating....anyways let's just say we're both right on this one. The camping along 89 is a strange entity, especially on a holiday. Those spots right off the highway are a crapshoot on a weekend like this. You can get lucky but... That steep hill you talk about is less than a mile long. Then for about another mile or two I imagine there will be people camped all over, littering and crapping all over:( However, after that there are side roads and options. The drive will take a half hour of slow dirt road driving. To me that's peanuts. On the Coconino map direct towards Sterling Tank or Harding Point, both are nice.

O.K. the 237 road to hell. This is the right hand turn to the East someone mentioned. This road loops down through upper pumphouse wash and then connects with I-17 right at Kachina Village. The first mile or so down to the wash is one of the worst impacted camping areas I've ever seen. I've driven this road after the holiday weekends only to see in excess of 25 black bags of garbage just left at these camps. The crows get at em and holy crap what a disgrace. Where do they $#!t?.... Anyways for Bridgette's purposes (I reread she's gonna meet her dad in Flg) this road might work well. If you continue past the shanty town landfill the road switchbacks up the hill. There's probably 2-3miles before it dumps out in Kachina Villiage where some camping SHOULD be easily found. The bonus of this would beit's a loop route to Flag.

Christian,

thanks for picking up trash...you do get karma points. I live right near the 237 road in Kachina. It's a great place to live with the forest access, but these holiday weekends bring out the amateur campers. Wish we could edumacate them somehow. Cheers have a great weeknd all....will be in Winslow for the fireworks and sandstone!

Update and mini trip report:

We arrived Friday afternoon just in time to get some shady time on the rock. At about 8:30, we packed up and headed in to Flag for some dinner. Ended up coming back down and locating 535 at about 11:30. The first couple miles were nothing but crowds of people, hundreds of cars, and some seriously raging bonfires. After that, however, we were able to find a really nice spot with only one distant group of neighbors. It was nice and quiet until the quads got going at about 8 am.

On Saturday, we headed in to Flag again to pick up my dad and do a little shopping. When we got back to the Overlook, it was pouring and looked like it might be for a while. In the time it took for us to drive down into Sedona and decide that it was way too hot and muggy then drive back up the hill, it had cleared off and we were able to pick up where we left off on Friday. We camped just inside a gate near mile post 394 on Saturday night, with only two other groups anywhere in the area. It was a perfect camping area - dry, clean, and quiet, with plenty of deadfall for a campfire.

On Sunday, we decided to get an earlier start, and yes, the Oven is a good nickname for the Overlook on summer mornings. :) We found a few shady climbs to work on until the sun went behind the hill and then hit a few of the classics for our last day there.

All in all, temps were great, camping was great, and the climbing kicked my butt. A four-star weekend, or three by the Lemmon scale.