Pine Springs Campground

Stayed: 10/12 - 10/14/2020 - $15/night

Site: 5

Vehicle: Hyundai Rogue

Equipment: Tent

Beautiful little first come, first served campground within Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Pretty private for the most part, although we could easily see site 4 and the people staying there.

I was hoping for site 1 or 2, as you can park directly in-front of the site, but those were both taken, along with sites 19& 20. Site 5 wasn’t too bad of a walk from the parking area, but it was a little further back. This was fine because we had privacy and two separate areas. One with our picnic table and a second area for the tent. We just weighed the tent and tarp down with rocks, because it was too rough for the stakes.

We were excited to stay here so that we would have easy access to the Guadalupe Peak trail in the morning. A short trail takes you to the visitor center. The campground is right at the trailhead of 4 trails and is adjacent to the RV section. The RV section holds the trailhead, water filling station, bathrooms, potable water, dishwashing station and self-registration.

It was nice to have bathrooms and running water after a long trip. No showers. Beautiful views of the mountains and stars. A great place to stay if you’re visiting the park for more than a day!

AT&T and Sprint: Poor & spotty

I like this campsite a lot because of the view. I also like it because the trails are so close that you can walk to them. The visitor center is close enough and it’s very clean. I also hardly recommend Guadalupe Peak, that is the biggest peak in Texas. The not cool part is that we cannot run generators after 8 o’clock but I respect it. So just go there if you’re near this campground.

Spent 3 nights. RV sites are 1st come 1st serve basis. With a National Parks Golden Pass, park entry is free (otherwise $10) and RV spots are $7.50 per night (otherwise $15). There are restrooms, and a potable water spigot. We have a Travato GL so all Lithium powered; generators not allowed from 8pm to 8am. For RVs, they basically repainted the parking lot with RV stops; so a little "tight" to other RVs; but it's a great location and cheap. For cell coverage, I was able to use both AT&T and Verizon; however both were slow so I turned on my WeBoost cell booster; So I give connectivity 3 stars, but that's enhanced by the booster.

Like others said, the RV campground is a parking lot. There is some AT&T reception and T-mobile, but I didn't have luck with Verizon/Visible. All first come first serve. I got lucky, came on Saturday and they still had 5 spots left. The nature is nice, lots of hiking trails to choose from. Bring everything, there is nothing in the park, no water, dump, or electricity. You can run your generator during the day but that's about it. I would come back just because of the hiking trails. It is noisy, it's a parking lot, you can hear the conversations of people next to you.

This campground sits at 6,000 feet nestled in the park’s namesake mountains. Considering the site for RV* camping is just a parking lot, the mountain views and easy access to hiking trails make this a wonderful place to camp for a short visit. There are no hook-ups but the bathrooms and nearby dishwashing station were clean and well-maintained. The close proximity to other travelers likely means you will be subjected to noisy generators. Once night fell, however, the campground was quiet. The volunteer camp hosts were delightful.

*Everything that’s not a tent (If you are tent camping, the sites looked really nice).

We found that as close as RVs are parked to each other that the place is surprisingly quiet.
It was a big plus for us even in an RV to have the bathrooms and kitchen sink washing station. We think the tenting area should be favored with better amenities. Some tenting sites are a looong ways from a vehicle parking. Verizon was on again, off again. The campground wakes up early as many are hitting the trails, especially to Guadalupe Peak, but also goes to bed early. Our opinion is that it was an indictment and bad advertising that the 45' Tiffin Allegro owner couldn't wait until 8 a.m. to start the generator.

First of all it’s a National Park with great trails and it’s only $15/night to boondock. There are some narrow sites but there are also some nice wide spots! We found the other campers to be very friendly and eager to share stories. We got here about 11:15AM and had a wide choice of spots but as the day went on it filled up. it’s now 8PM and the last spot was taken. Happy Camping!!!

NOTE: Fee posted is the senior rate.

This was just a quick overnight tent camping trip the night before the Blue Origins launch (side note: even though we found an overlook just a few miles from the launch site and had binoculars, we didn't see a thing other than the rocket contrail. And it was over and done in not much over 15 minutes).

Check-in: sites are on a first-come, first served basis. It's a popular place, easily accessible from El Paso and Las Cruces, and fills up quickly, so get there early if you can. Stop at the visitor center to pay the entrance fee. If you have a valid National Park pass, you can get a handy hanger there for your rear view mirror in which you insert the card and leave facing out. The tent sites are positioned surrounding an open gravel parking area just downhill from and next to the paved parking area. Each tent site has a small clip on a post holding a laminated card with "occupied" printed on one side, and "unoccupied" on the other. Find an unoccupied spot, flip the card, put some stuff there in case people don't notice the "occupied" card, go pay the camping fee at the kiosk in the paved parking area.

The campsite was great, the surroundings gorgeous. We wandered the closer trails and checked out the visitor center. The pit toilets were very clean, the trails well marked and the visitor center has an extensive display about the plants and animals of the area, really informative. We were there in the monsoon season, so it was as lush and green as it gets. I recommend you bring some form of shade. Each tent site has a picnic table. No fire rings.

June and July are the rainy months, come prepared for rainstorms.

We'll definitely camp there again, but I'll bring earplugs. The campsite is very close to the highway. so you'll hear trucks laboring up the grade and the air brakes as they descend, and just regular car noise as well, all night long. If you're at all sensitive to road nose, that's something to be aware of. Also to my surprise was a lot of jet noise at night. Like, every 10 minutes a low flying jet. I can't figure this one out, the closest airports capable of handling that kind of aircraft are ELP/Biggs Field in El Paso, and those just aren't that busy (our apartment overlooks both, we have a very good idea of air traffic on our area, :->).

Anyway, the area is gorgeous, we'll be back for a longer stay (me with earplugs, lol).

We spent a night here as we hiked the Guadalupe Peak trail. There is a restroom with clean flush toilets and a water bottle refill station/water fountain. There is also a dishwashing station by the restrooms. A potable water area is located where you check yourself into the campsite. It it first come first serve but I did read they will start taking reservations Oct. 1st. There were maybe 7 other campers when we were there. Quiet place to spend the night.

Very beautiful surroundings, well maintained paved sites. No hookups, but clean restrooms and decent cell service. Whether just wanting to enjoy the views, or wanting to hike the trails I would recommend this campground. Utilizing our Senior Golden Pass was only $10. We toured Carlsbad Caverns while visiting.