Cottonwood Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- FreeNo camping fee
The place
the agency’s own description
In the agency’s own words
A small campground designed primarily for tent camping located on the west side of US Highway 180, between mileposts 23 and 24, north of Glenwood and Alma, New Mexico
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and it costs nothing at all. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.
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.
Every line of the receipt · 4
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s own record says there’s no camping fee, and no booking fee, because this campground takes no reservations. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
How we know this receipt · 5
record Aug 24, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate
Where it is
Pueblo Park CampgroundApache National Forest · 4.2 mi
Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky SanctuaryGila National Forest · 9.7 miUpper Blue CampgroundApache National Forest · 11 miBlue Crossing CampgroundApache National Forest · 12 miHead of the Ditch CampgroundApache National Forest · 15 mi
Luna LakeApache National Forest · 18 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Rancho Grande, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 33°F, day 75°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 17°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
what threatens it · who answers for it
Roadless country, and what’s coming for it
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Cottonwood Campground 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 →