Stargazing

Camp Rio

31 RV Sites, 3 Cabins, 12 Tent Sites, 2 Onsite RV/Trailers, 1 Vintage RV Rental

In the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico at 6,700 feet—in Otero County where the Lincoln National Forest's ponderosa pine and Apache plume canyon landscape creates the wildlife corridors, racing streams, and cool mountain-air environment that makes the Sacramento high country one of New Mexico's most rewarding and least discovered outdoor destinations—Camp Rio at 2180 Rio Penasco Road in Mayhill offers full hookup RV sites with 30 and 50-amp service, tent camping, vintage-vehicle glamping (a Shasta trailer, school buses, a Chris Craft boat, a gypsy wagon), three cabins, laundry, baths, showers, WiFi, and a rentable pavilion on a clean family property surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest where the small valleys, mountain glens, birds, and wildlife of the Rio Peñasco watershed create the setting that the day trips to Ruidoso, White Sands, and Billy the Kid country reward from a genuinely remarkable mountain base camp. The elevation delivers cool nights. The forest delivers everything else. Full hookup sites with 30 and 50-amp electric, water, and sewer serve the RV guest, while the tent sites, the three named cabins, and the one-of-a-kind vintage glamping fleet—the Shasta trailer, the converted school buses, the Chris Craft boat on land, the gypsy wagon—provide the range of alternative accommodations that a creative campground in the middle of Lincoln National Forest's canyon country assembles over years of inventive development. Clean baths and showers, laundry, upgraded free WiFi, and the rentable pavilion for group gatherings complete the practical infrastructure. The property's position surrounded by the national forest means the wildlife viewing, the bird watching in the mountain glens, and the sound of the Rio Peñasco in the canyon bottom are immediate rather than a short drive away. Mayhill sits in the Sacramento Mountains on NM-82 between Artesia and Cloudcroft, in the forested highlands where the Mescalero Apache's traditional mountain territory and the Lincoln National Forest's 1.1 million acres create the protected landscape that preserves the elk, black bear, mule deer, and the raptor diversity that the Sacramento high country sustains. The National Solar Observatory at Sunspot, 20 miles south on the Sacramento Peak, provides the one-of-a-kind tour of the sun-watching facility whose 60-foot vacuum tower telescope has observed solar activity since 1952 in the clear-sky position the Sacramento Mountains provide. Ruidoso, 25 miles east via US-70, anchors the regional tourism infrastructure with Ruidoso Downs Racing's quarter horse meets, the Ski Apache resort on Sierra Blanca Peak (elevation 11,500 feet), the Hubbard Museum of the American West, and the Lincoln Historic District 40 miles east on US-380—the restored adobe structures of the town where the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid's escape from the courthouse in 1881 created the most documented episode of frontier New Mexico history. White Sands National Park, 90 miles south, protects the world's largest gypsum dune field in the Tularosa Basin's extraordinary white landscape. Camp Rio operates year-round in the Sacramento Mountains' high-elevation climate, where the summer temperatures averaging 20 degrees cooler than the lowland Chihuahuan Desert below create the relief that makes the 6,700-foot Mayhill position genuinely comfortable from June through September when the lowland campgrounds of southern New Mexico are enduring their most intense heat. The fall elk rut in September and October, the winter snow that occasionally closes NM-82, and the spring wildflower bloom in the mountain meadows define the seasonal rhythms that the campground's surrounding national forest delivers in rotation. Reserve your site, cabin, or vintage glamping unit at Camp Rio and let the Sacramento Mountains' forest, wildlife, and canyon streams prove that the high road to Ruidoso is worth every mile.

