Frijole Horse Corral Campground

This site is designed for stock use. Frijole Horse Corral Campground is located one mile east of the Pine Springs Visitor Center, just off U.S. 62/180, at an elevation of 5,400 feet, and 100 miles or a 2 hour drive by road from the Dog Canyon horse corrals. It is open year-round and is busiest March through May and September through November. A large gravel parking area serves as trailhead parking for the Foothills and Frijole trails and provides additional parking for horse trailers; the area is not level. The campsite is approximately 100 yards from the very busy U.S. 62/180 highway, so expect traffic noise, including large trucks, 24 hours a day, and high winds with gusts over 50 mph are common, especially during winter and spring. Stock users may access trails in the Pine Springs area after obtaining a free stock use permit at the Pine Springs Visitor Center, open 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., the day of their trip or up to 24 hours in advance. Riders must start their trip from the Frijole corral using the Foothills trail or Frijole trail. Trails designated for stock use are the El Capitan, Salt Basin Overlook, Foothills, Frijole and Tejas trails, the Bush Mountain Trail from Tejas Junction at Pine Top to the hitching racks at Bush Mountain and from Dog Canyon to Marcus Junction, the Marcus Trail, the Blue Ridge Trail from Marcus Junction to the Tejas Trail, and the McKittrick Canyon Trail from the Tejas Trail to the McKittrick Ridge Campground hitching racks. Dog Canyon Road and designated old roads in the west side escarpment area are open to stock as well, though not all old roads within the park are. Hikers will find many opportunities too. The nearby Pine Springs Trailhead includes access to many different types of hikes: Guadalupe Peak and the Bowl are strenuous, 8 to 9 miles, with 2,500 to 3,000 feet of elevation gain, and Devil's Hall is 4.2 miles round-trip with 500 feet of gain, half of it in a rocky, uneven wash that calls for route-finding and bouldering skills. For something more moderate, consider the Frijole/Foothills Trail. The El Capitan Trail offers excellent open views of the surrounding desert and close approaches to the cliff face of El Capitan, but its distance, lack of shade, primitive route travel and numerous elevation changes make it best saved for cooler times of year and for people with experience in route-finding. The ruins of a Butterfield stage station, called the Pinery, sit next to the highway, connected to the visitor center by a short paved nature trail, and the Frijole Ranch and History Museum is a quarter mile away, its grounds always open and its museum staffed intermittently. Six miles east on Hwy 62/180, McKittrick Canyon offers the McKittrick Canyon Nature Trail (0.9-mile loop), the McKittrick Canyon Trail (4.8 miles round-trip to Pratt Cabin or 6.8 miles to the Grotto) and the Permian Reef Trail (8.4 miles round-trip, for serious geology buffs). The site has four corrals, hitching posts, extra trailer parking, water troughs and stock watering tanks, and may be shared with other stock users for day use. Occupancy is 1 to 12 persons. There are two tent pads, one raised for accessibility, and two RV parking spaces, one paved for accessibility, plus a picnic table and a drinking fountain. No open fires are permitted anywhere in the park, including portable propane fire rings and charcoal; only cooking stoves or lanterns using containerized fuel are allowed. The park has no shower facilities, hookups or dump station, so fill your holding tanks prior to arrival, and fuel your vehicle and purchase supplies before heading out, as the park is remote and the visitor center bookstore carries only limited camping and hiking supplies. Cell phone service may be available in the Frijole Ranch and Pine Springs area depending on your service provider, and free Wi-Fi may be available in front of the visitor center. Overnight backcountry permits are required for wilderness camping and must be obtained in person at the visitor center, open 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., 24 hours before the start of a trip. Weight-bearing hammocks, slacklines, tarps or similar devices tied to natural or manmade features are prohibited, to protect trees and other features and to discourage camping off the designated pads. The campground is in an area with small, scattered trees, shrubs, and grasses. Trees include gray oaks and redberry junipers, with Douglas fir and hop-hornbeam at higher elevations, and shrubs include whitethorn acacia, Mexican orange, Apache plume, sumacs, and algerita. Desert-adapted plants also occur here, among them prickly pear cactus, New Mexico agave, sotols, and soaptree yuccas. Hunter Peak, El Capitan and Guadalupe Peak are visible from the campground, and riding up either side of Pine Springs canyon offers excellent views of the surrounding desert. Birds commonly seen or heard around the campground include canyon towhees, turkey vultures, white-winged doves, common ravens, chipping sparrows, Say's phoebes, common poorwills, and Woodhouse's scrub jays, depending on the season. Night sky visibility is excellent and nearly pristine. Carlsbad Caverns National Park offers cave tours, hiking trails and a scenic drive, and Rattlesnake Springs and Slaughter Canyon, part of Carlsbad Caverns, are nearer attractions for day use, with excellent birding at Rattlesnake Springs. The Guadalupe District of the Lincoln National Forest, just over the state line north of the park, provides camping, hiking, caving, hunting and picnicking, along with Sitting Bull Falls, a nice waterfall and picnic area, and Five Point Vista, a glorious ridge road ride closer to Dog Canyon. Fort Davis National Historic Site and State Park, one of the best surviving examples of an Indian Wars frontier military post in the Southwest, is about 2.5 hours south; also located in Fort Davis is McDonald Observatory, with several programs available. Hueco Tanks State Park, on the east side of El Paso, is about an hour and a half from the Guadalupes and offers hiking, rock climbing, bird watching, picnicking, stargazing and tours of its rock imagery; and White Sands National Park preserves the world's largest gypsum dunefield.