A widened parking area with a few picnic tables that at times more
resembles a busy parking lot than a campground. This heavily-used
campground provides hiking access to the wilderness and fishing
access to the lake.
Cabresto Lake
A widened parking area with a few picnic tables that at times more
resembles a busy parking lot than a campground. This heavily-used
campground provides hiking access to the wilderness and fishing
access to the lake.
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Campground data:
| Controlling agency: | Carson National Forest; Questa Ranger District; campground web site |
| Location in the state: | North-central; Carson National Forest |
| Waypoint(s): | CABRESTOCG |
| Elevation: | 9240ft; 2816m |
| Number of campsites: | 5. Depending on the acceptable density, more campsites without tables exist. The forest service says there are 9 sites here. |
| When we visited it: | 2005-09-02. |
| Cleanliness: | 3/10. After I picked up 406 pieces of litter, our campsite was about as clean as the average forest service campsite (i.e., I got tired of picking up litter, and there was still more left). |
| Fee: | $0.00. |
| Water: | No. |
| Garbage cans: | No. |
| Fire pits: | Yes. Fire pits are rings of rocks. No cooking grates. |
| Cooking grills: | No. |
| Toilets: | Vault. |
| Showers: | No. |
| Handicapped accessible: | No. |
| RV info: | No electrical hookups. No water hookups. No sewer hookups. RVs are not recommended due to the road to the campground. |
| When to camp: | May--Sep. The actual season will depend on snow. |
| General comments: | This campground gets a lot of car/truck/SUV and ATV traffic. 21 came on Labor day weekend. The parking lot was full of cars and ATVs at 11:34am. Some campsites have flat areas for tents. A man came by asking if we had seen the person who stole his fishing reel from his fishing rod. Secure your belongings. |
Maps:
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Getting to the campground:
From the stoplight in Questa, go east on NM 38. After about 0.6 miles, a sign indicates a left turn on Kiowa road as the route. Stay on this road for abot 2.2 miles, where it ends at a T intersection. Turn right. From here, drive about 3.4 miles on what turns into forest road 134. You will see a sign pointing left and indicating Cabresto lake is 2 miles up the rough, narrow, and winding forest road 134A. Our odometer said 2.1 miles had passed when we arrived at the campground. The road dead-ends in the campground.
Two passenger cars made it up the road, but I would not recommend this.
The most secluded campsite is the first on the left as you enter the campground.
The campground:
 | Obviously, the primary draw for this area is the lake.
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These shy ducks found the lake a nice place to hang out.
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 | This was the view from our campsite. We kept the area in front of our
site open only because we stayed in the campsite and gave the evil eye
to those who arrived. Eventually, we lost, and our campsite was
completely parked in.
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In spite of our bad experience at this campground, it does have
potential.
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 | From the campground, you can see this prospecting hole that someone
blasted in the side of the hill. In the tailings, you can find iron
pyrite and goethite. You can see the trail at the bottom of the photo.
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Plants we saw in the campground:
Animals we saw in the campground:
Reader comments about this campground:
On Thu Jan 26 21:26:29 2006 Phillip from Austin, Texas said:Add your comments about the Cabresto Lake campground.
Visitors since the counter started: 6997
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