Coal Mine Campground

Coal Mine campground is a beautiful little campground with paved roads & spots, picnic table and fire ring at each site. It is primitive camping with pit toilets no water available. Sites of varying sizes from tent/car camp to small travel trailer or Rv. We stayed with a 30 ft class c no problem. Very quiet with easy access to Mt Taylor and only 15 min to Town of Grants for services. $10 per night self serve envelope in drop box when we were there.

Had a relaxing, quiet three night stay from 8/10 - 8/13/21 with our Jayco Octane Lite SL161 toyhauler. The only facilities are clean vault toilets. Some pull through spots for smaller camping units. I would not recommend this campground for large RVs.

15 sites available with about 8 that I could comfortably park my camper in. All sites have table, barbecue, and fire pit/ring. All sites are reservable online at Recreation.gov. When arriving without a reservation and staying for more than one or two nights be aware that empty sites without a reservation posting may have a reservation that has not been posted. You could wake up and find a reservation posted at your site and have to relocate to another available site. 

There is a nice hiking trail available from the campground. La Mosca lookout is a nice drive from the campground with beautiful views. Head up to the Gooseberry Trailhead to hike to the top of Mt Taylor the highest mountain in NW New Mexico. 

Camping fees for this campground are increasing to $10 per night next season.

I grew up in this part of the state, but never knew this one existed.  It’s a small campsite and not much more then vaulted toilets. But it was a very beautiful campsite. There was only a few people camping so it was very quit and peaceful. Easy access to shopping in Grants and real close to many other attractions like Bluewater lake, El Morro, and the Ice Cave. I would happily camp here again.

We were parked in a vacant spot since Thursday and on Friday afternoon, a forest service employee came and put up a sign on our spot saying it was reserved and he told us that we would have to leave. When we asked him why the sign wasn’t put up earlier in the week? If it had been we would have parked somewhere else. He got an attitude and just told us to move. We told him that we would and he said well if you park in an available spot we would have to pay again. Well yeah we moved and no we did not pay again. Then to top it off, the spots he claimed were reserved never became occupied all weekend. He did this to several people that were already parked and unhooked for the weekend. We decided that he just didn’t want to have to patrol the weekend or something. Never saw him again all weekend. We didn’t let that ruin the weekend. We had a good time overall.

Visited the coal mine campground after driving a 500 mile day, so it was a set-up eat and crash situation. I did make a reservation on line, but that cost more than the $5 per site fee and was not necessary even though it was memorial day weekend. The fee is great because it is primitive, no electricity, no water at all, not just hookups, but the bathrooms were nice and clean with no sinks.

If you are prepared for a primitive camp with your own water and batteries for your electronics it is great. They have fire rings, grills, picnic tables and level places for tents.There are also nice back-in sites for boondocking RVs and the road up to the campground is fine for big rigs.

I ran into two mountain biker's here from Ireland that were riding the Continental Divide trail from The Mexican border in New Mexico to the Canadian border in Montana. They were staying here since the Trail goes through here. Paddy & Conner were very interesting people and I was fortunate to have run into them here.

I enjoyed my stay with a peaceful quite nights sleep and a short hike in the morning before breakfast cooked on the campfire. I would recommend this over a hotel stay if your passing through Grant's New Mexico on I40. You can probably get a site for the night anytime your passing through.