After our 2-week stay at Usery, we moved up north a little bit to McDowell Mountain Park. Still in the Phoenix area, it’s just east of Scottsdale, north of the town called Fountain Hills. On our way in, our navigation was trying to take us right through the heart of Fountain Hills – and of course they were having some type of event that shut down the road through town. Their “detour” signs pointed towards an impossible turn with a trailer, thanks to poorly parked cars. But despite the difficulties, we made it through Fountain Hills and to the campground.
Our campsite at McDowell was fantastic, with a view of the mountains to the west. The campground was fantastic – with very large, spacious sites. We had 30/50A and water hookup at our site, and there was a dump station at the campground entrance. Perfect!
Despite the wonderful campground/site, the area itself was disappointing for our type of outdoor activities. The McDowell area had lots of “mountain bike” trails, but they were really just smooth trails with a natural gravel-like base. Great for beginners I suppose, but the views were still nice! We rode a handful of the trails in the McDowell area, including the Pemberton loop and the “competitive” tracks.
While at McDowell, we had to use our long-range antenna for our LTE internet set-up. With our standard omni-directional antenna we were only seeing 1-2mbps down. After switching to the long-range antenna and experimenting with different towers, we were easily getting 40-50mbps down!
We also got a generator for use when we don’t have good sun for our solar or hookups. Off-grid camping is our preference! We ended up getting a Champion 2500w generator – it only weighs 39lbs, can run on propane or gas, and was a very reasonable price. The dual fuel part is very nice – since we plan on camping all around the country, we will see many different altitudes. All of these small inverter generators are carbureted, so they need different jets to run properly at different altitudes. However, if you run on propane, you don’t need different jets for different altitudes. Plus, we always have propane on us. Since we will rarely use the genny (and just to charge our batteries), this is perfect for us. Even though it’s a “2500w”, it’s rated running watts are 1850 on gasoline, 1650 on propane.
Later in our stay, we did a nice hike up to Tom’s Thumb. It was surprisingly steep, but only around 4-4.5mi round-trip. We brought Moz and she had a great time!
Our favorite mountain biking trails in the area were over at Brown’s Ranch. We did a 15.5mi ride and the views and riding were great!
All in all, it was a good two weeks, but I don’t think we’ll go back to McDowell. It doesn’t have enough nearby to entertain us. After our stay here, we headed back to Gilbert Ray for a week in Tucson. Stay tuned!
-Kyle