White Spar Campground

White Spar is a perfect base for exploring the Prescott area. It's just a mile or so south of town, but in the midst of quiet, dense woods. In the winter, roughly, Oct-April, the water is turned off, and the nightly rate drops from $14 to $10. The sites are well separated from each other, and many are on the outside of a loop so that you don't really see any neighbors. It can be a hard place with a decent sized RV; many of the sites are wicked unlevel, and we saw people with one side of their rig jacked way up in the air to try to be level. The best spot seems to be 28, with full sun most of the day for solar, and a nice level pad. There's a huge network of trails that leave right from the campground for hiking or biking, and we could drive to most parts of the city in about 15 minutes.

The back loop looks to be the oldest, and is most appropriate for tents, but there's also quite a few spaces that can accommodate even a class A, particularly near the front of the campground. There's lots of clean vault toilets and dumpsters. Several water spigots are in each loop.

Be aware that Google Maps will try to route you through the northernmost entrance, the one that says, "Danger! Do Not Enter! Severe Tire Damage!" The real entrance is about a half mile south, at 34.505653, -112.478921.

One thing to note is that the local St. Vincent de Paul group gives out vouchers that needy folks can redeem for stays at this campground. While we never felt unsafe with any of the campers around us, our friends did get a knock on their door at midnight when a drunken fellow couldn't find his way back to his site. In general, we saw a lot more public drunkenness than we normally see at a campground, so families with small kids might want to check out the situation before deciding to camp here.

Still, we loved the sense of being way out in the country, but completely close to everything in the city.

I would not stay at White Spar again. The location was fantastic, so close to town yet it felt far away and the lots were a nice size and each one came with a fire pit and picnic table. However, that's where the positives stopped. We had two chairs stolen and all of our fire wood, then after we left camp to get food (since our fire wood was stolen), our campsite was also stolen. Luckily there was another campsite we could use. After asking our closest campers if they saw anyone at our site, they said no and then 20mins., later packed up all of their belongings and left. Who packs up and leaves a campsite at 9PM?...other than someone that maybe felt guilty? We also told the camp host what happened. He seemed drunk and smelled like alcohol and said he didn't see anything. We didn't expect much from him other then making him aware, but offering us some wood, would have been a nice gesture on his end. So although the campsite is nice, the people at this campsite seem very questionable at the very least. It seems to attract people that steal, can't read clipboards informing that a lot is taken and employees that can't control their alcohol intake while on the job. Oh I forgot to mention, the people that took our lot while we went out to get food, where also blasting their music the next morning. A very classy group of people.

We had intended to spend a few nights here but liked it so much we ended up staying our two-week limit. We parked in site #6, an unshaded pull-through close to the entrance, but a good distance from other sites so it was very quiet. St. Vincent de Paul does give out vouchers for needy people to stay here, but we didn't have any issues, although our nearest neighbors across the road were part of that program.

The sites and roads are paved, but many sites are for tents only, and other larger ones are unlevel and very close together. Some are also close to the road. It's a mixed bag, and if crowded may be hard to get a good site for a bigger RV. During the week there were not many people here but it filled up on Friday night both weekends we stayed. We appreciate that the Forest Service keeps some campgrounds first come first served for people like us who don't like to make reservations, so we were sad to see the workers replacing site posts with ones that have reservation boards on them. I could find nothing on the FS website about when this campground will begin taking reservations and we didn't get a chance to ask the camphost before we left.

The location could not be better for getting around Prescott, as it is only a couple miles from downtown. There are miles of trails that leave from the campground for hiking and mountain biking, and it's just a 15-20 minute drive to the other areas such as Thumb Butte and Granite Mountain, where there are many more miles of scenic trails.

This is all dry camping but there are water spigots to fill jugs, and the vault toilets were always clean. No dump, but both locations of Affinity RV in Prescot and Prescott Valley have a free RV dump with potable water, and also sell propane if you need it.

