CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
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U.S. Forest Service · Cibola National Forest · NM

Coal Mine Campground & Picnic Area

The agency doesn’t say how you get a siteIts record carries no access type, so treat it as a place to phone before you drive.
Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Closed for the seasonOut of the season the agency publishes
Season
May 15 – October 15Open May 15 through October 15
7,450 ftElevation
1.6 miWater · an unnamed pond
6.6 miNE of Grants, NM
18%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 124th darkest of 164 in NM
Open May 15 through October 15Today

The place

the agency’s own description

In the agency’s own words

The campground is located in a setting of pinon, juniper, gambel oak, and mature ponderosa pine trees, approximately 10 miles northeast of Grants. A loop road winds through the area providing access to the campsites and the 0.25 mile nature trail. A historic bridge built by the Job Corps in 1967-1968 provides entrance to the trail. The 11,301 feet peak of Mount Taylor, the highest point in northwest New Mexico, can be seen if you drive past the campground on State Highway 547 (FR239). Remember to pay attention to road conditions and your vehicle's abilities before driving off of the main road.

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

Phone before you drive

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

Booking window6 months outBooking opens 6 months ahead; today unlocks arrivals through April 16, 2027. The agency publishes no reservable season in the record we hold, so the window may close earlier than that.recreation.gov
Runs itU.S. Forest Servicethe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceU.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Site for overnight camping$10
Vehicle for day use (picnic/parking).$5
The booking feerecreation.gov
We hold no recreation.gov booking record for this campground, so we can’t say whether a booking fee applies.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate
Coordinate35.23403, -107.70197

Where it is

Source: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Today56°Sunny1% rain
Tonight29°Mostly Clear
Saturday57°Sunny1% rain
Saturday Night35°Mostly Cloudy9% rain

NWS forecast for Lobo Canyon, NM

Source: National Weather Service, ABQ forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

Typical weather

Typical October night 32°F, day 73°F.

Coldest night of the open season: typical October night 32°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.

100°32°10°

Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or moreOutside the published season

A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.

Measured at: GRANTS AP, NM (USC00293682), 12 miles away and 930 ft lower
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

what threatens it · who answers for it

What threatens this place

Watch
Roadless
Mt. Taylor6,355 acres · 6 mi · inventoried roadless area

You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.

Source: MTJP Threatened Lands map · Oct 9, 2026

Who answers for this land

Gabe Vasquez, official portrait

Coal Mine Campground & Picnic Area is in New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Gabe Vasquez (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A. See every public-lands vote →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: The agency lists it out of season. The season it publishes is the bar below.
Season: USFS Enterprise Data Warehouse · Aug 24, 2026
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.21 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 164 rated federal campgrounds in New Mexico · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the Forest Service’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest place of any size: Lobo Canyon, NM, 0.6 mi ENE (a census designated place). Straight line.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026