Cabresto Lake Campground

The drive up the mountain is rough, lots of rocks and dips. We made it up to find the lake but camping is mostly for tents with sites you walk to, we have a roof top tent and only stayed a night in one spot we found. There are a few spots going up the mountain.

If you're partial to mountain lakes, they got you from the jump here at Cabresto.

The 9 campsites were all occupied this past weekend. (Several face a few hundred foot cliff, so with little kids there are quite a few less.) We pitched tents in a dispersed spot with a couple of stone-built fire rings (no fires per Covid restrictions; camp stoves OK) just a few hundred yards down 134A from the lake and the campground tucked into a hairpin turn and the surrounding mountains. Just freaking beautiful. There are toilets in the campground parking area, but I guess the NFS ain't cleaning them.

The hike that departs from the trailhead sign with the faded trail map goes around the lake's northern shore and continues for 8 miles or so uphill to Heart Lake, which we only heard about but gather is a stunner of a natural feature. (Cabresto is made by a dam and currently pretty low but not so low to make it ugly like a lot of NM dammed lakes.)

If ATVs bother you, you're going to be cursing a lot. We didn't mind them too much. After dark it all settles down mostly. Folks were cool.

The road was no problem four our 2000 4Runner. But I could imagine the sign where 134A starts, something like, 'No passenger vehicles' should probably be taken seriously.