San Lorenzo Canyon Recreation Area

We drove the four miles in off the interstate to San Lorenzo Canyon the directions that were given for this site only talked about the BLM area just after passing the cattle guard when I pulled up the BLM website I found the canyon four miles further in so we picked up and moved into the canyon it is a 4-mile washboard Road all gravel but as long as you go slow we kept it about 10 miles per hour it won't beat you to death. ( only parts of the road are washboard just be prepared to slow down quickly) the hiking and the views in the canyon were absolutely out of this world so glad that we decided to take our chances and go down that road. A local horseback riding group comes down on the weekends and pulling a large cattle trailer with them full of horses and they take off on the trails there was campers from Albuquerque with a Airstream parked down there so it is doable for a larger vehicle plenty of turnaround spaces and it's just make your own spot wherever you want to camp there was plenty of pull-off areas and canyons to go explore and set up camp if you have a tent!!! There are some deep Sandy Gravely areas in the road just keep your rig moving and you'll be fine!!!

As other reviews mentioned, it is a long 5 mile drive in on a wash board road which is mostly a dry sandy river bed. 4wd was needed for us with a pickup and 30' travel trailer because of the deep loose sand in places.

Also, there are TWO skinny tunnels, depending whether you come from the north or south and where you get off the highway.

It was incredibly quiet and dark at night, however, a fair amount of hiking and sightseeing traffic during the weekend afternoons.

This area is owned by the Bureau of Land Management. It's a little bit hard to find and the road is a washboard, but with patience and slow speeds, we were able to make it just fine. We did have to pass through a narrow (14'-4" square) one-way tunnel, so beware if clearance is an issue.

There were no official campsites, no hookups and no facilities, but plenty of places to pull off along the dirt road and find a generous patch of level land. The reward? Complete darkness and quietude.

We drove about 4.5 miles to the canyon turn off and then a few more miles to our chosen spot. If your vehicle(s) can take it, the deeper you go in, the better. We drove until we couldn't hear the traffic and lost our cell phone signal. We did however, cheat a little by using our antenna to tune into the Super Bowl.

We walked along the road in the morning all the way to San Lorenzo Canyon which is definitely worth seeing, gorgeous views and stunning landscape.