Quaking Aspen Campground

Actual website: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/cibola/recarea/?recid=64066

Real clean and level sites. Like real nice for tent camping. Great for mountain biking trails. No one was there when I was there, early September.

I cannot believe how empty this campground was when I was there (June 2 & 3, 2017)!

It's close to immaculate (I say *close to* because there's no host so people have been sloppy with the trash cans), the sites are all nice and mostly level--and many of them are huge. Vault toilets (which I did not use), trash cans, but no water. Pack it in, pack it out is always my mantra and recommendation.

Every site has a fire pit, grill, and picnic bench--and really nice tent pads--situated among the ponderosa pines (quaking aspens, not so much--on the drive in, but not that I saw in the campground). Site #10 was large enough for two of us (I was camping with a friend--two vans fit with room to spare). Several sites were pull-through and could accommodate two small to moderate vehicles.

I would definitely return to Quaking Aspen!

Have correct change. There is a pay box, no camp host. We paid the $2.50, senior rate.

Only problem, the road was a one way around the camp. All the drive through spots had the trailer door on the street side. Someone designed this park who does not know trailers.

Road to the park was not for LONG vehicles.There is a warning sign at the bottom of the hill.

A nice basic campground in the forest. Mostly pine trees (didn’t see any aspen - quaking or otherwise), mountain wildflowers and crisp, clean air.

Sites were clean, level, and plenty long for our 22 ft trailer plus a truck. Site pads for tents, picnic tables and fire pits were relatively new.

Unfortunately, no cell service. But who needs cell when you have spectacular wilderness at which to gaze. A great place for one night, but few diversions if you plan to stay for awhile.

This was a relatively great location for the price. We had maybe a 10 minute drive from the main highway on a paved road and had no issue getting into the camp. The big thing is to make sure to stop at the information board and grab an envelope and ticket receipt for the $5.00 overnight stay.

The section we stayed in was just off the road and had a picnic table, grill, and fire pit, all of which looked relatively new. There was also tent pads in place that we used, although the gravel made it tough to sleep on and get our pins firmly in place.

The site itself looked to have about 12 locations, many of which were filled with a mix of RVs and cars. There were basic toilets on site and a dumpster that had been locked but someone cut the chain to.

Most of the campers were quiet by 10 and between the soft noises of the surrounding forest and the wind from the higher elevation, it was a quiet night. We were woken up around 4:00 am by gun shots deep in the woods, although we assumed it was either a ranger or hunter. The location is by a road as well and you can occasionally hear cars going by.

Overall it was a great experience and I would easily camp here again.

We were going to stay at Red Rock Campground near Gallup (and the nearby casino), but we opted against Red Rock campsite for inordinate number of low-rent full timer's, while not homeless, it was decidedly not our ideal overnight rest stop - even though we could/would have stayed there if need be. Reservations were required at Red Rock and their reservation availability didn't correlate with actual reality. Office was closed there too, so good luck there.

So we opted to drive to McGaffe campground / Quaking Aspen campground - WE WERE GLAD WE DID. Awesome, clean, perfect, not crowded, impressive. What a difference 20 miles makes! It was early October 2022, and sites were showing past documented (by post) occupancy, but obviously a treasure not many folks were aware of.

We were in site #10 at Quaking Aspen, nice pull-through campsite. Clean maintained rest rooms. No showers, no handheld cell service, but we even a couple sheriffs did pass through - yay we were happy to see McKinley County presence out in the boondocks!

We did manage to get Verizon 4G service with our WeBoost OTR repeater on top of the camper to coordinate a future visit with friends at Chaco, but NO CELL Service without our roof-top cell repeater.

We were planning on a stay there on the return trip from Chaco Canyon, but both McGafee campgrounds had closed Oct 15th for the winter season. We instead drove to RVUsa campground in Gallup, NM, also a camping winner!

Arrive Memorial Day. Next morning most campers left. This was a well kept campground. Quiet and peaceful. I stay an extra day since I liked it so much. Great place to ride your bikes.

Stayed for 2 nights in a 20' Boreas EOS 12 pulled by a Power Wagon. Pull through site 10 was perfect. Arrived early on Friday and largely had our choice. The campground never got completely full, but it is popular on weekends. Very clean and well-kept. Large trucks were busy hauling something northbound and produced a lot of noise during the day. Nights were quiet.

Gallup and grants are is about a perfect half way Point for us but we just keep going as this area is ummm, not so nice. We found this amazing jem just 5 miles off I40 and a great road. What a score! Clean and quiet with huge sites.