About this place
The Muggins Mountain Wilderness covers 7,711 acres in Arizona. The Bureau of Land Management looks after it.
It joined the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1990. That system was set up by the Wilderness Act of 1964 and now runs to over 109 million acres.
Wilderness means hard walking and real solitude. Follow the rules for the area, and leave no trace, so it stays that way.
Motors and machines are generally banned on any federal land designated as wilderness. That covers motor vehicles and off-highway vehicles, motorboats, bicycles, hang gliders, wagons, carts and portage wheels. Landing an aircraft or a helicopter counts too.
Ask the agency if you need more on the rules. The detail matters in a wilderness, and getting it wrong carries a penalty.
Deep washes cut through these mountains. Twin Tanks Wash is one of them. Muggins Wash is the one you drive up to get in.
Some of the land around the wilderness is not federal, so do not cross it or use it without the owner’s permission.
Leave No Trace has seven principles. How you apply them shifts with the ground, because what works in a desert is not what works in the mountains.
The facts
- Cost
- Free to camp
- Roads around it
- High clearance or four-wheel drive advised, and the last mile or so needs four-wheel drive
- Type
- Open area. Camp anywhere within it
- Managed by
- Bureau of Land Management
Getting there
The Muggins Mountains Wilderness lies about 25 miles east of Yuma. A high clearance or four-wheel drive vehicle is advised.
For Muggins Wash, take exit 21, Dome Valley, off Interstate 8. Go through Ligurta on Old Highway 80 and turn north onto County Ave. 20E. Turn east onto County 7th Street and drive past the Dome Valley Transfer Station to the Muggins Wash nonwilderness corridor.
That corridor runs into the middle of the wilderness, near the southern foot of Muggins Peak. The last mile or so is rough and needs four-wheel drive. Better to leave the vehicle by the information kiosk, or before you drop into the wash.
Coordinates 32.744622, -114.251355
Open in Google Maps Agency page
What is near here
Nothing nationally famous is close. These are the landmarks nearby.
- Pilot Knob Directions
- Kofa National Wildlife Refuge Directions
Every distance on this page is the driving distance. A short distance can still take a long time. The road may be closed for the season, covered in snow, or washed out. Many of these roads are dirt. Plan your route before you leave home. Out here there is often no phone signal to look it up on the way.
Nearest town and supplies
- Wellton, AZ Directions
Wellton is big enough that you’d normally expect fuel and somewhere to buy food. Nobody from here has been to check, so don’t count on it if you’re running low.
Why “at least”: this route is hard to measure. We worked the drive out twice, with two separate mapping tools, and they gave different answers. That usually means there is no road close to the campsite, so the drive doubles back a long way. The figure above is the longer of the two. The real drive could be further still, so check the route before you set off.
Why the drive to town is usually twice what the map says — what we found measuring every campsite in this guide.
When it’s time to move on
On most public land you can camp for 14 days before you have to move on. Check this site’s own limit before you plan a long stay. When you move on, the Bureau of Land Management usually wants you at least 25 to 30 miles away. So the free campsites closest to you are the ones you cannot use.
One in this guide sits inside that 25 miles. The nearest one you could move to is Woolsey Peak Wilderness, Arizona — 83 miles in a straight line, but at least a 103 mile drive.
Why “at least”: there is no road right at this campsite, so the drive is hard to measure and the real one could be further. Check the route before you set off.
This guide covers five states and does not list every free campsite, so there may be something closer that we do not hold. Check this site’s own rule before you rely on it.
Have you been here?
Fees and access change, and the records do not always keep up. If you have been, tell us what you found.
Thank you, that is recorded. It helps the next person.
Add road notes for this site
The thing we cannot get from any government record is what the drive in is actually like. If you have done it, this is the most useful thing you can leave behind. We read everything before it appears, and we print a first name with it if you give one.
Thank you. A person will read it before it goes on the page.
Where this information comes from
The description on this page is ours. The facts in it, and the fee and facility details below it, come from the Bureau of Land Management’s own records, read in August 2026.