Agency-listedUSFSFreeRoad season: open (MVUM)
El Caso Throwdown Campground
Drive-up · U.S. Forest Service · NM · 34.13793, -108.46193
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →U.S. Forest Service lists this site. On most of their ground you can camp away from developed sites pretty much anywhere — so treat this as a known-good spot, not the only one allowed. The unit sets stay limits and how far off road and water you must be. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM — El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM
The nearest road on the Forest Service MVUM is FR 4187 N, 20 ft from the pin. The MVUM lists it as native material surface and maintenance level 2 – high-clearance vehicles.
Road season: open (MVUM) The MVUM lists FR 4187 N, 20 ft from the pin, open to passenger vehicles year-round.
MVUM record for FR 4187 N: “01/01-12/31” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.
From the Forest Service's own Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW, Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026), straight-line from the pin to the nearest mapped segment. The nearest segment is not necessarily the way in, a maintenance level is the agency's class and not a report on today, and a road's season is the road's — it is not a campground order. What the levels mean → What an MVUM is →
What the record says about the site — El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM
- First come, first served
- Tent camping
- Trailers and RVs fit
- Vault toilet
- No drinking water — carry your own
- No showers
From the OpenStreetMap contributors listing for this site — their words, not our visit. Records go stale; treat it as a starting point and confirm anything your trip depends on.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at El Caso Throwdown Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 7,740 ft.
Fire & smoke — around El Caso Throwdown CampgroundNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- PPropane14 mi
- @Mail14 mi
- FFuel14 mi
- GGrocery14 mi
- MMechanic14 mi
- +Urgent care34 mi
- WWater43 mi
- HHardware44 mi
- LLaundry47 mi
- DDump57 mi
- ShShower57 mi
- RxPharmacy58 mi
- EVEV fast charger68 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 43-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 14 mi out, the nearest EV fast charger is a 68-mi run (and back).
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — El Caso Throwdown Campground
Access
Drive-up
Land
U.S. Forest Service
Elevation
7,740 ft
Ground slope
3.7% · gentle
State
NM
Coordinates
34.13793, -108.46193
Cost
Free · OpenStreetMap fee tag: no
Nearby & resupply — around El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureLargo Creek · ~0.8 mi · USGS: perennial stream
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelFuel · ~14.3 mi
- Propane / LPGAg Country Propane · ~13.8 mi
- GroceriesGrocery · ~14.4 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
EV charging — from El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger68.0 mi straight-line N — Major Market Inc, Zuni, NM · LOOP · CHAdeMO, CCS · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-07-15 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · none within 50 · 21 within 100 · 74 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)79.0 mi — Milan, NM - Tesla Supercharger, Milan
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)84.3 mi — CHARLIE CLARKS C.C. CHARGING 1, Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ · ChargePoint Network · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast charger$1 activation fee; $0.59 per kWh (as listed by AFDC)
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 348906 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletQuemado Lake - El Caso Cg #4 · at this camp · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletQuemado Lake - El Caso Cg #3 · ~0.4 mi W · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletQuemado Lake - El Caso Cg #5 · ~0.4 mi E · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletQuemado Lake - El Caso Cg #2 · ~0.5 mi W · USFS
Coming out here — El Caso Throwdown Campground · Gila National Forest · NM
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Largo Creek as a perennial stream, ~0.8 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 3.7% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open El Caso Throwdown Campground elsewhere
Other camps near El Caso Throwdown Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Quemado Lake - El Caso Cg #3~0.4 mi
- El Caso 5~0.4 mi
- El Caso I-III Campground~0.4 mi
- Quemado Lake - El Caso Cg #1~0.6 mi
The unit that manages El Caso Throwdown Campground
Stay limits, road closures and fire restrictions at El Caso Throwdown Campground are set by Gila National Forest, not by the campsite — check there before you go.
How we know this — El Caso Throwdown Campground
Source
OpenStreetMap contributors
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
Agency page
fs.usda.gov — the land manager's own page for this site. Fees, seasons and closures are stated there first; if it disagrees with this page, it wins.
How it was placed
auto: drive (road/trail right there)
Site details
The OpenStreetMap contributors listing's own fields for this site (site type, whether tents or trailers fit, capacity, toilet, water, campfires, reservations). Printed as the record states them, unchecked by us, and never used to make a cost claim -- the cost verdict above is decided separately and audited before every deploy.
Nearest MVUM road
US Forest Service Motor Vehicle Use Map roads layer (EDW_MVUM_01, layer 1), Clearinghouse refresh Aug 30, 2026. Straight-line distance from the pin to the nearest mapped segment within 1 mi; surface type, maintenance level and open dates are the agency's own values for that segment, expanded from its codes and otherwise unedited. Nothing here says which road reaches the site.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about El Caso Throwdown Campground
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Whether that MVUM road is the way in, and the last stretch beyond it
- Whether the site itself closes on its own schedule — only the road's season is on record
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — El Caso Throwdown Campground
When the high country opens →Water on public land →What “dispersed” means here →Power off-grid →All field notes →