from $44/night

Chinook Cabins & RV Park

17 RV Sites

Chinook Cabins and RV Park in South Fork, Colorado, has operated since 1908 in the upper Rio Grande valley, making it one of the oldest continuously operating camping and lodging properties in the southern Rockies and placing guests at the confluence of two of southwestern Colorado's most compelling outdoor recreation and cultural heritage draws. Positioned between the Rio Grande National Forest's vast wilderness to the north and west and the mining ghost towns and arts communities of the San Juan Mountains to the northeast, South Fork occupies an ideal geographic position for exploring a corner of Colorado that receives a fraction of the attention directed at better-marketed mountain destinations. The property offers historic log cabin rentals alongside full hookup RV sites, with both accommodation types reflecting the century-plus heritage of the location. The cabins' log construction connects guests visually and architecturally to the property's nineteenth-century origins in a way that newer construction cannot replicate, and the combination of cabin character and modern utility connections represents a balance between historical authenticity and practical comfort. Big rig access on the RV side of the property accommodates larger motorhomes and fifth wheels navigating the mountain highway corridors of US-160. South Fork's defining natural asset is its position adjacent to Wolf Creek Pass, where the Continental Divide crossing on US-160 reaches 10,850 feet and Wolf Creek Ski Area sits immediately at the summit—the highest base elevation of any major Colorado ski resort and the beneficiary of snowfall totals that consistently exceed those of more famous Front Range ski destinations by a significant margin. The Rio Grande National Forest surrounds South Fork with wilderness hiking, backcountry camping, and native cutthroat trout fishing in the river's upper reaches, where the Rio Grande originates in the high San Juan Mountains before its long journey to the Gulf of Mexico. Creede, approximately 20 miles north of South Fork via CO-149, is one of Colorado's most interesting small mountain communities—a former silver mining boomtown that survived the nineteenth-century bust through a combination of geographic isolation and community determination, and today hosts the Creede Repertory Theatre, a professional summer stock company that has been presenting plays in the historic mining town since 1966. The Weminuche Wilderness, accessible from multiple trailheads in the Rio Grande National Forest, is the largest federally designated wilderness area in Colorado, offering serious multi-day backpacking opportunities in a high-alpine landscape of 14,000-foot peaks, glacial lakes, and historic wagon roads converted to backcountry trails. Chinook Cabins and RV Park operates from late spring through the hunting season in fall, with summer hiking and fishing driving the warmest-season demand and fall's elk and deer hunting seasons bringing a distinct wave of sportsmen and women to the Rio Grande valley. The property's century-long operating history gives it a character and community connection that newer campgrounds lack, and South Fork's position between Wolf Creek's skiing, Creede's arts culture, and the Weminuche Wilderness's backcountry makes it a versatile base for guests with a range of outdoor and cultural interests across a full Colorado mountain season.

from $42/night

Cortez RV Resort

46 RV Sites, 12 Cabins, 23 Tent Sites

Cortez RV Resort in Cortez, Colorado, is the ideal basecamp for the ancestral homeland of the Ancestral Puebloans in Montezuma County's Four Corners country — a full-service resort with RV hookups and pet-friendly cabins at the gateway to Mesa Verde National Park and one of the most concentrated collections of ancient Native American archaeological sites in North America, where the cliff dwellings, mesa-top villages, and ceremonial kivas of the Ancestral Puebloan civilization's 13th-century abandonment occupy the canyon country between Cortez and the four-state corner as the most significant pre-Columbian archaeological landscape in the United States. The resort's Cortez position gives guests the most efficient access to Mesa Verde and the surrounding Ancestral Puebloan sites in the Four Corners region. Full-hookup RV sites and pet-friendly cabins give Cortez RV Resort the accommodation range for multi-day Mesa Verde and Four Corners country exploration — the Cliff Palace and Balcony House tours require advance timed entry reservations that a multi-night campground stay specifically accommodates by giving guests the flexibility to align their site visit with the ranger-led tour schedule rather than the day-trip visitor's compressed itinerary. The resort's Cortez proximity to the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center's research and educational programming gives interested guests the scholarly context for the archaeological landscape. Pets are welcome. Mesa Verde National Park, 10 miles east of Cortez on U.S. 160 in Montezuma County, preserves the Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings in Chapin Mesa and Wetherill Mesa in the most concentrated and most architecturally significant collection of prehistoric structures in the United States — the Cliff Palace's 150 rooms and 23 kivas represent the largest cliff dwelling in North America, and the Balcony House's physical access challenge through the 32-foot ladder and the 12-inch ledge traverse give the ranger-led tour its specific adventure character. The park's Chapin Mesa Museum and the Spruce Tree House's accessible court give non-tour visitors the complete Mesa Verde experience alongside the ticketed structure tours. The Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, northwest of Cortez in Montezuma and Dolores Counties, protects the highest known density of archaeological sites in the United States — over 6,000 documented sites per square mile in the canyon country between Cortez and the Utah border, including the Lowry Pueblo, the Painted Hand Pueblo, and the Sand Canyon Pueblo complex that the Bureau of Land Management administers with a fraction of the visitor infrastructure and the visitor volume of the adjacent national park. The monument's canyon country hiking and the archaeological site's open-air accessibility give the visitor the direct contact with the Ancestral Puebloan landscape that the park's managed tour format structures more formally. Cortez RV Resort serves guests year-round in Montezuma County's high-desert climate, where the spring and fall seasons from April through June and September through October deliver the most comfortable temperatures for the archaeological site visiting and the canyon hiking that the Four Corners country sustains. Hovenweep National Monument, 40 miles west of Cortez on the Colorado-Utah border, preserves the six groups of Ancestral Puebloan towers and pueblos in the canyon country west of Cortez that give the Four Corners archaeological circuit its most remote and most architecturally distinctive outlier site. Reserve RV sites and cabins months ahead for the Mesa Verde summer and fall peak seasons.