Bonita Canyon Campground (Chiricahua National Monument)

Not at All RV Friendly

We attempted to camp here in a 28-foot long fifth-wheel trailer in December of 2014. We made reservations well in advance for a 41-foot back-in site through recreation.gov and paid in full. The campground was quite wooded and shady and perhaps lovely for tents, but not RV friendly at all. There were a few gray water dumps and water spigots that we had planned on using, but I have since learned that the camp hosts will not allow RV campers to use these facilities - they are only for tents. The loop is difficult to navigate, and the campground's beauty was marred by white board fencing all along the loop and a great deal of regulatory signs. Upon arriving at our site, we discovered that it was angled in a way not depicted on the map we used to make the reservation. Because the campground is set up in a one-way traffic loop in the wrong direction for that site, we would have to jack-knife our trailer. I attempted to find a camp host to see if we could drive the wrong way in the loop just in order to park, but the hosts were nowhere to be found. Other sites we tried had steep slopes, a great deal of loose gravel, large rocks that interfered with backing maneuvers, and some had low-hanging branches. Unless you have a pop-up RV, this would be a very difficult fit anywhere, except for the three sites already occupied by the campground hosts. We ended up leaving, and I finally received a partial refund, but only after appealing my case all the way to Washington, DC, in writing. And by the way, they still haven't updated the map to depict the one-way restriction and the angles of the sites. For tents, I would give this campground four stars, but this is an RV review site, so for our purposes, I have to give it one star.