Echo Amphitheater
1Heads up1 fire 15 mi away
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 23 of the next 30 nights read 15:46 UTC
- A night
- $10–$35Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 1310 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 3 notices
In the agency’s own words
Echo Amphitheater is a natural amphitheater located on the Carson National Forest in Rio Arriba County, in Northern New Mexico. . Keep reading
Recreation
Echo Amphitheater Recreation Site offers opportunities for hiking, nature viewing, camping, and picnicking.
Facilities
Stay for a short time, the entire day, or overnight! This site has multiple picnic/shade ramada options, vault toilets, a paved walkway up to the amphitheater, a large group shelter, and eight campsites with electric hook-ups. Campsites can accomodate small and medium-sized RVs, camper vans, and tents at some sites. Plus, there are two double sites that provide additional parking. Our water system is temporarily out of service. Please bring your own water for drinking, washing dishes, etc. We apologize for the temporary inconvenience.
Natural Features
The sandstone cliff is known for its unique echoing auditory properties. The red vertical stripes down the otherwise horizontally stratified cliff wall are streaks of mineral varnish that provides a colorful contrast to the sandstone cliff. This colorful geological feature combined with its unusual auditory properties no doubt fed the legend of myth associated with the Echo Amphitheater Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (575) 684-2489.
Nearby Attractions
Abiquiu Lake, Ghost Ranch Education and Retreat Center, Canjilon Lakes
What the agency tells you
Water is temporarily NOT available at Echo Amphitheater. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Echo Amphitheater is a U.S. Fee Area. Access to restrooms, parking, hiking, nature viewing, picnicking, and camping have specific fees. A self-pay station is located at the entrance. Fees help keep this site open and operating.
Please DO NOT leave household trash at the day use area or campground.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 13 · 1 group, 1 cabin
- Hookups
- 9 electric
- Longest rig
- 54 ft
- Accessible sites
- 11
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 4 of 10 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 10 of 12 campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- DRINKING WATER on 10 of 12 campsite records, ACCESSIBLE DRINKING WATER on 10 of 12 campsite records
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake
- Amphitheater
- Birding
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Picnicking
- Stargazing
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 40th darkest of 164 in NM
- Bortle 2
- Cell signal · Cell signal · Forest Service says
- Yes
Something open on 21 of the next 23 bookable nightsread 15:46 UTC
recreation.gov lists 10 of the 13 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
OpenBookedNot reservable
The one site on offer is taken this Friday and Saturday. 1 is free on Mon, Oct 26. read 15:46 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 19
What you actually pay
“Please help us keep this site open and operating by paying your fees at the entrance! Camping (all sites have electric hook-ups!): $20 Per Single Site $35 Per Double Site $5 Per Extra Vehicle Group Picnic Shelter: $50…” · the U.S. Forest Service’s own fee record
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $10–$35 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 15:46 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
13 sites · the site map
All 13 sites
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 1 of the 13 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 5 of the 13 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| 1 | 01 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 02 | standard electric | 54 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 03 | standard electric | 38 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 04 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 05 | standard electric | 47 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 06 | standard electric | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | |||
| 1 | 07 | standard electric | 41 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | 08 | standard electric | 34 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | ||
| 1 | Group Shelter | group shelter nonelectric | 22 ft | 30/50 amp | yes | Accessible Vault Toilets listed | $50 | |
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 2 | rv electric | 50 amp | yes | $20–$35 | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 3 | type not stated | $40 | |||||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 4 | type not stated | $40 | |||||
| Scan and Pay | Standard | type not stated | 30/50 amp | yes | 1,212 ft | 330 ft | $40 |
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Riana - Abiquiu Lake10 mi
El Rito Campground--Group ShelterCarson National Forest · 15 miCanjilon Lakes CampgroundCarson National Forest · 17 miCoyote Canyon Camping AreaSanta Fe National Forest · 21 miResumidero Camping AreaSanta Fe National Forest · 21 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Canjilon, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 37°F, day 67°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 18°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
Echo Amphitheater is in New Mexico’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Teresa Leger Fernandez (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →
How we know
every fact on this page, and where it came from
“the agency's own site records list "CELL PHONE SERVICE" on 10 of 13 campsites here”