CEDAR CREEK (Sam Tobias)
- Right now
- Closedrecreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend, read 16:38 UTC
- Sites
- 3In the agency’s record
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located on the outskirts of Ruidoso, Cedar Creek provides a wonderful space for groups visiting for the day or staying overnight. With a picnic shelter and three group campsites, the recreation area is ideal for an outing in Lincoln National Forest. A popular pastime is is hiking and mountain biking along the scenic multi-use trails adjacent to the Sam Tobias Memorial Group Campground. There are opporunities to see a number of different wildlife, including Mule deer and Elk in the area. Keep reading
Recreation
Hiking and biking are among the most popular activities here, with options like the T90 fitness Trail which extends 1.3 miles and includes exercise stations. Bilking trails T120 A-D and T121 A& B are also nearby. Also we have an expert-only downhill mountain bike trail, located near the water tower to the east of the Campgrounds. The trail ends at the picnic area. Dogs must be kept on leash at all times while hiking. Dogs are not allowed on the Fitness trail.
Facilities
The group picnic shelter offers drinking water and accessible vault toilets. Non-sheltered picnic tables are open to the general public. The group campgrounds range from 60 to 100 person capacities and the group picnic shelter fits up to 40 people. Each site comes with accessible picnic shelters, campfire rings, drinking water vault toilets and grills. Picnic Pavilion is for day use only. If you would like to camp overnight please book one of the group campgrounds.
Natural Features
Cedar Creek is perched along its namesake, Cedar Creek at a 7,000 foot elevation. Lincoln National Forest, located in south-central New Mexico, is most notable as the birthplace of the original Smokey Bear.
Nearby Attractions
Ruidoso is a delightful town with quaint shops, restaurants and art galleries. If picnickers wish to camp overnight, they can head to Sam Tobias Memorial Group Campground.
What the agency tells you
No fuel wood cuttings; bring charcoal and/or wood from home, or collect down and dead wood
No smoking except within parking area or vehicles
Fireworks are prohibited
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Please call (575)257-4095 for current fire restriction information
Dogs must be kept on a leash
For more information on Lincoln National Forest, click here
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
Quiet hours are from 10pm to 6am
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 3 · 3 group
- Hookups
- 3 electric
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…offers drinking water and accessible vault toilets. Non-sheltered picnic tables are open to the…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…The group picnic shelter offers drinking water and accessible vault toilets. Non-sheltered picnic…”
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Creek
- Biking
- Hiking
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 151st darkest of 164 in NM
- Bortle 4
Nothing to book until it reopensread 16:38 UTC
recreation.gov lists every site closed this weekend
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Tell me when it reopens
Watch for it to come back
One email when the agency reopens it, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check the agency’s own record once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time it stops saying closed.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Every line of the receipt · 11
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 4
Why this page can’t say why
recreation.gov lists every site at CEDAR CREEK (Sam Tobias) closed this Friday and Saturday night. The U.S. Forest Service has published no closure notice we hold, so this page can’t say why, and it won’t fill the gap with a guess. A closed night isn’t a sold-out one: the reservations its record still carries were taken before the sites were closed.
There’s no notice to quote and no reason to argue with, so this page offers you the watch and the list below, and no letter.
Open within 60 miles · 2
The agency’s own word that these are open, not our reading of a season.
- Skyline CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 4.9 mi
- Red Cloud CampgroundCibola National Forest and Grasslands · 56 mi · walk-up
recreation.gov availability, read 16:38 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
4 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 4 mapped sitesAll 4 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 3 of the 4 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| CEDAR | P01 | day use | 992 ft | 87 ft | $40 | |
| GRP1 | 001 | group standard electric | 35 ft | 710 ft | 300 ft | $125 |
| GRP2 | 002 | group standard electric | 35 ft | 628 ft | 738 ft | $125 |
| GRP3 | 003 | group standard electric | 35 ft | 628 ft | 155 ft | $125 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Oak Grove CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 4.3 miSkyline CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 4.9 mi
Monjeau LookoutLincoln National Forest · 5.5 miSouth Fork CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 7.2 miThree Rivers CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 12 miFrom Ruidoso on Mechem Drive, take Cedar Creek Road west .5 miles. Cedar Creek is the first recreational area located on the right (north).
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Ruidoso, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 35°F, day 67°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Junes are colder than the June line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
CEDAR CREEK (Sam Tobias) is in New Mexico’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Melanie Stansbury (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →