Datil Well Recreation Area Campground
This is how it should work.
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $30From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
Datil Well Recreation Area Campground includes one of 15 water wells along the old Magdalena Livestock Driveway. The old cattle trail was established in the 1800s and stretched 120 miles from Springerville, AZ, to Magdalena, NM. The area includes 3 miles of hiking trails in pinyon-juniper and ponderosa pine woodlands, with scenic views of the San Augustin Plains. The trail and vistas also offer an occasional glimpse of wildlife in a setting of quiet and solitude. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear the cattle lowing as they settle in for the night. Please leave a clean camp and respect the facilities and natural surroundings.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “There are 3 accessible double-vault toilets on large concrete pads and 4 water hydrants with easy-to-use lever valves scattered throughout the Campground.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “There are 3 accessible double-vault toilets on large concrete pads and 4 water hydrants with easy-to-use lever valves scattered throughout the Campground.”
Around the campground
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Picnicking
- Visitor center
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing to book, just show up
One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first, and a night costs $30 with nothing added. 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 · 10
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($30), 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
rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Valle Tio Vinces CampgroundApache National Forest · 29 miEl Caso I-IV CampgroundApache National Forest · 35 miPiñon CampgroundApache National Forest · 36 mi
Pinon Campground (Quemado Lake)Apache National Forest · 36 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Datil, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 66°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December 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 Julys are colder than the July 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
Datil Well Recreation Area 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 →