Fernand de Taos Dispersed Camping

10 plus sites amongst the most beautiful forest setting. Most of the sites had fire rings and were spaced out from other campers. A few sites could accommodate several rigs/tents. Most of the sites weren’t level. Road appears to have been maintained, easily traveled, with several places to pull over if two vehicles needed to share the road. Large circle at the end of the road to turn around a big rig, if needed. Quiet and clean! Several maintained unmarked trails that I think are used by NFS. Great place to hike and explore! No facilities, pack in, pack out. 1 bar of Verizon LTE except for near the end of the road where I was able to get 3 bars! I would camp here again!

I have only every spent one night at this campsite each time I have gone there ( a total of 9 times). But I just really love spending time here. There is something about the layout and the variety of trees and plants that makes this place just feel really nice. It does get fairly cold at night, so I always bring a thick sleeping bag and blankets, and wear warm clothing during the night. I have always slept in a tent; I don't have a vehicle that I can sleep in. But I don't really want to sleep in a vehicle. I just really appreciate sleeping in a tent in the clean atmosphere of this area.
The road into the camping area does have some depressions (ruts), so you do have to be careful when driving in a car not made for rough, back road driving. But the ruts in the road only get really bad fairly far into the site. So most of the road is easily driven on.
This is a dispersed site, so there is no water, no electricity, and no toilets. So you need to bring everything you will need with you. And you will sometimes see lots of cows as they are brought here at certain times of the year to survive on the natural vegetation. Interesting to see so many cows in a place where you are camping!! And at least once I tried to use my cell phone, at it did work.

We drove down about 2 miles until road started to get rough and found an excellent camp spot for 2 rigs. It was very quiet and no traffic. This was Saturday also and we found that most traffic turned around at the rough area by the big field. Would definitely stay here again. Got Verizon service once we got to the big field and rough road began.

We stayed here just one night, traveling through. It’s a popular spot and the sites are all visible from the road, so not our most quiet/private National Forest boondocking experience.

We drove up to the meadow but it was very crowded, so we turned around and opted for a roadside spot in the valley.

Don’t count on cell service or solar if you are staying in the valley. It’s a deep valley with lots of trees. But there is a very nice creek that runs along the backside of all those sites (dry in October), fire pits and level spots available. Some have very steep entrances off the main road though. Our 15’ TT did just fine, if you’re in something bigger you might head to the meadow.