Campsite Review: Chosa Campground is on a converted oil well fracking pond south of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico. That is right I said fracking pond. It is my choice location to visit both Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mountains National Park. This campground, if you can call it that is a square of flat dirt spot in the desert.
We liked staying at the Chosa Campground, even though you might not think so given the following text. We would go back again and again. There is a place in our travels for locations like this but it is a real stretch to call it a campground.
Here is a link to our post when we visited the Chosa Campground. Carlsbad Caverns
Location
Chosa Campground is located west of US Highway 180 also known as US Highway 62 just to the north of Dillahunty Road. Chosa is 1/4 mile east of Highway 180. Carlsbad Caverns National Park is to the north located west of Highway 180 and Guadalupe Mountains National Park is to the south, also to the west of 180.
You can camp in the parking lot of Guadalupe Mountains National Park and I mean in the parking lot. You can see our review here: Campsite Review: Guadalupe Mountains NP
Chosa Campground is also a parking lot, a big square dirt parking lot.
There were no trash cans or dumpsters at Chosa when we were there, but comments since then have said that there were both, then only a dumpster. We packed it in – and packed it out. If the dumpster is full, you should do the same. Don’t leave it on the ground, the wind and animals will spread it for miles.
Details
Website: Carlsbad BLM
Address: Dillahunty Road, Whites City, New Mexico, 88220
Link to Google Map for the area: Chosa
Phone Number/Reservations: None, First-Come-First-Serve
Dates stayed: March 20 -22, 2019
Comfort: When we camped there the weather was typical of late winter, cold and overcast with a little precipitation. At night the temperature dropped into the 40-degree range.
Elevation: ~3500′
Season: Year-round, although temperatures in the summer are hot. Snow is possible in the winter but isn’t likely to happen frequently.
Price Paid: Free
Our Site: Not designated
Hook-ups: None
Dump station: No
Restrooms: No
Shower: Bring your own
Laundry: Are you kidding
Potable Water: None
Water to fill your RV storage tank: None
Cell service: Verizon – good service / AT&T – good service
Observations
Campsite Review: Chosa Campground insider info:
We camped on the northeast edge facing west to expose our solar panels to the little sun we had when we were there. There were only two other RVs in the campground but that doubled before we left. Each RV had its own side of the parking lot.
This is a brown place with very little vegetation when it is windy, expect the dust to be in the sky, for miles.
This is BLM land, your stay is limited to less than 14 days.
We camped there before construction was finished. Current pictures show that they have filled in the campground with macadam roadbed. (Macadam is a combination of dirt and stones that form a roadbed invented in 1820. In 1902 tar was added to the mix and the current name is asphalt.) When we were there, it was still under renovation and still had heavy road-building equipment parked with us in the location. We camped before any roadbed was installed on a mixture of rocks, some the shape and size of footballs.
Sometime after the campground was finished, someone built a fire ring in the middle. I am sure there are new regulations to go along with the improvements. The only improvement we saw was a fence to keep the cattle outside of the camping area.
Bonus
The bonus is that it is free, dry, warm in the winter the big bonus is that you can easily visit Carlsbad Caverns, National Park. It is close enough to and better in almost every way to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The true experience at Guadalupe would be to drive there early in the morning and then take one of the many hiking trails that depart the main parking lot. Unlike most of the desert area that surrounds it, these are real mountains and must be nice enough to name them a national park. We need to spend more time in this area.
We could spend a week here exploring the area but did not. I saw a hint of water to the west on a satellite view and to the south is a wilderness study area that may need to be explored someday.
Here is our link to our interactive map. Campsite Reviews
