Big Tesuque Campground

The Big Tesuque campground has 10 first-come-first-served tent sites, all within hearing distance of 2 beautiful mountain streams and all fairly level. The mountain views, cool temps, and the rushing stream were pretty idyllic. A few of the sites will accommodate a 6-person tent, but most sites are more suitable for up to 4-person tents. The campground has picnic tables, fire rings, pit toilets and garbage cans. I would have given it 4 stars but cell coverage was spotty and very slow and that's a critical item for us.

If tent camping, you will need to park you car in the parking lot and carry all your gear to your site. Sites 1-5 are on the northern or uphill side of the campground, and sites 6-10 are on the southern or downhill side. There are streams running on each side of the campground and the noise of the rushing water does a great job of masking road noise. The campground was very clean at the time of our visit (June 2017).

There is one parking spot in front of site 6 (on the downhill side of the campground) that is very long. We were able to park our 29-foot Class A RV in the spot with our Jeep parked in front of it; however, the parking is sloped so we were not able to quite level the rig front-to-back, even using jack pads. Although a longer RV would fit in the spot I'm not sure you could safely level it. We did use the picnic table and fire ring from site 6, which is immediately behind the parking spot. Over the course of our stay we were joined by a small Class B van which solved the leveling problem by parking parallel to the wall (note: the parking lot gets busy on Saturday and VERY busy on Sunday, so you wouldn't want to park this way on the weekend).

Cell coverage was barely workable, in spite of our phones telling us we had 4G coverage. Even with a booster, the Verizon phone sometimes couldn't even sustain a phone conversation. AT&T coverage with the booster was workable for data but NOT for streaming.

There’s at least an inch of solid ice across most of the campground in the winter. Couldn’t stake tent in through the ice so I slept in the car.

Right off the paved road and pretty close to Santa Fe. It's quiet at night.

Only amenities is two vault toilets and trash cans.

Not crowded at all during the two weekdays I stayed. This site also has cell service thought I barely got one bar with both Verizon and T-Mobile, but I did have decent access even with 1 bar. With my weBoost on, I got 2-3 bars with both service and had no issues streaming video.

I stayed here in late November on a weekend and it was great. Nice and quiet. Right at several trailheads. Unlocked and clean vault toilet a few feet away. There were 3 other cars parked near me. There was only one person in a tent. By 10am, the place filled up with day hikers.

19' camper van. The parking lot is not level.

About an hour up the road from downtown Santa Fe-perfect getaway and many other subiee parking spots just a ways up-- always see tents pitched and a couple lingering folks.
dump stations, bathroom facilities.

Favorite things about the area parking right off the road, access to two streams, forever a quick trek off the beaten path to makeshift aspen huts all around surrounding areas, great/good cell reception I see wildlife free and content nearly every visit.

Spent many evenings watching the sun drop out the sky its beauty eaten like fire in the tree scape.. The night sky is amazing out there, a partial view of the eclectic city can be seen-look out point just a bit more up the road-ski base etc only a hop, skip and a parkour jump away-

We spent one night here, camped right next to a steadily moving stream. There are 10 sites, five on each side, enough space between each site to have some privacy. There is one public bathroom directly in front of parking area, there are about 4 trash cans in the parking area. Take the time to drive up to the top of the mountain to see over the entirety of Santa Fe, out to Albuquerque, and surrounding towns.

One very important note on this site— clean up your food, and anything food related. Essentially... leave no trace!!! We spent far too much time cleaning up trash in the stream and surrounding campsites. For a location that warns hikers/campers of wildlife (dangerous wildlife) we should work together to keep the area clean and free of mess. Cheers!

This is a nice, clean campground with two creeks running through it and great hiking nearby. It is very busy, however, and right on the road. You can escape some of the road noise by using campsites further in, but you will have many day hikers passing by. It's quiet at night, though, before all the hikers and bikers show up. We did not get service with AT&T anywhere in the area. There's lots of hiking trails around and the parking lots at trailheads seem to fill up each day. Those in vans or small RV's could just sleep in the parking lot.

We didn’t read reviews closely enough and didn’t know until we arrived that this is really only a tent camping site, there’s no way to drive up to a campsite. It’s a pull off area directly next to the main road with a small parking lot, bathrooms, and trash cans. We stopped the first week of April and the whole area was covered in snow. We could have easily just stayed in the parking lot, but the snow scared us away so we drove back down the mountain and paid $14 for an electric site at Hyde Memorial State Park instead. I probably wouldn’t stay here again because I’m not interested in tent camping. I also had really spotty Tmobile service here, 1 bar in and out.

Gorgeous, free campground half hour outside Santa Fe. Lovely streams running nearby. Easily accessible in any vehicle.

It is about 10,000 feet in elevation. It got below freezing and snowed during the night in mid-May. Be prepared.

Be aware for tents only.
It is a parking lot and then walkin.