Brown Springs Campground

This place is a little score! We pulled in on a Saturday night en route from Salt Lake City to Cloudcroft, NM, looking for a better in-transit alternative than the Farmington Wally World. This is a brand-new campground opened by the BLM in 2019. 10 gravel sites include covered pavilion, grill, fire ring and a concrete patio. Our site #5 even had a little fenced yard of sorts with a beautiful retaining wall. Site sizes are generous, and spacing between sites is exceptional. The BLM designers even put a gorgeous piece of twisted juniper within our "yard", and laid large round river rock beneath the split rail fence.

On this Saturday in mid-September the campground only had a few other occupants, so we had our choice of sites even on a Saturday night. Although the surrounding area is popular with OHVs we didn't have any come through the campground itself, and never had a problem with OHV noise. Realize that this is dry camping, and pack in/pack out.

As others have said, the three-mile dirt road getting in is a bit washboarded, but it's wide, flat and straight, negotiable by any size rig. Most sites are large enough for big rigs, and wide enough to park a tow vehicle next to a trailer, or a toad next to a motorhome. All of the shopping amenities of Farmington are just a few minutes away.

If we didn't have to get back on the road, we would have definitely stayed longer. You can't ask for better for free.

We really enjoyed our stay here! This campground was brand new when we arrived in late June, some sites hadn’t even been camped in yet...but I imagine it won’t be kept a secret for long and will fill up quickly on the weekends (only 10 campsites) Bring your side by side, Jeep, or just your hiking shoes, there are great rock crawling trails all around that can keep you busy for several days. Strictly dry camping with few amenities (pretty much just outhouses, charcoal grills at each site, and a horse shoe pit) Can fit oversized rigs in a few of the sites. There is even one large site for handicap campers that’s completely paved. All sights are good size though. Our toy hauler is 36 feet and could have fit in almost all the sights (having to unload toys from the garage first before backing in) we had a great few days!

What a great little BLM campground! Its brand new and very clean. There are 10 sites here a few will fit larger rigs. We stayed in site #9 in our 38ft 5er and had room to spare. A larger rig would fit here. The road in is pretty decent a little washboard but not bad, just go slow. There are vault toilets, gazebos with picnic tables and fire rings and grills to use. It's not far from here to shopping to restock, about 7 miles driving to a Walmart super center and restaurants. All in all a great place! Would definitely stay here again.
A permit is required but is free. Just stop in at the BLM office a few miles up the road for your permit.

This is a brand new campground. They spent two years building this amazing place. There is are fire pits, grills, picnic tables, two bathrooms, and an overhang at each campsite. It is a small campground with ten sites. During the weekends, there are a lot of ATV vehicles traveling the trails but few come around the campground. One needs to get a permit by calling 505-564-7676 which is quite easy and again it is free. One can stay for fourteen days. Internet is strong and the campground is clean and well cared. This is the best BLM campground that I have visited so far and I spent a good amount of time in dispersed land. The three-mile drive into the campground is a bit rough but go slow no issues

Leaving Moab, heading down to Albuquerque, wanted a quick boondocking spot. Called the Farmington BLM field office at 505.564.7600 and learned about Brown Springs Campground. A permit is required and was email to us. We were then required to print it out, fill it out, and email it back to the BLM field office, and later received confirmation that we were good to go. I don't know the stay limit as we only needed it for one night, but I imagine that you might be able to stay for 14 days but ask to be sure.

The coordinates are for the staging area just off of Pinon Hills Blvd. The actual campground is about 3 miles down a washboard, dirt road. (It's a little rough, drive accordingly.) Your GPS may say to turn left at the fork right before the campground, but you actually need to bear to the right.

This campground was so NEW, that there hadn't even been any fires in the fire-rings. All sites are pretty level gravel pads, with a picnic table and a fire-ring, some with nice decorative block retaining walls and split rail fencing. Most sites even have a BBQ grill. There is one concrete pad, right next to the ADA accessible pit toilet with a concrete sidewalk from the pad to the toilet. Strangely, this handicapped site didn't have a fire ring. Don't know what's up with that, other than the entire campsite was concrete. (Though all of the other fire rings were on a concrete circle and not directly on the ground)

In addition to a great campground, there are miles and miles of 4 x 4 trails, as well as several dirt bike trails.

To get the correct website address for the field office, just google, "Farmington, NM BLM field office" To get the address and directions to the campground google "Brown springs campground, Farmington, NM"