West Mesa Road Dispersed Camping

We stayed here as part of a road trip back to Tucson with our previous stop in Western Oklahoma. There are two large sites on the right ~0.5 miles from NM-220. The road was in great condition and each of these sites can accommodate 2-3 rigs (depending on size). The camping area has amazing views and infrequent/distant road noise. We camped in the first site on a Thursday in mid August and only saw one other camper (in the second site) and one truck drive down the road in the morning. Cell service on Verizon was good for messaging, email, and web. We only stayed one night but I would love to come back to the area and spend more time.

Stayed here 4/25/20 to 5/9/20. There aren't many campsites here, but my friends and I (one other rig) were able to pick up one of the first spots. There's a massive pull-through site that could accommodate any rig, but that was occupied so we took the site before it which was no problem for two medium sized travel trailers. It's quiet and peaceful up here, with a lot of privacy between the sites. There's also a ton of great hiking and mountain biking trails around. Plus you have the equestrian campground just down the road where you can fill up with water and dump your tanks. Ruidoso is about 20 miles away and has most things you need. The small town of Capitan actually had a nice coin-op laundry facility as well. Verizon cell service here was perfect and I had no trouble working or streaming video for the two weeks I was here.

Highly recommend this area if you're looking for a spot a bit off the beaten path!

This campsite was incredible. Close enough to highways and the main road to not feel like an adventure getting there, far enough off the beaten path to be quiet and feel private. The sites were roomy, ours was almost perfectly flat and offered a surprising bit of shade. The trickiest part of the the stay was making the right turn off of 220 to get to the gravel road that leads to the sites.

We LOVED our stay here! The views of the mountains here are incredible! There’s lots of hiking trails to enjoy and the area is very well-kept! The downside to this location is that there’s only two sites available. The first site is on the right side of the road and it’s very large and level. However, it was already taken when we arrived. Luckily, there’s another site a little further up the road on the left. We stayed there and enjoyed every minute of it. We heard coyotes howling every night! We only saw two cars pass by us while we were there. It’s very quiet and secluded. The road in is well graded and we didn’t have any issues driving in. With that being said, there are very few places to turn around if both sites are accupied.

The Fort Stanton Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area is at the epicenter of about a thousand things to do. From this site, it was an easy day trip to Lincoln State Monument, Ruidoso and the Hubbard Museum, Billy the Kid Scenic Byway, Ski Apache, Fort Stanton, the Smokey Bear Museum, and tons of hiking on the east side of the Sierra Blanca range.

The site is less than a 1/2 mile from highway 220, on a super well graded dirt road. The site is fairly spacious, but there is a tight turn to get into it which probably limits it to RVs less than 30 feet. There was a bit of trash, and the whole area had a bit of a slope, but nothing that we couldn't remedy with our jacks. In the 6 days we were there, we saw less than 20 cars on the dirt road, and the only noises were the wind in the trees. At the nearby Fort Stanton Equestrian Trail Head, you'll find trash, potable water, and a dump ($15). Smokey's Country Market in Capitan was great for a small town grocery store.

One warning: apparently, this area is busy only during hunting season--and it seems that there are various hunting seasons for different game, not just one date range. You may want to check with the BLM office to confirm you won't be there during those times.