Cave Canyon Campground

As mentioned, only 3 spots. Vault toilets and garbage cans available. The road adjacent to the spots can be quite busy maybe 5-10 cars per day. Within 5 mins. there's about a dozen (more secluded) dispersed camping options available to anything smaller than a class A, (Cave Canyon trail has a couple class A spots). Since the 3 spots are almost always full it's nice that there are so many other dispersed camping options as well as Rob Jagger Campground about 5 mins. away (with water and electric). This is not Pine Forest like Ruidoso, it's Juniper bushes and about 5-10 degrees warmer than Ruidoso. Close to the airport so even on hikes we rarely lost cell signal.

The first thing I should put down is this camp ground only has three campsites. All campsites have sheltered picnic tables and a fire ring and are pretty level. There is a very clean vault toilet and garbage cans but no water no electrical. The road coming up here is a little washboard but go slow and no problems. Nice and quiet with lots of trails to explore.

We visited Cave Canyon while visiting kin and escaping the south Texas heat wave. It's an easy to get to, well kept clean, small campground. The road in is somewhat washboarded, but well graveled. I have traveled much worse. There is no water at this site.

There were a couple of friendly locals when we arrived, there to ride their UTV's. But they all left well before dark, leaving the place to us. We camped at the upper most place, the only back in place, but we were only in a pickup camper...

The entire place was litter free, many litter barrels available, and there was a new vault toilet. It was open for use, tho not quite completed, the concrete form for the walkway was there, with the re-bar, but not poured yet. It created no problem for entry. It was what we call a "one hole-er"... unisex, with a good locking door. Exceptionally clean & well stocked with paper. A little farther downhill, you could determine the old location where the pit had been filled in, the building removed, only the sidewalk remaining. Judging from the posted pics, this new one is much larger.

There are four concrete slabs for camping. Three are covered, but one of these has no table. One of the slabs has a table only. There were fire rings, some steel, some rock. There were no "burn ban" signs posted, but we didn't trouble with a fire.

We were there over the weekend, left mid-day Monday. We didn't see any workers even tho their labors were plenty visible. From the looks of the road in, the new toilet, the cleanliness, it appears BLM may be upgrading the site some. I sincerely hope so, I love the loneliness and beauty of this place.

This will, from now on, be our first stop on our travels into The Land of Enchantment.

We came here intending on only staying a couple days BUT we ended up staying much longer since we love the hiking trails!

The spots are level and the campground is clean. Maintenance comes around daily for trash pickup and to treat the vault toilets.

The cave is closed. We were hoping to see some bats at night but we didn’t see any flying out of the cave.

Turning around to get back out again in our rig (32 ft) was challenging. So anything over 32 ft will probably be very difficult.

The road is washboarded so it's a bit bumpy coming in, but it's not a big deal if you go slow and put your tires in the right spot. It's a small campground with only three sites that have covered picnic shelters and are large enough for an RV (two of which are pull-through sites). There were two fire grates in between the covered sites that might be for tenters.

The whole campground was extremely clean, but we were particularly impressed by the pit toilet which looked like it was newly renovated and the cleanest pit toilet I've ever seen.

It's a really quiet spot with easy access to a variety of trails (paper maps are available at the kiosk by the cave entrance) that can be hiked or mountain biked. There are great views from the trails of the surrounding mountains. The cave was still closed to the public when we stayed there.

Fresh water and a dump station are available (for a fee) at Rob Jaggers Camping Area right down the road (I wouldn't recommend staying there if you don't need electricity because of the horse smells).

If you can't find space in the campground to turn around (in case all the spots are taken), keep driving straight and there'll be an intersection that'll give you enough space to make a 3-point turn.

We loved this spot. Only downfalls were the bumpy road in (not too bad though) and that the spots were not level at all. Definitely make sure you have some way to manually adjust. Bathroom was out of order, so can't comment on that. And the cave is permanently closed due to white-nose syndrome, so don't visit solely to explore that because it is fenced off now.

But the nearby trails and views are totally worth any little inconveniences. It was a truly beautiful place. There was one other van while we were there, but they kept to themselves.

Definitely check out nearby Fort Stanton if you go exploring.