McDowell Mountain Regional Park – Other reviewers at rvparkreviews.com

December, 2015

The Lowe’s overall rating (based on value for the
money, quality of amenities and utilities, site suitability
and what we think other RV’ers in our situation would
be looking for) = 9 out of 10 stars

 

Noise level and overall “feel” of the park?
Very quiet within the park.  The camping areas are several miles
from any main road, so there was no traffic noise.  Extremely
quiet at night.  The “feel” of this park is spread out camping in
a wide-open desert environment – works for us!

Road and site access/type?
All paved.  Most sites are back-in type, but there are also
“roadside pullout” sites which we aren’t fond of.  The utilities
on those sites are badly placed, and we don’t like the idea of
sitting right on the road with traffic going by.

Sites spacious and/or level?  Comments?
Our back-in site was #78 and it was plenty wide for the RV and
car to park side-by-side.  It was also long enough that we could
have put the car in front of the RV if we wanted.  Very level, we
did not need our jacks at this site.  We did see others that
would have been more of a challenge to level in, especially
within the other older camping loop containing sites 1-40.
The area in the back of our site was large, with plenty of room
to hold a party with several people.  The sites in this newer loop
had excellent views of the surrounding mountains.

Utilities and WiFi/cell reception?
The sites were all 50-amp electric and water.  The power was
strong and the water pressure adequate.  Our boosted hotspot
showed only 2 bars most of the time, but it worked surprisingly
well during our 2-week stay.  Verizon cell phone reception was
great.

Picnic table and/or fire pit?
Both – a huge concrete table and a nice fire pit.

Bathrooms/showers/laundry room?
There were several bathrooms and shower rooms in our area,
but the larger one we used had better showers with handles
allowing temperature adjustments.  Other showers were
push-button, which we don’t like.  There were hooks and
benches for the goodies in the shower rooms, and they were
clean and modern.  No laundry facilities.

Pet and/or kid friendly?
There was a lot of open space here for walking dogs – on leash.
They could be walked along the interior roads or on the trails
which ran around and through the park.  Kids could play on the
“gym” equipment or run around the roads until they reached
exhaustion.

Bicycle/walking trails nearby?
Several multi-use trails were accessible directly from the
roads – a huge plus.  We walked most of them and the many
bikers we encountered were obviously happy as well.

Groceries & other services nearby?
The nearest grocery store was Safeway in Fountain Hills, 8.5
miles from our campground.  It’s almost 3.5 miles just to the
main road, so you can probably get a feel for the size and
remoteness of this park.  There weren’t any RV services or
even a Walmart in Fountain Hills that we saw, Scottsdale
would be the closest city for extensive services.

Comments:
We may very well have given this park a perfect “10” if the
sites had sewer, but none of the regional parks in the area do.
There just wasn’t anything else not to like about this place.  It
was very quiet (even over the Christmas holiday!), the facilities
were excellent, the utilities were strong and direct access to the
walking trails made it a winner for us.  It was a little far from
town, and the nearest laundromat was a long drive – Fountain
Hills really needs to get one.  But we had a wonderful time here
and would definitely come back.

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