Boondocking
Once we realized that traveling by RV would make the most sense for us and our needs, we found there are different ways to approach “camping” in an RV. Parking at a private RV park or resort is the least appealing to us. Your camp spot is usually small and feels like a parking lot. It also typically costs more than other options. The upside is that it almost always has water and electric at your site and many times even has a sewer connection.
The next style would be what we call a public campground, whether it be a national park, state park, national forest or Army Corps campground. These cost less than an RV park and many times have electric and water available, with a dump station nearby. They usually are laid out nicely and you feel more like you are in nature.
The idea of boondocking is the most appealing to us. This would be camping out in the wilds, so to speak, with no water or electric hookups. Many times it is free or very low cost and you have lots of space to your self to enjoy nature. You get to park in places that have great views with no neighbors. This sounds perfect to us.
A pull off along Hwy 64 along the Enchanted Loop. I forget which canyon this is. September 2024
In preparation for doing a lot of boondocking, we got the camper set up with solar. We put 8 panels on the roof and added in 3 lithium batteries. We tied it together and added an inverter, so we could run small appliances like a rice cooker, toaster, hot plate and hair dryer. I did some calculations and this should work good for our needs if we were off grid for a week at a time. One thing we cannot do is run the air conditioner. It uses way too much power for us to even think of it.
Our plan for this trip was to use some state parks and mix in boondocking whenever we could to cut down the cost and get some experience camping off grid. As I said in an earlier post, the weather did not cooperate. From our research, we had hoped to be camping with afternoon temps in 60’s or 70’s. Sadly, we rarely had any days under 80. It was unusually warm this year for northern NM. In New Mexico, there is not much shade to hide behind, so the camper becomes an oven pretty quick in those temps. Because of this, we had to find more camping spots that had electric available, just so we could use the AC. We wouldn’t get much boondocking in with this trip.
Our boondocking spot near the Rio Grande, outside Taos, NM. That gash is the Rio Grande
When we left Clayton Lake, we aimed for a forest service road in the Carson National Forest. It looked like a pretty area along the Enchanted Loop, that was at higher elevation with cooler temps. We arrived on a Saturday morning and found that most people had shown up on Friday and snagged most of the camping spots along this road. There were a few left that would be suitable for a van or tent camping but nothing of use for us and our trailer. So, we headed back down the mountain and found an RV park in Taos where we could come up with a plan. It was nice little park, with a lot of full timers and a great view of sunrise over Wheeler peak.
From here, we wandered around the Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. While exploring one area that overlooks the old bridge at the bottom of the gorge, we scouted some campsites that looked interesting to us. We had planned to stop out there for a night or two on our way past but now we would spend most of a week out there, being off grid.
Sunrise over the Carson NF, from the RV park in Taos.
As we headed out the next morning to find our free spot, it started to rain very lightly. To get out to the camping spots, we had to travel several miles down dirt roads. As we got on the dirt it was getting a bit slick already. The dirt turns to mud very fast. So, I locked in the 4WD and we headed down the dirt road. As we went, the light rain kept coming down and the road got even slicker.
By the time we got to the roads where camping starts it was very slick and we didn’t want to get too far off the “main” road. We pulled into the first spot that we felt we were out of the way and set up camp for the night. The rain did stop later in the day and when the sun came out the next day, things started to dry out. But that morning things were very muddy and even taking walks was not appealing as it meant everyone would get sloppy and messy.
We got a wee bit muddy.
While we were parked in that spot I did do some scouting and found a nice camp spot just about a quarter mile further in. In the afternoon things dried out and were good enough we did move down to this new spot. Late that afternoon we got a surprise thunderstorm that moved through. It got very windy and we had a lot of marble sized hail. Inside the camper it sounded like they were softballs hitting us.
We did spend a few nights at this spot and enjoyed the quiet solitude that it offered. We could watch the sunrise and sunset from our spot and even saw a few hot air balloons in the distance on a couple mornings. We had planned to move on Sunday but they were calling for some light rain on Saturday. We decided we had better get out while the getting was good and made our way back to the RV park for a couple of nights.
Nika and Jemma wondering why the Rio Grande doesn’t have any squirrels.
Since we were at the RV park in town we decided this would be a good time to wander through the town of Taos and other nearby areas. We did take a drive on more of the Enchanted Loop. It is a pretty drive but not as dramatic as we had expected. Wheeler Peak is the tallest mountain in NM and the loop goes around it and the national forest it lies in. Wheeler is over 13,000 ft but sits far enough back in the forest that we only got a few glimpses of it on our drive.
We also went into the downtown of Taos and wandered the shopping and gallery area. We were both a bit disappointed by this outing. There was not much of interest and things felt a bit in need of attention and upkeep. To be fair, it could be that way because there was major roadwork going on right next to this area. Then again, even the grocery stores here felt in need of some serious cleaning. The walmart felt exceptionally unsanitary.
While we did enjoy our stop in the Taos area, we don’t feel the need to swing through here again. We did some laundry and loaded up on food to get ready to head further north and west looking for cooler weather. We did not do as much boondocking as we had hoped but we did learn that our solar and battery setup would do what we need to. I’m sure we will have more chances to get off grid in the future.
Quite a few of the shops and galleries in Taos were closed when we went. We did enjoy the architecture of the town.
The Alpen Glow at sunrise from our boondocking spot near Taos, NM.