Peppersauce Campground

Tons of traffic through the campground from the facility down the canyon. Many of the regular employees at the facility are inconsiderate of campers and drive quite quickly through the camp. The campground was covered in trash when we arrived, but was much cleaner from 3 weeks ago when I was here. The bathrooms need to be pumped but someone has come and cleaned them as well. LOTS of wildlife!

I did a 6 mile hike and loved every minute of it. It was difficult at first because of how steep and rocky it was. But once I got up to the top, the views were amazing. It's not a hike for everyone but one killer hike if you get out.

Beautiful, peaceful, so many trees and lots of shade. Some sites are impossible to reach without 4 wheel drive but many shady areas near the bathrooms and water are relatively easy to reach. You may scrape rocks in a super low car like ours. The fee is $15 per night and they have water spigots, a bathroom, concrete picnic tables, bear boxes, and a fire pit with adjustable grill. The road gets a bit threatening in the last 2 miles or so before the campground. You shouldn't go any further however, unless you have 4WD or a good truck, the road beyond this campsite is not maintained much and is "drive at your own risk".

Across Mt. Lemmon Rd. is a trailhead for an ATV trail marked "Rice Peak 7 (miles)" much closer than the other hiking trails, that we hiked along for a bit and it was stunning, and we saw many lovely secluded sites for camping back there which I assume are free dispersed camping areas with no amenities, and we also found a trickle of snowmelt forming a tiny creek in the riverbed while hiking there, a cool creepy cave in the wall, and lots of neat rocks. Lots of birds and little animal sounds at night shows you the life of the forest. Neat bugs too!