Best Equestrian Camping near Eagle Nest, NM

Recent Equestrian Reviews in Eagle Nest

53 Reviews of 9 Eagle Nest Campgrounds

• 

  Timothy N.

  Guide

  

  Sep. 9, 2024

  Borrego Mesa Campground

  Quiet and small campground

  Very small, but quiet and secluded primitive campground.  Several sites appear to be overgrown or have too much debris to be usable.  There are a couple sites that could fit a small trailer.  All are suitable for tents or a van.  The bathroom is still out of order.  Mobile coverage was spotty, worked better if you went up to the nearby trailhead.   The road up to the campground is in good shape, 4x4 not required.  Overall traffic was very low.  There was a little bit of firewood cutting nearby, with a few trucks making multiple trips.  A few families were up on Sat for picnics.  UTVs were minimal.  There are a few dispersed options in the area.

• 

  Phillip A.

  Scout

  

  Jun. 20, 2024

  Santa Barbara Campground

  Cows everywhere!!!

  Everyone, this is a beautiful site with Lots of trees. The camp ground is nestled up in the mountains several miles from town. The stream is nice and comforting and the camp host was very informative and helpful.**** HOWEVER, there are herds of cows that roam the campground. They defecate EVERYWHERE!!! The cows keep you up all matters of the night. You can’t take 4 steps without stepping in poop-It’s EVERYWHERE!!!( Flies included) This site would be so perfect but you can’t eat or cook around the pit because it is surrounded by cow poop. We cut our camping trip short because it was just too much.

• 

  Jennifer H.

  Guide

  

  Oct. 12, 2023

  Carson NF - Forest Service Road 578 - Dispersed Camping

  Cold and quiet with good views

  There are a bunch of different roads you can turn off to camp on if you’re driving from Taos to Durango. We mapped Forest Road 578 and it took us to a dirt road with a lot of flat spots you can camp on. We spent the night there and it was very quiet and peaceful. If you keep going to Durango you’ll get to Carson National Forest, which is not too far from the coordinates on The Dyrt. That’s where more people are camping, you can pull off right before the 64H road marker. You’ll keep passing camping spots as you drive to Durango so you can really go almost anywhere!

• 

  Jacqueline D.

  Scout

  

  Sep. 28, 2023

  Santa Barbara Campground

  Quiet and beautiful

  Visited late September, about a quarter of the sites were occupied. All sites are close enough to the river to hear it from a tent. The site has drinking water and pit toilets, but no cell service. Overall, stay was very peaceful and relaxing.

• a

  anthony Z.

  Scout

  

  Sep. 4, 2023

  Rio Costilla Park

  Labor Day

  Stayed two nights and loved every minute. Took inner tubes and rode them down the stream!

• 

  Karen N.

  Guide

  

  Aug. 21, 2023

  Santa Barbara Campground

  Beautiful weekend

  Stay at Santa Barbara Campground in Northern New Mexico. Was a beautiful spot. Road to Campground was well taken care of Beautiful trails throughout area

• 

  Katherine C.

  Traveler

  

  Aug. 1, 2023

  Borrego Mesa Campground

  Solid Spot

  Campground is a little off the beaten path, about 30m from the High Drive highway. Dirt roads were nothing to worry about, should be fine for any SUV or sedan. Campground itself is on ranch land (keep an eye out for cows) and does have trash around, but nothing too bad. Bathroom is very much out of order.

• 

  Ron G.

  Scout

  

  Jun. 9, 2023

  Carson NF - Forest Service Road 578 - Dispersed Camping

  Tres Piedras area

  The location on Dyrt maps is wrong, forest service is NW of 285 & 64. Beautiful dispersed camping spots plentiful. Park ranger Melissa was the top notch. Couldn’t have been more helpful and friendly. Definitely stay there again.

• d

  drew

  Traveler

  

  Jun. 9, 2023

  Cimarron Campground

  Great remote time

  Took my boys camping and had a great time. We went June 2 and the water was not on yet. The facilities were very clean and the staff agent was present and available. We had no issues. It is a long way down a dirt road but well worth the drive to be remote. No cell service at the camp site but a short 5 min drive back to the first cattle guard allowed for service to multiple cell providers. A short beautiful hike to the ponds allowed for some fishing for the kids. All artificial lures and barbless hooks. It’s not glamping but is some great camping!

