Brantley Lake State Park -- Near Carlsbad, New Mexico: July 2007

We drove on US 285 south from Santa Fe to stay two nights at Brantley Lake State Park, the closest public campground to Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. The ride was profounding boring. The scenery was flat, the heat shimmered off the pavement, and the eye could not rest on anything much that was beautiful. Julie, who tends to be eternally optimistic, said that there was beauty to be found in the flat dry plains. I must have missed it. I would suggest a different route if you plan a trip to Carlsbad Caverns from northern New Mexico. Julie agrees.

The campground is in a beautiful high desert setting four miles off of Rt. 285 about 12 miles northeast of Carlsbad, NM. It was in the mid-90's during our visit and since the campground has no shade (although our site had two trees) the mid-day heat was especially strong. It did not cool down much during the evening hours but there was a welcome light rain that kept us away from turning on the air conditioner in the rig.

We recommend site #16, a water and electric hookup, due to its proximity to a walking trail (especially nice if you have dogs) down to the lake, the view of Brantley Lake, and the relative separateness from the other sites. The facilities at this campground were clean but dated. We would definitely return to this public campground but later in the year when the days are cooler.

We chose to avoid the boring return trip to Santa Fe on US 285. Instead we drove west out of Artesia on 82 through the Sacramento Mountains. The drive through the mountains was beautiful -- there were stunning views in places -- and it will be an area we will explore further in future trips to southern New Mexico. As we came down out of the mountains we could see White Sands National Park off to the west and the Capitan Mountains to our north. At Alamogordo we went north on 54 to Duran (a beautiful drive and no traffic) where we picked up Rt. 3 to Encino and then back on US 285 to Santa Fe.