Iron Gate

A small, clean campground with excellent access to the Pecos Wilderness such as Iron Gate to the Rio Mora.

Campground data:

Maps:

Online 1:100,000 from topozone.com Online 1:25,000 from topozone.com Online from terraserver-usa.com USGS Topo Quad 1:24,000 Elk Mountain USGS Topo Quad 1:100,000 Santa Fe USGS Topo Quad 1:250,000 Santa Fe Santa Fe National Forest Map, 1994 A map of the Pecos Wilderness exists, but I gave mine to a friend and have not yet replaced it.

Getting to the campground:

From I-25, take exit 299: Glorieta/Pecos. Follow the signs to Pecos. At the stop sign, turn left. A sign here indicates a left turn will take you to Colwes and Terrero. Follow the winding road through part of the town of Pecos and then through the Pecos River Valley. This road will take a little while to drive; don't be in a hurry. After the Terrero General Store, the road deteriorates some. You continue for several miles, then watch for a sign for Forest Road 233 and Iron Gate. Take this road. The sign says that this is a limited use road: not suitable for low-clearance vehicles. They are correct. I would not recommend taking a low-clearance car up this road. Follow the road about 5 miles to the Iron Gate campground.

The campground:

	This campground is used by many people who enter the Pecos Wilderness at the trailhead here. Many bring their horses with them; the campground has a corral. A photo of our friend Michael Wester in site 14 is to the left. You can see an overview of the campground in this photo.
Sites 2 and 5 looked like the nicest to stay in. Here is site 2. It is somewhat separate from the rest. As a result, it has more trees around it. Somebody obviously appreciated this, as they had set up their tent there.
	Site 5 is in the island formed by the loop road. However, it also has many trees around it and looks like a pleasant site to stay in.

Reader comments about this campground:

On Wed Jun 11 01:46:31 2003 dale white from fort worth said:
Trust them on the low clearance vehicle bit. Over the course of the summer the dirt road becomes washed out so to say. Runoff from rainwater creates trenches that are unpassable unless you are in a vehicle with a good amount of ground clearance. Don't rush; take your time once you venture off the paved roads. After all you are on vacation!

On Mon Jul 14 16:38:13 2003 Andrew from Somewhere said:
The campground was nice but was ruined for us by a group of loud drunks at another campground who played very loud music whooped and hollered despite our repeated three times requests that they keep it down and let the rest of us enjoy the peace and quiet of the forest. This is not the first time I have encountered this kind of situation while camping in New Mexico. What a drag!

On Wed Jul 6 22:25:14 2005 Todd Kristy from Albuquerque, NM said:
We camped at Iron Gate 7/1/2005 - 7/3/2005 at site 7 and we really enjoyed the campground. The stars come out at night like I've never seen before and it was fairly warm at night, maybe getting down to 50 or so. It was _very_ quite at night with just the sound of the wind and the trees. It was easy to find wood in the area to burn in the fire pit but the bench is awefully close to the fire pit, I assume to encourage smaller fires. There is no water available but there are vault toilets and trash bins. We found the dirt road to be very bumpy and rutted and about 5 miles long. Even on July 4 weekend, the campground had sites available both nights we stayed there. There were lots of backpackers who started here and headed up into the mountains. The trail that leads to Hamilton Mesa and the Mora Flats are much flatter than the trail that leads to Jacks camp which is all downhill on the way out. I would imagine backpacking at Hamilton Mesa for a night would be an incredible experience. All in all, we really enjoyed our time here and will definitely be back.

On Mon Apr 30 14:46:37 2007 Knut from Santa Fe said:
Iron Gate is hard to get to. If you attempt it in a passenger car, you will probably regret it. You will find a mixture of bored teens and wanna be cowboys up here. The smell and noise from the horses will be high, unless you choose the middle of the week. Expect to have a crowd of rowdies arrive at anytime during weekends to liven up your time with boomboxes playing a mixture of salsa and rap.

On Tue Jul 10 14:22:54 2007 Jen from Albuquerque, NM said:
We visited July 6-8, 2007. What a wonderful experience we had! We were afraid that the weekend after the 4th of July would make it hard to find a campsite so we decided to start out at the furthest campground on the map. We ended up at Iron gate and there was only 1 other site occupied when we got there but it filled up on Saturday. We were at site 5 which has a couple of nice spots for tents. It sure was nice not having RVs around! No annoying generator noise, just the birds and wind through the trees.

Bring your own fire wood (or a good ax). The forest was picked pretty clean. The only thing the campground is missing is water (river or creek) access. But it's well worth the 5 mile bumpy road to have some seclusion away from the hoards of people who plop down tents at any spot they can find next to the Pecos river!

On Sun Jul 13 20:42:53 2008 Shawn from Albuquerque, NM said:
Went to Iron Gate on June 27-30, 2008. I found the sites too close together and very little shade on the sites outside the loop. I could hear every word the people at the campsites next to us saying. Thankfully, the people were quiet. It was very difficult to get too (which I liked) but it was not worth the rough drive. The vaults were some of the worst ones I have seen (or smelt). However, there was lots of firewood and the hike to the Rio Mora was wonderful. Overall it was a good experience, but if you are going camping to get away from people.... not the place to go.

On Sat May 16 19:19:25 2009 Steve from Albuquerque, NM said:
We had intended to stay at Jack's Creek the weekend of May 2nd to discover it was closed. Decided to try Iron Gate not realizing the road was as bad as it was. We still managed to pull our tent camper, with a 4x4 truck, up and spent a wonderful quiet night. Very clean well maintained campground. Even knowing the road condition we plan to return to camp here again. If you are adventurous and take your time this campground is well worth the hazardous road. We saw several deer and a herd of about 20 elk on the drive up.

On Sun Aug 30 13:54:10 2009 Anonymous from Albuquerque, NM said:
We went the last weekend (Saturday night) in August; although every other site north of Pecos seemed packed, mostly with RVs, there were only two other campsites occupied at Iron Gate. Lots of cars from wilderness users, but very little traffic coming and going. Great fire rings, great picnic tables, good toilets (for a wilderness site). There was plentiful wood, but most was damp from recent rains. The drive is fearsome, but the payoff is seclusion and few fellow campers. The only problem we had was the obnoxious family of three that showed up, thankfully only for dinner. Apparently no amount of seclusion and rough road will protect you from morons.

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