Head of the Ditch 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 · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This campground offers an easily accessible rustic streamside camping experience amongst tall pines Head of the Ditch Campground is located in a scenic valley approximately 1.5 miles west of historic Luna, New Mexico on US Highway 180. The campground is marked with a blue campground sign, not with a Forest Service campground sign. Water from the San Francisco River which runs through the campground is used for irrigation in Luna Valley. The campground is located at the head of the irrigation ditch which gives Head of the Ditch Campground its name. The campground has a large open area and shady campsites with pine, oak, cottonwood, and willow trees.
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Fall color · reported 13 days ago, 35 km away
- Peak color
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
Luna LakeApache National Forest · 5.6 miUpper Blue CampgroundApache National Forest · 9.8 miAlpine Divide CampgroundApache National Forest · 11 miBlue Crossing CampgroundApache National Forest · 14 miCottonwood CampgroundApache National Forest · 15 mi
Pueblo Park CampgroundApache National Forest · 16 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Luna, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 27°F, day 71°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 13°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
Head of the Ditch 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 →