Primitive Campground at Fort Stanton Cave, Lincoln NM
Dawn at Fort Stanton Cave, December 19, 2009
This little, 3 site, primitive campground is at the entrance to the Fort Stanton Cave in the new Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area off US 380 west of Lincoln NM. This Conservation Area was established in 2009 to protect and conserve the unique and nationally important subterranean cave resources of the Fort Stanton - Snowy River cave system. Snowy River is a significant passage within Fort Stanton Cave. This campground primarily serves those who have been issued a permit to enter the cave.
Fort Stanton Cave entrance, December 18, 2009
With 14-3/4 miles of mapped passages, Fort Stanton Cave is the third largest cave in New Mexico. The cave is open for recreational caving under permit from April 15 to November 1.
Snowy River Passage in Fort Stanton Cave
To quote the Bureau of Land Management
Very slow moving ground water dissolved the grayish-brown limestone in which the cave is formed and recrystallized that limestone into a white-colored mineral called calcite. Through numerous infillings of ground water saturated with calcite, followed by draining and drying, repeated coats of calcite were laid on the bottom of the cave through the entire five miles of Snowy River passage that has been surveyed to date. This unique white crystalline deposit glistens like snow and may be the largest calcite formation in America. Several endemic microorganisms have been discovered in this new section of the cave. In this sunless environment, species living here do not get their energy from the sun. Instead, they chemically break down rock. In the process, they create chemical byproducts that could have pharmaceutical uses. There are also several species that have formed symbiotic relationships with each other.
Continuing exploration and scientific research will help us better understand the formation of caves in this area, improve our understanding of groundwater hydrology of the region, and increase our knowledge of the biology of the cave. In the years to come, many new biological discoveries are anticipated.
Due to the scientific importance of the cave, the Snowy River passage is not open to the public. BLM is planning interpretive products in the future so the public can enjoy and better understand this unique resource.
Read Snowy River Passage for more info.
Primitive Campground at Fort Stanton Cave, Lincoln NM
- This is a primitive campground with three sites and a single pit toilet.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service is good.
- Fort Stanton-Snowy River Cave National Conservation Area info
- Locate Fort Stanton Cave Campground on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather here
Nights I've camped here
A Siberian dog signal-howl
A camp in the middle of a clear, dark winter's night presents a strange, wild appearance. I was awakened, soon after midnight, by cold feet, and, raising myself upon one elbow, I pushed my head out of my frosty fur bag to see by the stars what time it was. The fire had died away to a red heap of smouldering embers. There was just light enough to distinguish the dark outlines of the loaded sledges, the fur-clad forms of our men, lying here and there in groups about the fire, and the frosty dogs, curled up into a hundred little hairy balls upon the snow. Away beyond the limits of the camp stretched the desolate steppe in a series of long snowy undulations, which blended gradually into one great white frozen ocean, and were lost in the distance and darkness of night. High overhead, in a sky which was almost black, sparkled the bright constellations of Orion and the Pleiades--the celestial clocks which marked the long, weary hours between sunrise and sunset. The blue mysterious streamers of the aurora trembled in the north, now shooting up in clear bright lines to the zenith, then waving back and forth in great majestic curves over the silent camp, as if warning back the adventurous traveller from the unknown regions around the Pole. The silence was profound, oppressive. Nothing but the pulsating of the blood in my ears, and the heavy breathing of the sleeping men at my feet, broke the universal lull. Suddenly there rose upon the still night air a long, faint, wailing cry like that of a human being in the last extremity of suffering. Gradually it swelled and deepened until it seemed to fill the whole atmosphere with its volume of mournful sound, dying away at last into a low, despairing moan. It was the signal-howl of a Siberian dog; but so wild and unearthly did it seem in the stillness of the arctic midnight, that it sent the startled blood bounding through my veins to my very finger-ends. In a moment the mournful cry was taken up by another dog, upon a higher key--two or three more joined in, then ten, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, until the whole pack of a hundred dogs howled one infernal chorus together, making the air fairly tremble with sound, as if from the heavy bass of a great organ. For fully a minute heaven and earth seemed to be filled with yelling, shrieking fiends. Then one by one they began gradually to drop off, the unearthly tumult grew momentarily fainter and fainter, until at last it ended as it began, in one long, inexpressibly melancholy wail, and all was still.