Easter in Crown King: The Easter Bunny Finds Camp

Rig	Clifford (2015 JKU) + Turtleback trailer
Route	I-17 exit 248 → Bumble Bee → Crown King Road
Distance	28 mi to town · 31 mi to camp
Elevation	2,800′ at I-17 → 5,780′ in town · camp ≈ 6,900′
Duration	3 days · Easter weekend, April 2026
Difficulty	1 / 5 · wide graded dirt with washboard and switchbacks
Permits	None to camp · dispersed, 14-day limit
Cell service	Intermittent Verizon across the area · Starlink as primary

Most people don’t know this, but if you have kids, the Easter Bunny will find your camp. We spent Easter weekend camped in the pines above Crown King with our friends Ben and Heather (@bd3kker) and their crew. We had lunch at The Mill, bought fudge at the General Store, ran RC cars on the granite, built a windbreak on a breezy ridge and hiked out to a view down Humbug Creek toward the old Oro Belle mine. On Sunday morning the kids found that the Easter Bunny had come.

Ben and Heather brought their 5th-gen 4Runner pulling an Opus trailer, plus their Bronco. We brought Clifford and the Turtleback. That made three rigs and two trailers, and our spot handled all of them.

Up the Bumble Bee road

We left Friday afternoon, took I-17 north to the Bumble Bee exit and followed the Crown King Road up into the Bradshaws. It’s the easy way up. After a short paved stretch it’s graded dirt the rest of the way. You go through the little town of Bumble Bee (slow down, these are private homes) and past Cleator, home of the Cleator Bar & Yacht Club, which is a great name for a bar in the desert. Much of the upper road runs on the bed of the old Bradshaw Mountain Railroad, whose Crown King branch reached town in 1904.

We aired down at a big pullout about half a mile off the interstate. There’s tons of room there, even for big rigs with trailers, and airing down makes the washboard a lot more comfortable when you’re towing. I use the MORRFlate Air Hub with their 6-tire trailer hoses. I hook up Clifford and the Turtleback, set a target PSI on the Air Hub’s screen, and it airs everything down on its own and beeps when it’s done. No walking tire to tire with a gauge.

Over 28 miles you climb from about 2,800 feet at the interstate to 5,780 feet in Crown King. Camp was another 3.3 miles past town and about 1,100 feet higher, at roughly 6,900 feet. Ben and Heather were already set up at a spot I’d sent them, and we rolled in just as the sun was setting.

Camp on the ridge

It wasn’t our first time at this spot. It’s tucked back off the road in the trees. It isn’t perfectly flat, but it’s easy to level out, and there are several more spots nearby. It has short hikes right out of camp and big granite rock formations that are perfect for RC cars, which keeps both the kids and the parents happy. We set up quickly to get the kids to bed, and then the grown-ups stayed up a while catching up.

Saturday in town: The Mill, the fire station and fudge

On Saturday we drove back into Crown King for lunch at The Mill. It’s been one of my favorite mountain-town restaurants for as long as I’ve known about it. Our first trip up here was in 2016, in a completely stock Jeep. We bumped our way up the back way and finished with lunch at The Mill. Ten years later, it’s still a must-stop.

The building is newer than it looks. The Mill opened in 1995, the first new business building in town in more than 75 years. But the inside and the grounds are packed with Crown King’s mining past: old engines and machinery out front, a stamp battery inside, and big framed photos of the mines in their heyday. Walk through it before or after you eat. One heads-up: The Mill is only open on weekends.

After lunch we walked around town. The kids loved checking out the rigs at the Crown King fire station, including a side-by-side rescue UTV. That makes sense for a town at the top of a dirt road with the backway coming in from the other side. Then we stopped at the Crown King General Store, which has been open since 1904 and is famous for its homemade fudge. You have to get fudge here. We finished with a browse through one of the boutique shops. We didn’t buy anything, but there were plenty of neat gifts.

