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Gillespie Ranch is a true working cattle ranch in the southern Sacramento Mountains. Our ranch encompasses 30,000 acres with an 11 site full hook-up RV park with 24 fully covered pipe pens, two cozy cabins, roping arena, round pen and Backwoods Treasures antique store all at the ranch headquarters. You can ride right out of camp to the many trails in the cool tall pines. We are open all year! Give us a call to make your reservations. 575-687-3732
Turn left right before the 2nd cattle guard on Walker Canyon Rd. There is a rustic wood sign at our entrance.
As a previous RV park owner. I CANNOT BEVIEVE the non respect Mr Gillespie showed a group of ATV riders this weekend. A very well respected family had their 91 year old Mother on a side by side ride and got lost....they needed to cross Gillespie ranch where he had a locked gate. Their Mother was very tired... and he totally refused to let them just cross his land. I still cannot even imagine turning them away.
What do his customers think?
On friday March 25th, our family had met at the Wilbanks"High Country" Mayhill RV Park to camp out, cook and ride UTV's all weekend for what could almost be called a Family Reunion. It was a very pleasurable and accomodating experience. Our mom, 91 years young, me, a retired NM educator, my sister, a retired farmer and mom, my brother, a CEO of an Alb Credit Union and my brother, a Welder for a wealthy Texas oil company. Also on the saturday ride was other family and friends, 15 riders on 5 UTV's most are over the age of 55. We had planned to ride out of camp on a designated forest trail which none of us were familiar with. After about 2 hours, we realized that the trail could have been classified "Experts or Experienced Riders only". We had 4 people qualified as Onyx map readers and decided the EASIEST way out was down another Forest trail which ended at a locked gate on the West side of the Gillespie's property. Nearly all of us knew the Gillespies having stayed at their RV Park and on a couple of occasions even rented a cabin from them. We had hauled horses up there and ridden out of the park also on occasion. Mr. Gillespie actually drove up from the private side of the locked gate while the "Geriatric" novice trail riders were all on the Forest side trying to decide on an alternate route to get out of our situation. My nephew and I approached Mr. Gillespie's gate to seek permission to cross his private property, less than a mile thereby getting us on a well maintained Forest Road, Carr Gap, to be specific. He was packing a shoulder harnessed Glock handgun and seemed to be very upset with the 26th day of March 😏😳. I introduced my self, Larry Lunsford and ask him "if he would consider allowing us to cross his private property to get our UTV's back to the Carr Gap Road" ? HIS RESPONSE WAS "NOPE" !!!!
I need to insert at this point that the entire group of riders have total respect for the land owners and ranchers. So, we all turned our Buggys around and headed back up the forest road we had just traversed. We finally got back to Carr Gap Road 2.5 hours later. Traveling by the Gillespie Carr Gap Gate, I stopped and pointed to all the riders , "this is where we COULD HAVE COME OUT 3 HOURS AGO". I SINCERELY HOPE that thousands of campers read this review before they rent an RV space or cabin from a "man" with an attitude like we witnessed at the Gillespie locked gate.
Larry Lunsford
Beautiful area!!! Loved staying in the cabin and very nice stalls for the horses. Great riding areas with breathtaking views.
We stayed at the Gillespie Ranch again in late March 2022. This was our second time there. It is our favorite place for horse camping and trail riding. The owners are some of the best people that we have met. They take care to make sure that their guests have a good trail riding experience. And that includes keeping ORV riders away from any horseback riders. And this ranch is still a working cattle ranch located about 8 miles off the blacktop, very remote. So it only makes sense for the owners & other ranch hands to carry precautions (like a large caliber handgun) against the large predators that also live on the ranch. Yes, there are bears & mountain lions in the area. So be advised, if you are triggered by large wild predators, openly carried handguns and/or proprietors who are protective of their guests, you might consider going elsewhere. But if you want the ABSOLUTE BEST horseback trail riding experience in the Southwest (possibly in the country) this is the place.
