Since my last few post we have stayed in 3 more state parks here in NM. Personally, my opinion on state parks-give me my national forest any day and I’m a happy, happy camper!
On Memorial Day we headed towards Cimarron Canyon and I was excited about finally being in the mountains and surrounded by wildlife. So I will start with Cimarron Canyon Campground.
CIMARRON CAMPGROUND: It’s not like most campgrounds when you think about it. Usually a campground entrance is off a highway and you go down a small roadway-or at least one would think. But in Cimarron Canyon it’s set up differently and could be deceiving.
As you travel along Hwy 64 heading out of Eagle’s Nest and towards the town of Cimarron, you will go around a few curves and bends; then as you descend towards the bottom, you become surrounded by canyon walls with a fast moving river called Cimarron. Just before you hit the first of 3 campgrounds, part of Hwy 64 now becomes Cimarron Canyon State Park. Be warned: pulling off anywhere through this 7 mile stretch of Hwy 64-you better pay your daily fee or could be fined ($25.00 per occurrence)
Your first campground on the left is Toby campground. It’s one single circular that about 1/2 of the sites are reservable. These sites are not very big nor large rig friendly. We did see a few 5th wheels come in, but it was a tight squeeze for them to get into their site. about over 1/2 of the sites are share sites as well. Hope you can get along with your neighbor….
In fact the site that we took in this campground was a shared site, but we thought that the only time we would get someone was maybe on the weekend and a tenter at that. Well our second night there sure enough here comes a tenter and they thought that they should set up right behind our rig-causing a minor disagreement. Long story short-they didn’t stay and moved on to another campground. But come Saturday we did get a small tongue pull next to us. Fortunate that we met them earlier and they were a very nice couple. They were in a reserved site and they had to move-therefore becoming our neighbor. Here is what the two rigs together look like:
The next campground down on Hwy 64 is Maverick (it’s about 6 miles on down the road). Maverick has a few more sites with about two inner circles. 1/2 of these sites are also reservable. It appeared that some of the sites were a bit bigger but still not much room to move around. This park tends to draw more the family with children. It has two small fishing ponds as well as the river. Again a few sites are share sites.
Now the last campground a mile down is Ponderosa Campground and recently been renovated. With that said, I felt as though if we would take any of these site we would feel like we were parking at Wal-mart! Upon entering, the sites are all along the edge. So in other words your door side would face the grass/wooded area and the opposite side would be right along the path of where people drive! As you go around this “circle”, you cannot finish-for it’s coned off so that the host slide-out don’t get hit. Then if that wasn’t bad enough, just like a parking lot in the middle were more spots with no grass, no tables-but one could park there if they wish too. Not my type of camping spots. Only good thing-Ponderosa could accommodate any size rig.
EAGLE’S NEST CAMPGRUOND: This is fairly a new campground and could easily accommodate any size rig coming in. It’s wide open with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the town of Eagle Nest.
This park is located in the town of Eagles Nest, and on one side of the campground, you have views of homes, barking dogs, machine running, and other businesses.
If one would have to gripe or complain about this park it would be about all the money spent in the new visitor center that is NEVER open, the beautiful LARGE parking lot both for the visitor center AND the boat launch (to a pretty low and pathetic lake), not to mention the WAY too many vault toilets for the day-users (I think we counted six). While the campground is graveled, one water spigot and only ONE vault toilet. Many of us campers saw lots of problems with this. Like, instead of spending money on a visitor center that is NEVER open, why not spend it on a dump station? Maybe flush toilets? or if the day-users can have nice paved roads, why couldn’t us campers have nice paved pads and roadway?
Anyways it wasn’t a bad place to stay, always a nice breeze (sometimes too much of a breeze). Warm beautiful days with very cool nights. Again, about 1/2 of the sites were reservable.
They supposedly have a trail, but we had a very difficult time finding it, for it’s not maintained very well. They are hoping someday to have a trail all the way around the lake. Only obstacle they have is making sure it’s above lake level (which at this time it’s a joke), and getting around the canyon wall.
