Cimarron Canyon State Park, New Mexico - August 16th to 18th, 2023
Cimarron Canyon State Park is in a beautiful setting. Fishing, hiking, and just hanging out seemed to be the popular activities of the park.
Wednesday we drove from Hyde Memorial State Park to Cimarron Canyon State Park, both in New Mexico. After dumping our tanks before leaving the state park, our next order of business was to take care of several items in Santa Fe.
First was doing laundry at a laundromat in town. While doing laundry, we took advantage of the cell service, albeit a rather poor signal, to take care of items, such as calling the National Forest Service in Creede, Colorado. We wanted to get current information about road and trail conditions for our backpacking trip into the Wheeler Geologic Area the following week.
Next we needed to find a potable water source. Hyde Memorial was out of water and we couldn’t find any confirmation about whether or not Cimarron Canyon had water. The park staff recommended a Smith’s gas station. We went to the closest one, got gas, and asked about water. They had a spigot on the side of the building, but they couldn’t find the key. We went to another station just a mile away, on Cerrillos Road, the particular one the park staff had recommended. They had a water spigot next to the air pump, not under lock and key. Success! While Keith filled up with water, Ann went into the grocery store to get food for the following week.
After grocery shopping, we stopped at a nearby park for lunch. We had a wonderful conversation with a local who was also enjoying the picnic shelter. Then we hit the road. We still had over two and a half hours of driving left.
The drive over to Cimarron Canyon was very scenic. From Santa Fe, we headed north to Taos, following alongside the Rio Grande River part of the way. Yes, the same river we visited in Big Bend, Texas, earlier in the season. From Taos, it was a windy road up through a canyon over to Eagle Nest, in a high, flat valley, then down into Cimarron Canyon. Thunderstorms added to the drama of the drive.
Maverick Campground in Cimarron Canyon was alongside the highway, similar to Hyde Memorial State Park. However, it wasn’t quite as close to the road as Hyde, at least not our site. The traffic noise was not as noticeable and our site backed up to a little stream. Cimarron Canyon was much more pleasant and scenic than Hyde Memorial. Cimarron has flush toilets instead of vault toilets, but only has a gray water dump that doesn’t look like it is intended for dumping RV tanks, just a bucket of dish water. There is a water spigot, but again, it looks like it is intended for filling up small jugs, not RV tanks.
We had enough water for getting through the next three nights at Cimarron Canyon, but our next stop is Hanson’s Mill Campground in Colorado, in the Rio Grande National Forest, with no amenities other than maybe a vault toilet. We’ll try to find a place to dump and fill on the way to Hanson’s Mill, but we’ll conserve our water and use of our toilet while we’re in Cimarron Canyon, just in case.
Our original plan was to spend four nights in Cimarron, then one night at Hanson’s Mill before starting our three day backpacking trip. After Ann’s experience in the Guadalupe Mountains (Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas - August 4th - 7th, 2023) with possible high altitude sickness, we decided to cut our stay in Cimarron by one night and spend another night at Hanson’s Mill to make sure we were acclimated to the altitude. Hanson’s Mill is at 10,800 feet and our hiking in the Wheeler Geologic Area may be as high as 11,800 feet.
Thursday was another day of rest. We wanted to make sure Keith shook off his cold before our backpacking trip. In the afternoon, we went through all of our backpacking gear, making sure it was in good working order, and started to pack our backpacks. We put out our sand-free mat, probably only the third time this season thus far. We had a nice wide camp site with a combination of asphalt and gravel, so the mat made a nice area to sit in . But, more importantly, it gave us an area to spread out our backpacking gear without getting it all dirty from the ground.
Of course, when we had all our gear spread out under the awning, a dark cloud appeared accompanied by some wind and a little bit of rain. Oh, no! Will the awning retract automatically due to the wind and expose all our gear to the rain? The awning held, but we were starting to grab some things and move them inside just in case. The cloud moved on and all was good.
A neighboring camper, Mark, came over and chatted with us for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was nice having someone new to carrying on a conversation with. Happy travels, Mark!
After dinner, we strolled down the trail behind our site that led us around several ponds alongside a stream, adjacent to the campground. About a dozen people were fishing in the stream and ponds. Very picturesque. Mark recommended the short trail to us. Thanks, Mark!
Ann also stretched out that evening. At home, she has a stretching routine that she does every evening. She has not been good about doing it while on the road. She makes excuses like it’s too hot outside, too cold, too buggy, or the ground is too wet or muddy. She has an exercise mat (paid link) to stretch out on, but it is a little too small for her routine and her arms and legs extend out over the ground. The sand-free mat gives her a nice large area beyond her exercise mat, so she took advantage of it while it was out.
Friday we hiked Clear Creek Trail. The trailhead was just a few miles back up the highway from the campground. It was a little deceiving because the actual trailhead was about 50 feet down the highway from the main parking area.
The trail was lovely. It followed Clear Creek most of the time. Even when we were not close enough to see the creek, we could usually hear it. There is something about the sound of flowing water that is so soothing for the soul. The trail crossed the creek several times, usually on flimsy little boards or logs, but nothing we couldn’t handle. There were about half a dozen little waterfalls along the way.
Then the trail headed up along a ridge. It was steep and sketchy in some places. Once we got up high enough to get some wonderful views of the surrounding mountains, we decided to turn around before reaching the end of the trail. Some of the reviews in AllTrails said the end of the trail was anticlimactic. So we decided we didn’t need to climb up the last quarter of a mile, only to come back down. We knew it was going to be slow going on the way back down due to the steepness and the small little rocks that like to act like marbles under our feet.
By the time we returned to the parking lot, we had gone 4.2 miles with an elevation gain of 928 feet in three hours and twenty minutes. It was hike number 42 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2023.
We don’t fish, but we thoroughly enjoyed hiking and hanging out in Cimarron Canyon. It was a great place to relax and prepare for our upcoming backpacking trip.
Check out our related video: Cimarron Canyon State Park, New Mexico
(Ann)