• K

  Kala J.

  Traveler

  

  Apr. 26, 2023

  Carson NF - Forest Service Road 578 - Dispersed Camping

  Private and beautiful

  A nice secluded little forest road. RVs will not make it, so it's nice and quiet.

  AWD/4WD needed on the rutted rocky road.

  Stayed one night and saw no one else.

  Multiple pulloffs for unmarked campsites, but the one I picked was right off the road.

  Cell service drops completely pretty soon after leaving the highway. I sporadically received some messages at my camp site but not reliably.

• 

  Ken M.

  Traveler

  

  Mar. 19, 2023

  Mccrystal Campground

  Remote camping with plenty of wildlife to see

  A remote location and popular with horse campers and hunters.  The campground has sites with horse corrals installed. The campground was quiet and mostly clean. There are pit toilets on site and well maintained. Level spots with good separation. Nice hiking accross some flat lands and a smal creek runs near by. Early one morning we saw a herd of elk down in a valley near a turn out off the road.  Bears frequent the area trying to raid the garbage bins during the night. Makes tent camping a bit unnerving. If you want to explore the area, this is good place to camp.  It takes an hour to get to the campsite on a graveled road off the highway out of Cimerron.  25mph was best speed to go to handle the washboard road to the campsite.

• T

  Terry

  Traveler

  

  Jul. 23, 2022

  Rio Costilla Park

  Dispersed............ but not. Worth the trip!

  My wife and I spent 3 days and 2 nights at Rio Costillo and really enjoyed our time.  We are typically dispersed campers, so paying to camp is a bit of a departure.  The fee to camp has increased to $30 per night, but we decided to give it try.  It was probably more about what we didn't experience that we enjoyed the most.  There is NO FIREWORKS permitted and NO ATV's permitted.  Thus, a pleasant and quiet camp trip.  There have been no recent fires in the area, so the views were beautiful!.  Not sure how many head of cattle roam the park, but they could care less about you and do not pose any threat.  The sites are spread apart so much that it feels like dispersed camping.  Portable toilets are close to all sites, but no running water.  The lakes were closed at the time of our visit (clearing the road of fallen trees we were told).  Most of the sites were close to running streams of water, though we only fished in the Rio Costilla outside the park entrance.  The fees are $30 per vehicle/night and $10 to fish per person per day.  No fee to fish in the river outside of the park, only a NM license or out of state permit.

• 

  Jade T.

  Traveler

  

  Jul. 11, 2022

  Cimarron Campground

  Beautiful!

  We stayed July 1st-5th, 2021. Beautiful location in a place I wasn’t expecting it to be sooo green! Very relaxing and remote as there is zero service. It was perfect & exactly what we were looking for. Vault toilets are well kept and within good proximity to most sites. The grass was about knee high, so yard games/ activities weren’t possible. The hiking trail to the lake was reasonable and not too inclined/strenuous. It rained only in the afternoons but everyday.

• K

  Kathy W.

  Guide

  

  Jun. 15, 2022

  Purgatoire Campground

  Purgatoire Site #8

  This was a beautiful peaceful camp ground. Very quiet. It has a pit toilet which was decent - better than having to use or portable. No cell phone service.

• J

  Jeff T.

  Ranger

  

  May. 28, 2022

  Purgatoire Campground

  Fantastic high mountain FS campground

  I can understand rating this campground low if you were hoping to find a Ritz Carlton at the end of the 4-mile rough road, but if you're looking for a beautiful high altitude forested campground that offers solitude and great hiking, you've come to the right place!  The worst we can say about it was that we visited in the height of mud season and it made leveling our rig a little tricky as the levelling blocks kept sinking in the soft Dyrt under the weight of our wheels, but we eventually figured it out.  There was snow on the ground and snow flurries during our visit.  We basically had the whole campground to ourselves on a mid-week evening, maybe two others in the entire campground.  Our rig is 28' long, and if the place had been more crowded we may have had trouble finding a spot long enough for us, but given how empty it was we had our pick of multiple sites that worked.  Overall a very cool spot off the Highway of Legends.  If you're in the vicinity of the Spanish Peaks and looking for some great mountain camping, this is your place!

