I’m so thankful I accidentally found Mingus Mountain, Arizona. It wasn’t part of my plan. I headed over to California, and almost all nature was closed due to COVID-19. It was super stressful so I headed back to Arizona. It was hot at this point in the year so I needed to get up onto higher elevation and stumbled upon Mingus!
The drive up from both sides is AMAZING. I’ve talked about HWY 89A in other articles, this was the same HWY! It’s so stunning. It’s a two lane windy road with amazing views!
Getting to The Free (and not free) Camp Sites!
To get to the BLM, you are going to turn onto forest road 104 directly off 89A (Between Prescott and Cottonwood). You follow it for about a mile and then turn right onto forest road 314! This whole road is loaded with spots! It’s shaded and protected from wind, and has cell phone service!
If you go straight, instead of turning onto the second forest road, you will run into a developed camp groud! I believe it has showers and water. I was there during COVID-19 so it was all closed up!
Amenities Close By
Cottonwood is just down the hill and will have all the supplies you need (walmart, food, and more)! They even have an awesome water store where you can refill your jugs for super cheap! I drink distilled water, tap and bottled water have a lot of minerals that build up in our joints, it was only 50 cents a gallon there!
Dead Horse State Park also has showersand a dump/refill station for RV’s! It was $15 to dump (my friend had an RV) or $7 for a day pass to go in and shower.
Sedona is also very close and has some amazing spots to stay in!
Follow me in Instagram for more of my in-the-moment adventures! @maggmountains
Enjoying Time on Mingus Mountain
Mingus Mountain is so beautiful!
I highly recommend driving down from the top, into Jerome and down into Cottonwood. It is AMAZING! I took a time lapse video on my GoPro that I’m working on uploading (I’m new to video, I can email it easy until I have my Youtube channel going!).
There are a lot of hikes in the area, I didn’t get to any while I was up there (I was sick and also on my period so I slept in my hammock a lot lol).
But I had the blessing of meeting two awesome older hippy gentlemen. They offered to cook for me almost every night and showed me so much kindness!
They were also the ones who told me to switch to distilled water for my joint pain. One of them had arthritis so bad that he was going to need surgery, he switched to distilled water and did physical therapy and ended up curing his arthritis and doesn’t have it at all anymore. I have noticed a huge difference in the first two months doing so! I have had neck pain for 10 years, and this is the first time I can feel something actually healing me.
You can get distilled water at any grocery store or at Wal-Mart! It’s usually about $1 a gallon. You can order gallons online too! It looks more expensive on amazon but I found one vendor selling it at a good price! (For 6 gallons).
Distilled is just straight H20, it doesn’t have any added minerals. The added minerals can build up in our joints overtime, it’s important to flush them out with distilled water!
I just got this distilled water machine, it’ll save me a lot of money in the long run!
I woke up at about 6am and made my morning tea with my Jet Boil. Sometimes I make coffee too, depends on my mood.
I typically use the instant coffee crystals! Or more french press attachment (see below) for my Jetboil. I just fill my Jet Boil up ¾ the way full, clip it to the burner and I have boiling water in about a minute! They also make attachments for pans that you can use as well!
I also cooked a delicious meal (well a lot of meals, I was there for two weeks)with my Jetboil pan attachment!
I seasoned and stuffed a chicken (recipes to come later), wrapped it in foil and cooked it on low in my Jetboil pan. It was SO GOOD.
I’m so thankful I stumbled upon this beautiful place. It was such a blessing during all of the chaos of the world!
Feel free to email me with any personal questions! I love meeting and chatting with new people (I won’t send you any spam).
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