Thursday, June 10, 2021
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Dispersed Remote Camping in the Lincoln National Forest Guadalupe Ranger District
I highly recommend the Guadalupe Ranger District if you are interested in very rugged options, very remote, gorgeous views and terrain, and very few people. Night one was eating in Carlsbad and camping in White City and night hiking Old Guano Rd Trail. First proper day we headed to to Queen. I recommend driving N over FR 525 then hike down to Sitting Bull Falls - must see.
Sitting Bull Falls hike and falls
Aside from the morning trip to the Falls we stuck to the area S of Queens for the trip.
Pic from Scenic Drive overlooking the Rim over to Brokeoff Mountains and El Paso Ridge. This is a gravel road suitable to all vehicles.
First day and half was spent up mostly on the high areas - FR540 to Scenic Drive to Guadalupe Ridge. Then hit the southern most Wilderness Ridge for our first night (rained cats and dogs for a while) at 7400ft overlooking McKittrick Canyon and into Texas. 32.01761, -104.80006. Watching that storm roll in was awe inspiring.
Link to video that doesn't do the section of trail justice...
Next morning a bit a mudding, followed up with some puckering driving along the infamous 201 (very slow going in many spots and long stretches) - extremely rocky, lots of ledges, but the overloaded stock 4RTRDORP made me proud (10 miles in 4 hours). Along 201 the mine and lookout tower were cool (get out and spend sometime at each). Interesting not - we encountered a family, seemed like 3 generations all driving UTVs drinking beer and whiteclaw carrying there ARs on rifle racks - it was awesome and pure 'Merica (my sidearm was tucked away) and they were super nice.
We continued past the Dark Canyon tower and hiked Cave Canyon/Telephone Ridge Loop.
After the hike we had a late lunch and then descended into Dark Canyon via Lookout Rd 069A and headed E into Dark Canyon 069 (I believe W is not an option - Private Property), ultimately driving out and back a bit to camp at a great spot 32.11258, -104.73941 Cliff face to the north, flat and open, bats came out at dusk and were swooping through camp.
We spent the next day in Dark and Turkey Canyons - criss-crossing a dry riverbed dozens of times was the main challenge. Maybe I'll upload the GoPro footage to The YouTubes at some point. Dark Canyon turns into Cougar Rd, and then we took Taylor 0527 to continue the canyon tour. We decided to check out Aqua Dulce Seep via Cottonwood 55323 as it was rumored to be flowing...but we found this road to pretty much turned into a UTV/ATV/moto only road a couple miles in and I was simply not interested in that level of pinstriping. This made for a very challenging turn around in a dry creek full of boulders. We had lunch at running windmill pump at Turkey Canyon where Taylor and Dark Canyon 0527A connect (oddly the lowest point, yet it had cell service (closest to Queen and Carlsbad during the trip). To close out the backcountry fun we headed up and out continuing along Taylor (making sure to stay right were Taylor intersects with Rock 9431.
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