RC cars on the granite

Back at camp the kids broke out the RC cars. Our fleet is a couple of Traxxas TRX-4Ms, an FMS FCX24 built to look like Matt’s Off Road Recovery’s world’s largest wrecker, and an Axial SCX30. Gavin has a scale off-road trailer for his heavily modified TRX-4M Bronco. He loves working it through the obstacles around camp and pretending it’s the real Clifford and Turtleback.

Wind on the ridge

It got cool and windy at night. This spot sits on a ridge, and even with the trees, the wind can really whip. We put up a couple of wall panels on the Taruca Rogue 270 XC awning as a windbreak, lit the propane fire pit and made s’mores. With the awning, the lights and a wall blocking the wind, we had a cozy little living room at 6,900 feet.

Easter morning

Sunday was Easter, and the kids were thrilled to find that the Easter Bunny had come. They searched every corner of camp until they’d found every egg, then snacked on their treats and traded for their favorites.

The hike: Humbug Creek, Oro Belle and the backway

Next we took a short trail from camp up a small ridge. It ends at an amazing view down into the Humbug Creek canyon.

From up there you can see several mine sites, including the stone ruins of Oro Belle. Oro Belle was a gold camp that boomed around 1900 and was mostly empty by about 1912. According to the Crown King Saloon, the saloon started out at Oro Belle and was taken apart and hauled up to Crown King by mule in 1916. Some sources put the move as early as 1910. Either way, it’s still pouring today.

You can also see the top of the backway to Crown King, including its last two obstacles, right at the Oro Belle site. One is a rock ledge you climb over with a drop-off on the left. While we were up there, we watched a group recover a side-by-side that had slipped off the edge right at that ledge. We couldn’t make out much more than that, but they had things under control and got the rig back on the trail.

Leave it better

After hanging out at camp a little longer, it was time to pack up. We closed up the tents and awnings and hooked up, and as always I pulled the rig off our spot first. That’s when the kids do their usual grid search for trash. We want them to learn to leave camp cleaner than we found it, and they actually have fun doing it.

While they’re doing that, I do a full walkaround of the vehicle and trailer. I check that every latch is latched, every lock is locked and the hitch is hitched right. I also make sure nothing is sitting loose on the vehicle or trailer. I’ve been known to lose a coffee cup or two left on a bumper.

We headed down the way we came, via Bumble Bee, and aired back up at the same pullout before getting back on I-17. It’s the same deal with the MORRFlate: I set the street pressure, turn on the compressor, and all six tires fill together while I finish my walkaround. I’m saving the backway to Crown King and the Senator Highway for their own trip reports. Both are really fun ways in and out of town.

What worked, what broke

Know before you go

• The Mill is open weekends only. Plan your town day around that.
• Fuel. The General Store has the only pump in town, and it’s pricey. Top off on I-17 before you head up. Coming from the south, the nearest stop is the Chevron at Rock Springs, exit 242, about 6 miles before the Bumble Bee exit. Coming from the north, it’s the Pilot or the Chevron at Cordes Junction, exit 262, about 14 miles before the Bumble Bee exit.
• Holiday weekends are busy. Crown King fills up on Easter and summer weekends. Arrive early or have a backup spot.
• Dispersed camping. The Prescott National Forest limits you to 14 days in any 30. Check the Motor Vehicle Use Map for roads that allow it.
• Fire. Restrictions change often. Check with the Prescott National Forest, Bradshaw Ranger District, before you go.
• Wind. The ridges get windy at night. Bring a windbreak and stake everything down.
• Connectivity. Verizon is intermittent across the whole area. Starlink is the way to go if you need to stay connected.
• Pack it out, and then some.

The verdict

Crown King is about as easy as a mountain getaway gets from Phoenix. The Bumble Bee road is a straightforward tow, the town has real food, real history and fudge, and the camps above town put you in the pines with room for the kids to roam. And if you have kids, the Easter Bunny knows the way.