Agency-listedBLMFreeOpen today
Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Drive-up · Bureau of Land Management · NM · 33.50657, -105.49295
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 →Bureau of Land Management 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.
Can I go now? — Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM
Open today Year-round per the agency record.
Bureau of Land Management record: “Year-round” Read against the calendar on 2026-09-22; with JavaScript your browser re-checks it against today.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 6,124 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Fort Stanton Cave 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 Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- GGrocery5 mi
- @Mail6 mi
- FFuel13 mi
- MMechanic14 mi
- HHardware14 mi
- RxPharmacy15 mi
- EVEV fast charger16 mi
- +Urgent care16 mi
- AAir-up17 mi
- DDump28 mi
- ShShower28 mi
- LLaundry49 mi
- WWater56 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 56-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 5 mi out.
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
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 — Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Access
Drive-up
Land
Bureau of Land Management
Elevation
6,124 ft
Ground slope
6.9% · gentle
State
NM
Coordinates
33.50657, -105.49295
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureRio Bonito · ~0.2 mi · USGS: perennial stream
- Nearest townCapitan · ~6.5 mi
- Rail & highwaynone mapped within 10 mi
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelChisum · ~12.7 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump stationRV Dump Station · ~27.6 mi
- GroceriesSmokey's Country Market · ~5.3 mi
- PharmacyWalgreens · ~14.8 mi
- Hospital / clinicHondo Clinic · ~16.2 mi
- HardwareHardware · ~14.5 mi
EV charging — from Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger16.1 mi straight-line SW — Hotel Ruidoso · FCN · CHAdeMO, CCS · 4 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reach4 within 25 mi · 6 within 50 · 21 within 100 · 105 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)49.7 mi — Alamogordo, NM - Tesla Supercharger, Alamogordo
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)14.4 mi — Jack's Backstage, Ruidoso, NM · TURNONGREEN · J1772 · 1 Level 2 port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-03-19 · hours: not listed
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- 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 373010 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletFort Stanton Nca Vault Toilet #02 - House Parking Lot - Double · ~1.2 mi NW · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletBaca · ~8.0 mi E · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletFort Stanton Nca Vault Toilet #01 - Cave Camp Area · ~11.8 mi S · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletSchoolhouse · ~13.6 mi W · USFS
Coming out here — Fort Stanton Cave Campground · Bureau of Land Management · NM
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Rio Bonito as a perennial stream, ~0.2 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 6.9% — 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 Fort Stanton Cave Campground elsewhere
Other camps near Fort Stanton Cave Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Rob Jaggers Camping Area~1.2 mi · fee
- Baca Campground~8.0 mi
- Monjeau Campground~14.5 mi
- Sam Tobias Memorial Group Campground~14.9 mi
The unit that manages Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Fort Stanton Cave Campground is in the Roswell Field Office, Pecos District, Bureau of Land Management. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
How we know this — Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Open season
Year-round
Stay limit
14 nights (STAY LIMIT: 14 days)
Source
public land records
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.
How it was placed
BLM Roswell Field Office, inside the Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area. FREE -- BLM's own fee field for this facility reads "No Fees" and the site page answers the camping-fee question with "None". SIZE: BLM says "Three developed campsites and one undeveloped one." and the site "features several shelters, tables and fire rings, as well as a vault" toilet. WATER: BLM says "One vault toilet, but no potable water." STAY LIMIT: 14 days (BLM StayLimit field). SEASON: BLM says "Open year-round", but warns "The side road that leads to the campground may become difficult to navigate after heavy rain." NEAREST TOWN: Capitan, NM -- BLM: "The nearest place to get gas, food, and water is in Capitan, which is 7 miles away via U.S. Route 380 West/Billy the Kid Trail." FIRE/WEAPONS RULE quoted by BLM: "No fireworks, discharge or use of firearms, or any other weapons." Coordinate is BLM's own recreation-service pin (gis.blm.gov, read 2026-08-17), not a surveyed loop centroid. SOURCE: https://www.blm.gov/visit/search-details/10083557/1 | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
Season
Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.
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 Fort Stanton Cave 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.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- 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 — Fort Stanton Cave Campground
Water on public land →What “dispersed” means here →Fire rules & restrictions →Picking a spot →All field notes →