We arrived here after a misadventure which saw us ‘Lost in Space’ and up an unpaved back-country ‘Road to Hell’ with our RV, tow-dolly and car, which caused us to seek refuge in a ‘Motel 6’ in Prescott for a couple of days. It was time to lick our wounds...’do some serious drinking’...& come up with a ‘Plan B’ (LOL!). We luckily managed to get a ‘Walk In’ site at White Spar Campground. Our initial plan for a seven day stay was extended another week, because we enjoyed our experience so much. The Positives for us, were: 1) Easy Access & Egress with well-marked paved park roads throughout, plus paved sites that were easy to Level 2) Ready access to potable water to fill containers, and handy access to dumpsters for trash 3) A wonderful variety of trails in and around the Camp that were well-groomed, well-marked, and a terrific place to go hiking with your dogs (which we did!) or for those on mountain bikes 4). The benefit of a good Camp Host (‘Steve’, although I believe he left the day we did, so...your Camp Host will be not the same fellow 5). Several Rest Rooms throughout the Camp that were regularly attended to and usually pretty clean 6) amenities at the sites like fire-pits and grills 7) a good variety of sites around the Camp 8) and a wonderful camp to visit if you have a dog. It is also close to town, so food shopping, restaurants, pubs, or taking your RV off to dump tanks or fill up with potable water is not a Big Deal. (For this I would recommend the wonderful folks at ‘Affinity RV’ who do not charge for that service, and also have propane available for Sale.). The Negatives? Not many, really. The camp did get a lot of business on the weekends and could be overrun with kids, but aside from the noise of children basically enjoying themselves in this terrific National Forest, I can’t really complain about that. I did note that a couple of people who have posted ‘Reviews’ seemed to have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with theft of property and contending with drunken Yahoos. As we did not have any of that, I can’t really comment, except to say...’’Drink up, my friends!” (LOL!)

This campground is in the forest only a few miles from town and we used our Senior Passes to get the 1/2 price rate of $7, great value! No hookups but there are water spigots to fill containers throughout the park, newer pit toilets (which were reasonably clean), the sites (picnic table, fire ring) are well cared for. We scoped out the park a few months ago to make a list of the level sites and to ensure our 22' travel trail and pickup would fit. Quite a few would have worked for us. A little highway noise, but not disturbing to us. A nice group of hiking trails at the park entrance. The park was far from full on a Sunday when we arrived but the weekends, especially in the summer, likely fills up fast.

Note, there is not a dump station in the park but you can dump at Affinity RV in town for free, which can be busy since there is no cost and fresh water for filling tanks (no cost) and propane is available there too at an affordable price. We filled our propane tanks there since the dump and water was complimentary, just good business!

Had a really nice hike here. Use all trails for the hiking trails. Staff was very nice

We had a great campsite. It was at the end of the loop. Next to a trail head, mostly secluded. Would go there again. The forest was dry. No camp fires at all.

Close to town. The downside is that this campground is also close enough to Highway 89 to get a fair amount of road noise. Campsite 8 is not for beginners with travel trailers as you need to back up from the campground road about 75 feet and make a 90 degree turn to the pad which is almost level (took a couple of blocks to level the trailer). If you are new to towing a trailer this is NOT the campsite for you. Overall, clean and well maintained campsites.

My wife and I camped here recently.
As it turned out, there is a logging operation going on around the campground, and it is very noisy with all of the heavy equipment operating in vicinity. The hiking and biking trails around the campground are all closed with the exception of one across the highway from the campground.
There is semi traffic into and out of the campground, and most of the woods on one side of the campground is "destroyed" by the logging operation.
If we'd know about the logging operation going on there, we would not have camped there!

Only first twelve sites are open. The remainder, the majority are closed. When I arrived at 3pm on a Sunday half of the twelve sites were open, an hour later it was 3/4 full. Site 11 is almost perfectly flat; others not so flat.