Upper Fir Group Area
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- Sites
- 1All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 9 notices
In the agency’s own words
Upper Fir Group Area is one of the most popular campsites in the Sacramento Mountain area. Unique to its neighboring campgrounds, it's set far back from public roads, allowing for true peace and quiet. The campground is on the northwestern portion of the Lincoln National Forest, a protected area spanning an incredible 1.1 million acres of land. Spend your days exploring the mountains, or head west for a day trip to explore White Sands National Monument, the world's largest dune field of pure, white gypsum sand. Keep reading
Recreation
An open meadow, perfect for sports like ultimate Frisbee or horseshoes, is connected to the campground. The Rim Trail is a short hike or drive away, offering epic views, rocky inclines, and switchbacks for adventurous mountain bikers, hikers, and horse-back riders. Further down, the same trail opens up to motorcyclists as well.
Facilities
This is one of the only group sites with water access. Upper Fir comfortably fits groups as large as 120, and it's connected to Lower Fir Group if your party has a need for an additional group of up to 70 campers.
Natural Features
Set 9,000 feet above sea level in the Sacramento Mountains, Upper Fir Group Area is close to breathtaking scenic overlooks, spanning the far-reaching desert valley of the Tularosa Basin. The high-elevation region offers a mixture of pine, fir, aspen, and oak trees, with high mountain meadows full of wildflowers and blossoming plants.
Nearby Attractions
The campground is a mile from the town of Cloudcroft, a quaint tourist village with New Mexico's only standing railroad trestle. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (575) 682-1518.
What the agency tells you
Call 575-682-1518 prior to arrival to get the lock combination.
There is no public phone.
Check in after 2pm, check out by noon.
Everything else this campground posts · 6
Upper Fir Group Area is at an elevation of 9,000ft, please exercise caution when traveling from lower elevation.
Fire Restrictions: Fire restrictions may be imposed at any time due to hot, dry weather conditions, at which time campfires and charcoal fires may not be allowed.
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Don't Move Firewood: Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood near your destination and burning it on-site. For more information visit dontmovefirewood.org.
For more information on the Lincoln National Forest, please visit Home | Lincoln National Forest | Forest Service
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 1 · 1 group
- Hookups
- None
- Longest rig
- 35 ft
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Around the campground
- On the water
- Meadow
- Night sky · 137th darkest of 164 in NM
- Bortle 3
No reading yet, book on recreation.gov
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
No availability snapshot inside the last 36 hours, so this page draws nothing rather than ageing a reading into fiction.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 11
What you actually pay
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 · 4
rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 sites · the site map
All 1 sites
| GPUP | 1 | group standard area nonelectric | 35 ft | 4,042 ft |
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Pines CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 0.7 mi
Apache (NM)Lincoln National Forest · 0.7 miSaddle CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 0.9 mi
Saddle (NM)Lincoln National Forest · 1.0 mi
Lower Fir Group AreaLincoln National Forest · 1.0 miSleepy Grass CampgroundLincoln National Forest · 1.1 miFrom Alamogordo, take US 82 east 17 miles through Cloudcroft. Turn left onto NM 244 towards Ruidoso and go 1/2 mile. Upper Fir Group Area is on Forest Road 422 at the end of the road.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Cloudcroft, NM
Typical weather
Typical October night 34°F, day 60°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 19°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
Upper Fir Group 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 →