COYOTE CREEK: It’s now time to head to the mountains and away from the town. We took the shortest route from Angel Fire to Coyote Creek. Heading out of Angel Fire on Hwy 434. Hwy 434 veers to the right about 10 miles out of Angel Fire. Once you take that right, the road will narrow and get windy. Then you have a sign that states there is no center stripes for the next 5 miles. The road on this stretch, is so narrow, there is no room for a center stripe!
While traveling, we prayed we wouldn’t run into another rig coming out, or a semi truck. To our bad luck, on this 5 mile stretch we ran into a very large gravel rig coming right at us! I moved over as far as I safely could, he barely scraped by us with only inches between us. If either one of us was going at any higher speed, we defiantly would have hit. Not a safe road for RV’ers!
Many will travel all the way back to Taos to Hwy 68 to Santa Fe and jump on I-25 (East) to Las Vegas, then get on Hwy 518 to Mora, and then Hwy 434 to Coyote Creek. This section of the Hwy is much wider from the Mora to the park entrance . Down fall is that it’s about 160 miles around vs. 30 miles out of Angel Fire….
With that said, once we got into the park we found it to be very nice. Upon entering, just past the host and their new Visitor Center/ranger station and shower building, you have the reservable electric sites. These sites are tight together with no room to move; but can accommodate large rigs.
The road that veers to the right past the visitor center goes to a semi circle with two very nice reservable primitive sites (this area was recently been redone).
But past the visitor center, the road continues on with primitive sites scattered around with plenty of room. If you go past the playground and over a very rickety bridge, you come across yet more sites. This is where we found ours up on the hill and had the whole area to ourselves! We loved it!
Most sites (except the electric reservable area) have these unique picnic shelters.
There will be one more road that turns left just before the last site (the one we were in), and it’s rough and mostly for folks in tents. Although there was a sign in plain site that states no RV’s, we saw a 35 foot tongue pull go up there! It’s a wonder that he even made it, but mind you, it was already in very rough shape, so we don’t think the owners gave a hoot if they did any more damage.
While here, the park was under construction. So the gravel road was mainly rough dirt road. With the new shower building, they had to dig a deeper well to keep up with the demand. So new pipes were being placed and many sites were closed. So they allowed folks to park “anywhere” an RV or tent would fit; even if it wasn’t a campsite. The water was off during our stay here and they were hoping to have it up and going by the 1st of July.
We had been monitoring a bear that was circling the area. Brian got a distant glimpse of the bear. He had already been destructive. One of the bear proof canister for trash was knocked off the bolts! Here is a picture, after it was up righted…
The previous year, 3 bears had to be tagged and relocated while one had to be put down-it was on it’s 3rd strike.
We have to say that Coyote Creek was by far our favorite park thus far. It’s peaceful and once the construction is completed, it’s going to be a very nice park. Like I said earlier-not fond of the electric area and really feel for those that have to go into that area. Maybe that will eventually get redone allowing more space between each other. The manager has his workers on top of this park. Every site is powered washed down and the vault toilets were so clean I think one could have eaten in them!
Coyote Creek along with Elephant Butte (in southern NM) is in a pilot program with internet. Meaning these two parks have free Wi-Fi. It only works near the ranger station/visitor center and you will need to get the password. We used it once and it worked great.
Second in place was Cimarron Canyon. Although we weren’t fond of the sites, we did like the area. Wished the trails were open. From the middle of May to the end of July, all trails (with the exception of Clear Creek Trail) are closed. We would have stayed our full 21 days here, but after a spell the cotton trees were spewing the cotton so bad that when outdoors you felt if you open your mouth-you got a cottonmouth! We were there in May and every day it rained Cotton so bad, you couldn’t sit outdoors and enjoy.
I think Eagles Nest Lake is okay and many enjoy camping there, but being hikers as we are, this just wasn’t the place for us and we are not fond “camping” inside city limits.
After nit picking each park, we decided that it was time for a break and head to the National Forest-and hit some serious hiking trails.
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