• 

  Ian O.

  Scout

  

  Apr. 30, 2022

  Carson NF - Forest Service Road 578 - Dispersed Camping

  Secluded Camp Area

  Many open areas to camp right off the highway. The views of the mountains across the valley are best after the fork in the road. Please pick up extra trash if you use

• J

  JIll

  Guide

  

  Apr. 28, 2022

  Borrego Mesa Campground

  a bit beat up

  This is a great spot with wonderful huge ponderosa pines all around, but there has been a bunch of shooting up the toilets and there is a fair amount of trash around.  Still we had it to ourselves during the week, and could find a spot that was clean and fit our teardrop trailer.  it would be difficult to get an fullsize RV up there at all.  The road is rather arduous especially because of the fairly recent fire damage.  Still is was a peaceful place with lots of nice walking around.

• 

  Jacob W.

  Ranger

  

  Apr. 21, 2022

  Carson NF - Forest Service Road 578 - Dispersed Camping

  Primitive dispersed camping

  I tent-camped off of Carson NF Forest Service Road 578 in mid April 2022. FS 578 is south of Tres Piedras about 5 miles on the west side of Hwy 285. There are several dirt road turn offs but FS 578 is clearly marked with a brown NFS sign (see photo) and has no gate but there is a cattle guard/grate. Here is a NFS road use map that shows dispersed camping along FS 578 and many other NFS roads: https://www.fs.fed.us/r3/gis/mvum/Carson/CarsonTresPiedrasCanjilonElRito.pdf (see also screenshot). My Tacoma had no problem on the dirt road, which has ruts and might be tough for an RV. There were few clearings suitable for dispersed camping but I found a nice spot with a small fire circle in a small clearing on the south side of the road just past a fork in the road. I carried two black boulders over to serve as a table and chair. I didn’t see anyone else camping or driving by. The forest is a nice mix of sage, juniper, and pine trees. I saw two elk across a swath of sage. I could see the snow capped peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range on the eastern horizon when I walked farther up the road. It got cold at night, like 27 F. It was a nice waypoint on my trip between Gunnison CO and El Paso TX but it didn’t look like many people camped there. I had intended to drive to Taos the next day on Hwy 64, but didn’t.

• s

  shakiba

  Scout

  

  Dec. 2, 2021

  Santa Barbara Campground

  Overcrowded but nice getaway

  This campground is always overcrowded, and the camping sites are too close to each other but it’s located between trees and is really close to trail heads. There is a river nearby but not to close to the camping sites that you can overlook the river. Sadly, bathroom facilities are not clean

• 

  Mac M.

  Traveler

  

  Sep. 19, 2021

  Borrego Mesa Campground

  Better than expected

  I wasn’t sure what to think of the site before coming, but it was pretty and the road in wasn’t that bad. There were a good number of yellow jackets around. It wasn’t very quiet due to ATVs and chainsaws. The site had some trash and I wasn’t able to help pick up all of it but it wasn’t so much that it was bothersome. It was really nice that there was only one other site being used and they were at the opposite end so I couldn’t see or hear them. The bathroom isn’t in service right now either, but for one night it was a nice site!

• G

  Greg K.

  Scout

  

  Aug. 30, 2021

  Purgatoire Campground

  Good camping spot

  Liked the camp spots (ours was 14). Mark (the camp host) kept everything clean. Beautiful star viewing. 4 mile dirt road was a bit rough bringing my camper. Verizon coverage had 1 bar at the south end.

• 

  James F.

  Guide

  

  Aug. 22, 2021

  Santa Barbara Campground

  Beautiful Hiking

  This is a great campground if you like to take some hikes through some beautiful national forest with a picturesque river. The Santa Barbara Campground is relatively small and most of the sites can't accommodate large rv's. A small travel trailer or tent works well in most sites. None of the sites have hook ups so you will be boon docking. There are vault toilets and water available. Sign on the water spigot said not to connect a hose though so filling your rv or trailer is not what they were intended for. I guess it was good that I filled before I left home. There are lots of trees for shade and beauty. The trails are absolutely wonderful and well worth taking a few hours to walk part of them. Hard core hikers will use the campground as a starting point for a lengthy hikes. There were a few cows that got into the camping area. There can also be horses on the trails so be vigilant.The temperatures were quite moderate as the campsite is at 8900 feet. You can hear the Santa Barbara River as it is very close.

