Davis Willow

A less-improved campground in a ponderosa pine forest about a mile from the Pecos river. This campground appears to get the overflow from other campgrounds such as Mora and Terrero as well as people who just want a less crowded camping experience.

Campground data:

Controlling agency:	Santa Fe National Forest; Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District
Location in the state:	North-central; Sangre de Cristo Mountains
Waypoint(s):	DWLCG
Elevation:	8071ft; 2460m
Number of campsites:	19. Creative parking could provide many more.
When we visited it:	2001-09-23.
Cleanliness:	6/10
Fee:	$0.00.
Water:	No.
Garbage cans:	No.
Fire pits:	Yes. They are old and only some sites have them. Only some of the fire pits have cooking grates.
Cooking grills:	No.
Toilets:	Vault. The toilet door has been shot several times.
Showers:	No.
Handicapped accessible:	No.
RV info:	No electrical hookups. No water hookups. No sewer hookups.
When to camp:	Apr--Nov.

Maps:

Online from topozone.com
Online from terraserver-usa.com
Satellite image from terraserver-usa.com
USGS Topo Quad 1:24,000 Cowles
USGS Topo Quad 1:100,000 Santa Fe
USGS Topo Quad 1:250,000 Santa Fe
Santa Fe National Forest map

Getting to the campground:

From the town of Pecos, NM, take New Mexico 63 north. Cross the river near a sign pointing to the Holy Ghost campground (do not take the road to the Holy Ghost campground). Near the Terrero General Store (which offers showers for $5.00), the road makes a sharp right turn, but there is really no other place to go. A little past the store, but before you get to the old mine tailings on the right, take Forest Road 646 to the right (approximately eastward). After a few tenths of a mile, a small road takes off to the left. Do not take it, but remain on the main road. After about 0.8 mi, you will arrive at the campground.

Note that the road from Pecos is narrow and it has many sharp turns. Expect to take a good part of an hour to get from Pecos to the campground.

This campground also has the most unusual entrance sign I have ever seen. This ``temporary'' campground has obviously been around for several years.

The campground:

	The sites have picnic tables, and they are in better shape than those in the Mora campground.
One of the best features of this campground is the forest and the less-crowded nature of the campground.

Reader comments about this campground:

On Mon Aug 8 05:39:07 2005 G Turner from somewhere said:
I was lucky enough to stay at the Davis Willow camp July 2005. Not much change, still had a rough and rocky road, which to me, detered traffic. We stayed a little higher up the mountain. It was peaceful and quiet. We had to rebuild our fire ring, but had a few kids that really enjoyed that part of the camping ritual. It was clean and the fresh mountain air and afternoon showers were enjoyable. We did have some heavy traffic on Friday...several pickups with 4wheelers. I was told later on that there was an area up above us for 4wheelers. We only had them visit our camp once, thank goodness... it was the ONLY real distraction we had. Overall, the visit was wonderful. But I was looking for the seclusion.

On Thu Oct 11 10:58:05 2007 Bill Brandenburg from Lufkin Texas said:
I just spent a week at Davis Willow Campground and the sights were fantastic. Alot of roads in the area to drive on, and friendly people. The only problem we had was nighttime visitors,,,mainly SKUNKS. Every night, we had a skunk either just outside the tent or "in" the tent, yes, in the tent. If you choose to camp here, by all means, camp off the ground, and watch out for skunks, they are everywhere and visit every camp site during the night.

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