Camping trip: San Gregorio lake hike and camping in the Jemez, Fri 5/29/20 (1 Viewer)

[alia176]

I'll be taking my daughter to the Jemez mountain for a night of camping then go check out San Gregorio lake sat morning. I'm not sure where we'll be camping but more than likely it'll be off of FR533. Camping near the trailhead will be too crowded for my taste, I have a feeling. After the hike on Sat, we can tool around the Jemez or go check out Bisti Badlands near Farmington. After spending few hours walking around Bisti, grabbing lunch, we can head home or go somewhere else. Or we can stay in the Jemez and tool around some more sat after the hike then go camp somewhere else. I'm good with whatever.

As of now, I'll be leaving Fri after work, and meet up at the Home Depot in Bernalillo. Let's plan to meet at HD around 5:30-ish and plan for crappy construction traffic through Bernalillo.

Please download google the offline map of this part of the Jemez into your phone before leaving wifi!! YouTube has instructions on how to perform this task and it's very simple.

Per Larry's suggestion let's convoy to this location tonight. 35.97316, -106.86979 This is off of FR533, which is a spur road heading south from FR126. You can approach FR126 through Cuba (via 550) or through La Cueva (via hwy 4). Cuba approach will be faster even though it's farther. Driving on hwy 4 through Jemez springs will be a nightmare today.

We'll be camping at 8,000' so prepare accordingly. No fires are allowed unless someone has a propane fire pit. It'll be cold at night!

Let me know if you'd like to join.

 

[ststephen69s]

I’ll see if I can get it together by then, I would like to go. That is if the forest road 533 is suitable for the van. I need to get out.

 

[NMBound]

Sarai and I are in.

We'll meet you at home depot. We're tent camping, so I prefer a spot that's level!

 

[Poupon]

I'm not going to make this one but sounds fun. Amanda has a virtual graduation on Saturday. I am guessing that we will all huddle around our computer/TV instead of congregating in an auditorium. I would not want to miss her celebration.

As mentioned, we got our trailer to a nice easy accessible, but remote camp spot, right off 533 last weekend. We hiked up to the reservoir the next day and can confirm that lots of large RV/campers will be along the road that departs 126 towards the trail head parking lot. The spot we stayed at had no people for miles. We may have seen one ranger and heard two vehicles the entire time on that side of 126. The spot is tucked out of site of the 533. Just a short spur path and down a slope about 300 yards. You will like it. two trucks would be spacious but you could get 5 or more trucks in there if you didn't mind a more condensed experience.

This might be a good target spot to scope out once you get up there Friday. Let us know if you find any other spots, so we can mark them on our maps.

Here is the .gpx with Gaia details on the camp spot. Also some pix.

GPX viewer

 

[alia176]

Thanks for the report on 533, Larry.

 

[Poupon]

Ash, I updated my prior response with .gpx file that shows camp spot. Let me know if you are able to load this into your Gaia app since this stuff is new for me.

Thanks.

 

[thegadgetguy]

I'm in!

 

[ststephen69s]

I am definitely in. Home Depot at 5:30!

 

[krazykat69]

I'm not going to make this one but sounds fun. Amanda has a virtual graduation on Saturday. I am guessing that we will all huddle around our computer/TV instead of congregating in an auditorium. I would not want to miss her celebration.

As mentioned, we got our trailer to a nice easy accessible, but remote camp spot, right off 533 last weekend. We hiked up to the reservoir the next day and can confirm that lots of large RV/campers will be along the road that departs 126 towards the trail head parking lot. The spot we stayed at had no people for miles. We may have seen one ranger and heard two vehicles the entire time on that side of 126. The spot is tucked out of site of the 533. Just a short spur path and down a slope about 300 yards. You will like it. two trucks would be spacious but you could get 5 or more trucks in there if you didn't mind a more condensed experience.

This might be a good target spot to scope out once you get up there Friday. Let us know if you find any other spots, so we can mark them on our maps.

Here is the .gpx with Gaia details on the camp spot. Also some pix.

GPX viewer

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Larry, Glad you had a good campout. Looks like you found a great spot.

 

[krazykat69]

I can't go on this camp out with you, Ash. but I may come over to Home Depot and visit a while before you all leave. Looks like a great weekend to camp in the high country.

 

[alia176]

that'd be great Jeff and I'm looking forward to meeting your "new to you" gal!

Oh, please bring homemade warm cookies

 

[alia176]

I updated the first post with one camping location possibility based on larry's suggestion.

We'll be camping at 8,000' so prepare accordingly. No fires are allowed unless someone has a propane fire pit. It'll be cold at night!

 

[pappy]

We'll be camping at 8,000' so prepare accordingly. It'll be cold at night!

I was camped in the Gila at 8000 feet, and it was 39 degrees at night. The days were in the 80's.

 

[krazykat69]

that'd be great Jeff and I'm looking forward to meeting your "new to you" gal!

Oh, please bring homemade warm cookies

I have some store bought cookies that I will bring, really.

 

[alia176]

Good times yesterday, thank you all for showing up and enjoying the Santa National Forest together. The camp spot, aka "the turd box spot per Larry" is able to accomodate few rigs and it's level. Isabelle and I explored FR-103, FR-257 & FR-144 some more after saying goodbye to the main group.

She got more driving practice on dirt while I cringed on the cliff side of the shelf roads. This girl has a serious need for speed and hasn't figured out how easily a top heavy rig can go sideways around the corners

I found another spot that I need to figure out how to access before posting up the location. It has a closed gate now and I'll find out what's the deal with it.

 

[2manycruisers]

Did you get rain? We were in Santa Fe and it looked pretty stormy in the Jemez and the Sangres

 

[thegadgetguy]

Great trip @alia176 - thanks for organizing!

Did you get rain? We were in Santa Fe and it looked pretty stormy in the Jemez and the Sangres

I got sprinkled on coming into Albuquerque, but we didn't get rained on at all Friday night or during the day (maybe @alia176 did later in the day?). It was thundering fairly close by when we were at the lake though.

 

[ststephen69s]

Thanks Ash for putting the camping trip together, had a great time. Lotsa fun after we left you getting some low range fun on FR117. Thanks Aaron!