Dispersed Camping near Carlsbad/Guadalupe Mtns

[2WheelRob]

Howdy all,
im planning a road trip in November to New Mexico. Just a quick 5 or 6 day loop. I've never done any disbursed camping, ever! so I'm just hoping for some clarification on the rules. I have Gaia and OnX for finding public vs private lands. Am I understanding right that I can just drive off into the desert and camp for the night? Being from Tx where there is so little public lands its just baffling to me that this is an option. Are there any unwritten rules? it would just be one night at each place. We are going to be visiting Guadalupe Mountains NP and Carlsbad Caverns NP. then heading to White Sands NP for a visit.

Anyone familiar with that area have any recommendations? I've just been looking on satellite images to find some neat little places and just want to make sure that I'm doing things right.

Thanks in Advance

 

[Dave in AZ]

Am I understanding right that I can just drive off into the desert and camp for the night? Being from Tx where there is so little public lands its just baffling to me that this is an option. Are there any unwritten rules

You can dispersed camp in different ways in different government land. Each one has their own rules that you need to look up.
1. BLM land, allowed where NOT marked "no camping".
2. USFS national forests, allowed where shown on the forest maps. You can puck these up at ranger offices, which you can google. Also, they use Avensa Maps, free, and have a free forest road overlay you can get. Some roads are camp within 300ft of road, one or both sides as marked. Some are camp only on pullouts from the road.
3. State trust land. In AZ you need to get a $14 permit, then you're good.

Best way to start out finding camp spots, IMO, is ioverlander.com

I just looked a bit. I would personally do Lincoln National forest, S of cloudcroft. It also has a chunk just W of Carlsbad caverns. Ioverlander.com shows lots of dispersed camping there. I like these best, as you can camp without seeing anyone else.

 

[2WheelRob]

Thanks for the info. I have tried Avensa Maps and if im remembering correctly it was difficult to use but ill give it another shot

 

[Dave in AZ]

@2WheelRob I just added a bit, try lincoln nat forest. I'm looking for the map overlay now...

Ok. Download Avensa, the base map.
Then go to Store, in the map app, and search for Motor vehicle use map (MVUM), Guadalupe Ranger District. This map shows the dispersed camping all around Guadalupe, Carlsbad, and up near cloudcroft. This will be nice, cool, mountainous, better than stuff around white sands. Im looking at it now, and now I want to go out there!

I actually drove around Flagstaff forests last week for many hours, the map shows your gps position as you drive, on the forest roads, and .uch better accuracy than google maps. You can mark spots on your map... I marked over 70 camping spots as I drove, and uploaded notes and private pictures to the map file on my phone. Now when I want to camp there, I can browse all the roads, spots, photos right in Avensa. Fantastic!

 

[Dave in AZ]

Also, use this Nat Forest interactive map to get phone #s and map ordering info for all Nat forests, gets you started well.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/ivm/index.html?minx=-12255972&miny=3852519&maxx=-11864614&maxy=4038719&exploremenu=no