On 5/20 we had to leave Storrie Lake State Park, having used up our maximum 14 days in a 20 day period. Would have to find somewhere else to go. I wanted to get back to Storrie ASAP, since the weather was nice, the Verizon and TV signals were decent, good town/shopping and it’s just a pretty park. Villanueva was just 40 miles away down I-25 and I had never been there before. I had heard it was a pretty park, so we would do 6 days there and then be eligible to go back to Storrie Lake for 2 weeks.
From reading other blogs and looking at Campsite Photos, I decided to go directly to the upper “El Cerro” campground. Supposedly there is a bit of signal possible up there. But, I didn’t get any Verizon up there at my site 25C. I wandered around a bit with my MiFi, never found anything. Not a huge deal. I could always scoot someplace to connect and check email or whatnot. (Which I did a couple of times. There is signal at the nearby “town” of Sena.)
Most of the sites have these rock shelters. Made a nice area that I could close off with Riley’s exercise-pen and make a little private sitting area.
It was a really pretty park. The Pecos River flows right through the park and has some good hiking. The visitor center is a nice looking building. Had some interesting displays in there.
There are 3 trails in the park – the El Cerro Trail above the upper campground, the River Trail and the Viewpoint Loop Trail on the other side of the Pecos. We did the El Cerro Trail first. It’s not hard and not long.
The trail is pretty rocky in some places.
On another day we went across the bridge to the Viewpoint Loop trail.
The trail is mostly rolling or level, with a couple of spots on each end where it’s like a rocky StairMaster and you get the elevation gain. The Verizon is good up there. I brought my Verizon MiFi hotspot and iPad and was able to get 3 bars of 4G. I could see the towers over by I-25 from up there. So, you just have to get high enough to line of sight.
There are 3 shelters at the top of the Lookout trail and 2 of them have picnic tables. If I went back again, I would just hike the trail once a day and check in online. It’s less than 2 miles.
Nice view of the park from up there, both the lower and upper campgrounds.
Not having internet is good for getting other things done – lemon oiled all the wood in my RV, did some bookbinding, reorganized a couple of cabinets, rented movies at the Villanueva General Store, read, made dog treats, etc.. Lots of back-burner things finally get done when I’m bored.
I figured maybe I wouldn’t go back there again, no internet at the campsites. But, I’m just spoiled. I want to go online anytime any little thought passes through my head. A once-a-day hike and internet session isn’t the worst life in the world. Maybe I should consider going back sometime. It’s entirely possible. 🙂