• 

  Stephen K.

  Guide

  

  Jul. 8, 2021

  Cimarron Campground

  lovely hidden gem

  We stayed here over July 4, 2021.  The campground was mostly full until Sunday (July, 4) and then cleared out. It stayed quiet even when full, though.  I wondered how rough the roads were, but driving from Castillo to the campground and then on to Hwy 64 east of Cimarron on 1950 was all very doable in a Subaru Ascent towing a trailer despite some heavy rains.

  There were pit toilets which were clean, but flies at them got thick as the day warmed up.  Flies and mosquitoes were rare at the campsite, though. The campsites were large and surrounded by trees.  A few of the outer loop had nice, partial  views of the meadow.

  There's a nice easy/moderate half mile hike down to the Shuree Ponds which were stocked with trout. it seemed a fair amount of people would drive to the larger of those two ponds for day use fishing.  The smaller was reserved for kids's fishing.  Both are classied as "Green Chile" waters so only flies or artificial lures with a single, barbless hook are allowed. 2 fish limit.

  The area looked like a mecca for wildlife, but we only saw 3 deer in our hikes to and from the ponds and then a muskrat at the pond.

• 

  jasper W.

  Scout

  

  Jan. 17, 2021

  Agua Piedra Campground

  One of my favorite spots in NM

  ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS :) beautiful scenery and very clean! i liked the set up of the camp ground, very spacious but still felt like a nice community. 10/10 must see.

• J

  Joel H.

  Guide

  

  Aug. 29, 2020

  Rio Costilla Park

  Great spot

  Camped here the last 2 nights and it was fantastic. For $25/night it’s a good deal. There’s not clearly marked camping areas, which is both kinda cool and a little disorienting. Some of the camping areas have small, perfectly sized covered picnic table areas which are absolutely wonderful. The campsites are nearly all along a babbling brook, stream, or river. The roads to the entrance, to the campsites, and definitely up to the lakes are best suited if not exclusively suited for trucks and 4WD vehicles. Currently there’s no restroom facilities unless you personally rent a porta-potty to be brought to your campsite. We’ll be coming back. A word for tent campers, at least during my stay the volume of RV’s virtually dominated the park.

• J

  Jen M.

  Traveler

  

  Aug. 18, 2020

  Cimarron Campground

  Good homebase for exploring the Valle Vidal

  This is 1 of 2 options for campgrounds in the Valle Vidal area. It is on the West side of the preserve and is equine friendly. This is a large campground, with 36 camping sites. We stayed at #24 which had a nice partial overlook to the opposing valley, mountainside. 

  This campground is well loved, but clean and my only gripe is the pit toilets are old and in need of replacement. The host did keep them  as clean as possible with odor control devices in the stalls. 

  Our campsite had a very worn and splintering wooden picnic table that really needed replacing.  We brought a table and sat at that with our 2 small children. 

  Overall it is quiet and peaceful with amazing stargazing at night. 

  There is a walking trail at the back of the campground to get to Surree Ponds. I would say it is of medium difficulty as there is a precarious creek crossing, and it is uphill the whole way back to camp. The view you can get from the meadows and the ponds are gorgeous at sunset. 

  Word of warning, the road to get here from Amalia becomes very wash boarded. It is a long road to get here and is wash boarded the whole way. The drive through Rio Costilla Canyon is gorgeous and if you only can go that far it is well worth it.

• C

  Carrie S.

  Traveler

  

  Aug. 17, 2020

  Agua Piedra Campground

  A really nice spot

  We enjoyed our weekend. The creek is very close and accessible, which is probably the highlight. There are plenty of hammock and shade trees. Sipapu resort is very close, so I was able to take my kid for a break from camping to get some “real food” ;) at the cafe. The pit toilets were really clean. My kid mentioned that specifically.

  The negatives: Our site was really close to another site, which was not awesome. I prefer campgrounds where the sites are a bit farther apart. The road was not well maintained, but it wasn’t really a problem.