San Lorenzo Canyon Recreation Area Dispersed Camping

This is the best campground I’ve stayed so far.
Finding it was so difficult. Regarding other reviews; Maverick Travel center’s name has changed to Road runner Travel center.
Take a right before the entrance. Go straight until the end of the road. After about 7-8 miles the paved road will lead you to right but don’t go there. Turn left to dirt road. You will see the San Lorenzo sign. Follow the main dirt road and you will find it.
These are the coordinates I tried to take at the Canyon;
34.24248° N, 106.99730° W

First of all, if you rely on Google maps, DO NOT look for San Lorenzo Canyon! As many reviews here indicate, Google will send you to the wrong side of the canyon. Instead, Google “Cañon De Las Cabras” and the directions will take you to the mouth of the canyon. The road in is often rutted and VERY sandy at the edges, but if you stay in the center, small to medium size rigs should have no problem. There is ZERO cell service in the canyon, but as soon as you leave, Verizon kicks in.

Once you get there, there are a number of sites, and each is different. It’s all BLM so the sites are free. The first site, and the hardest to find is on your right as you enter the canyon. It is a smaller canyon that appears to just be a crack, but one which will accommodate a single vehicle. That’s where I stayed with my truck tent. It was breathtakingly beautiful and night was completely silent.

Please remember to “pack it in/pack it out”!

From Rt 25, take the Lemitar NM exit (Maverick travel center). Drive west towards Maverick travel center an just before entrance, turn right on to Frontage Rd. Follow road until it splits and you see sign for San Lorenzo Canyon on left. From that point to the canyon, many campsites just off graded dirt road. Prior to reaching the canyon, you drive on a soft old river bed that may be a challenge if wet.

These directions avoid the very narrow tunnels other approaches will require.

Beautiful scenery, endless privacy, but no facilities, high wind, and harder getting there than anticipated. By far worth it and one of my favorite boon docking spots to date. Stayed one night on the earlier spots about 5 minutes off of the paved road (with high wind) and moved deeper into the canyon at night (also with high wind). Only had 2WD so moving deeper into the canyon was a little tricky, but made it there after some careful driving. The area is completely spacious with your pick of spots to park, all pretty level. There's a hiking trail deeper into the canyon. Rigs taller than 14' should be careful the road they take to enter the canyons--one route goes under a very narrow, low bridge.

Rather than trust the GPS, it's easier to just get off at the Lemitar Exit from I-40 and follow Frontage Rd northbound. Frontage Rd is on either side of the interstate--and both roads will get you there, as they connect via tunnel a few miles up the road.

Once you get to a wash path and signs saying San Lorenzo Canyon, follow that path to the left. Stay on it for 15ish minutes to get deeper into the canyon, or just stop earlier for a view overlooking the area and less stressful road conditions.

I already reviewed this site almost 2 years ago but I haven't seen anyone else mention coming in from the paved road to the east of the freeway instead of from the long, bumpy dirt road on the west side of the freeway.
It turns out that right where the San Lorenzo canyon area begins, next to the freeway, there is a little dirt access road that goes UNDER the freeway and connects to the local paved frontage Road on the EAST side of the freeway. (I accidentally discovered this because I didn't know about the long dirt access road on the west side of the freeway.)
I remember that the tunnel was very small and so probably wouldn't have been able to handle a fifth wheel or some tall rig like that, but handled my pickup truck and pop up trailer just fine.I also found that the dirt access road was not really marked and really difficult to find in the dark, even though it was only about 100 yards from the paved frontage road to the tunnel, as I recall.
So I'm posting this in case some intrepid explorer wants to find - and document - that dinky tunnel from the paved frontage road and thus gain access directly to this BLM land parcel by coming in from the west side. This could also be accomplished by someone leaving the San Lorenzo area through this tunnel, of course. :-)

There were a lot of fresh washouts and us novice campers rocked our wolfpup good trying to make it up the road so we set up for the night in the early part of the road. Very scenic and only saw a couple other vehicles out here so far. By the time we got well up the road we lost service with both Verizon and t-mobile but do have service closer to the highway.

I'm guessing the previous reviewer made the mistake of following the directions from Google Maps or a similar app, which tells you to get off at the San Acacia exit and go north about 5 miles on the access road along the west side of I-25. That route will take you to a locked gate going into the wildlife refuge. It's never open.

The correct route is to get off at the Lemitar exit and again, go north on the access road. After several miles, you'll come to a fork in the road. The paved road turns right and passes under I-25. If you look to your left, however, you'll see a sign for the canyon pointing to a dirt road. Follow that for several miles and you'll come to the entrance sign and a cattle guard. NOW you're in the right place. Keep following the dirt road on back into the canyon.

Nothing new to say about the canyon itself. It was 98 degrees over Memorial Day weekend, so bring plenty of water!

Very little traffic. We stayed at the very last spot at the end of the road at a lovely canyon with a firepit.

We stayed from 3pm on a Sunday night until 1pm on a Monday afternoon. We saw about a dozen hikers on Sunday and 1 group of hikers and a group of horseback riders on Monday. The last spot is also the turn around for the road and we had about a dozen people turn around near our teardrop trailer.

Only nuisance was 10 locals coming in at 5pm in 2 ATVs blaring a loud radio—with the intention to party all night next to our camper. They politely left after I went to make a fire in the firepit.

The road is bumpy gravel and was just fine for my stationwagon and teardrop trailer. It takes 35 minutes to get to this site from I-25. Max speed in a stationwagon is 10mph.

In January it was definitely a chilly overnight with no heat. (We have a heater that only works with electric hookup). But we managed with 2 comforters. Daytime was sunny and pleasant with a sweatshirt.

Found 3 pieces of garbage, which is pretty good in my opinion.