Taos Junction Dispersed Camping

Boondocking spot off Forest Road 557 in the Carson National Forest. If you drive along this dirt road, you'll find a number of possible sites, some with stone fire rings. It's a pinyon - juniper - sage brush area, and you can find either shade or sun.

It's a boondocking spot, so there are no facilities besides those stone fire rings. It was very quiet at night, and there was nobody else camped here while I was here in July 2017. It's easy to access, not far from the junction of 285 and 567. It's also about 10 miles north of Ojo Caliente, the famous hot springs resort. You can camp here, and easily drive down there to use their facilities for the day. There's also some pretty cool hiking around there!

The road in was fine when I drove it, and looked passable for any vehicle. But there were some ruts in places that look like it could be a problem if it's wet and muddy, so use your judgment.

STAYED: June 17th to June 23rd, 2018

ACCESS
Forest Road 557 is right off of highway 285. The main road of 557 is in very good condition and appears to be well maintained. Access was a breeze for our gas Class A. I would suspect that most any rig would not have trouble, though use caution if the weather is wet.

Sites begin less than a quarter mile down the road if you would like to avoid going too far, but 557 continues pretty far if you are looking to get further out.

LOCATION
This site is ideally located for a number of the sights and attractions of the area.

-About 10 minutes from Ojo Caliente
-40 minutes from Taos
-1:15 from the Taos 38/64 loop
-30 minutes from the Earthship headquarters
-40 minutes from the Black Rock Hot Springs

We day tripped to each of these destinations from this site.

CLEANLINESS
When we were there in June 2018, there was a first site directly at the entrance to FR557 which was covered in trash. However, all of the other sites that we looked at were clean.

In general, there was a fair amount of regular camping trash left in the sites we looked at, and throughout the forest. Bottles, wrappers, old cans, bullet shells, etc.

As far as national forests go, this one was fairly median on cleanliness. Less clean than some, but much cleaner than others.

SITE QUALITY
The site we choose while we were there was incredible. We found a large clearing with perfect daytime shade from the tall Juniper and Pinyon pines in the area. The forest is absolutely beautiful, plus from our site, we had incredible views of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the distance.

While we were there, this area was very quiet. Some days one car passed on the road, and for the rest, we didn’t see a soul. Ideal solitude. :D
NOISE
The first few spots are still close enough to the highway that there is a slight amount of road noise, however, the highway is relatively low-traffic so this is very easy to overlook.

CELL RECEPTION
We stayed at 36.359753,-105.891524 when we were there, and we enjoyed 3-4 bars of fast, AT&T 4GLTE, unboosted. No Verizon. However, for some reason, this specific spot seemed to have the only reception in the whole area. Further down 557 we couldn’t pick up any reception, nor closer to the highway.

When we would pull back into our site after being out for the day, our phones would immediately connect as soon as we pulled in. It was somewhat uncanny. lol

The reception was fast enough for all of our work needs. Calls, screen shares, uploads, downloads. We even did a Facebook live broadcast while there.

We didn’t expect anything, but this ended up being one of our top boondocking stays. Beautiful forest, great views, well located, extremely quiet. We plan to return if we’re ever in northern New Mexico again!

We love boondocking, but after seeing the mess at Taos Junction I can’t say I’m very fond of humans. We found a lovely site not far from the entrance (turn left before the big dip in the road). Unfortunately, it had been used as a dump site too. Garbage, an old Christmas tree, and more TP than I care to think about.

We walked the maze of roads and there are plenty of options for smaller rigs and a few others that would accommodate larger coaches. If you go further down the road there are some areas that you’ll need to take slow and careful. A little less garbage as you got further in, except for one area where there had to be a 100 broken jars – shooting practice?

We visited Taos from here but it was about 40 miles and given the condition of the dispersed area we would look for something else next time. The 1-star rating is for larger rigs, smaller rigs may like the area better.

We had 2 bars of Verizon 4G.

First few days we stayed in a spot that turned off to the left about a 6th of a mile in. The spot is trashed and TP'ed to death.

We then packed up and moved in deeper along the freshly grated road. About a half-mile in several appealing spots opened up. Many of these are gorgeous and limited in trash or disturbance. Apparently this area has not been broadly used of recent.

In the deeper interior the area, weather and views are gorgeous. As this area is by a major road into and from Colorado, there is some noise that gets quieter the further in you go.

Open hiking, no established paths that are identifiable.

Purely dispersed with no amenities...come prepared with all supplies. The nearest major town is Espanola, NM. About 25 to 40 minutes south.

Notes:
Main road freshly grated and filled in, be careful of soft patches on the main road into the area. This area was accessible as of June 9th. No Covid Closure.

Super deep, flour fine dust. Road in was dry when we stayed, but if wet it would be a nightmare of mud. There are plenty of sites here; we counted 8, and there were probably more beyond where we camped.

These are pull offs in the woods. There was no trash as was commented previously. We arrived at night and there wasn't anyone at any of the pull offs. The phone service was great but I left bc my camper van felt like it wanted to get stuck. I wouldnt feel comfortable staying here alone though.

Not a fan of this dispersed camping ground. It’ll do if you’re in a bind and need something, but like all the other posts, people DO NOT PICK UP AFTER THEMSELVES. There was toilet wipes, empty beer cans and paper towels at the site we had ended up going to, which was relatively clean...

There was one site with toilet paper, water bottles and an entire used toilet seat with basin in the middle of the road. Gross!

Always pack in and pack it out!