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11 campsites at 7600' with excellent hiking and fishing access, this area is often crowded in summer
5 miles northwest of El Rito via NM 110 & FR 559
It’s a cool spot. Not as busy as some other campgrounds in northern nm. But, if you don’t have a car with 4 wheel drive or truck it’s tough to get to. The roads are very rocky and lots of pot holes.
El Rito Campground is very beautiful with the scenary. You can actually camp anywhere 200ft from the road once you enter the campground anywhere, so keep that in mind if one of the 8 campground spaces that has picnic tables and actual firepits is not open!
One of the main drawbacks of this campground though is the amount of late night cars and ATVs that drive by. My fiance and I were woken up several times in the night by cars driving by the road around 2am. It seems mostly what people do here is bring their motor bikes or ATVs and go off roading.
As such, don't expect to see any wildlife. There was quite a bit of litter and trash in every part of the campground when we were there. I'm not sure if this was just a busy weekend, we went late in July.
Also, there is fishing apparently in this area, yet, the creek was too low to fish in. Maybe other times of the year it's better.
All things considered, this is a free campground and very beautiful. Definitely worth the trip!
Just spent the weekend here, just up the road. So beautiful but the traffic all night from hunting and logging, is a bummer, But not a deal breaker.
We stayed here for 3 days, 2 nights in the middle of September. The camp area near this ridge (pictured) required us to have all wheel drive due to the entrance having DEEP pot holes & ruts. Perhaps they’ll smooth it out, but just be mindful. We were able to cross the stream at a designated road too in order to camp directly near the orange caps. It was gorgeous. Hearing the stream at night and embracing the fresh air was peaceful. The trails were okay, lots of rocks on some of them where you were basically walking on severely uneven rock roads.
The park is FREE though which is amazing. However, there were lots of glass and beer bottle caps around the designated camp sites. It’s sad how people don’t appreciate nature like they should. We spent some time cleaning up our area prior to setting up.
Also, make sure to have EVERYTHING you need. You are pretty far from gas & civilization (which is great). So make sure you make a list!
Either way, it was beautiful & peaceful. For the first time in my life, I got to see the Milky Way in the sky. And my two dogs loved it! Definitely would recommend.
Nice and clean. We got to camp by the river and there was even a toilet available near by.
