Cibola National Forest

National Forest, Roughly 1.6 Million Acres In Scattered Mountain Blocks Across Central And Western New Mexico Plus Four National Grasslands; Holds The Sandia, Manzano, Magdalena And Zuni Mountains And Mount Taylor, One Of The Four Sacred Mountains Of The Navajo Nation · Albuquerque, New Mexico

Cibola is not one forest so much as a scatter of mountain islands rising out of desert and grassland across central and western New Mexico, plus four national grasslands, one of which is in Oklahoma and another in Texas. The Sandia Mountains make the eastern wall of Albuquerque and rise to 10,678 feet at the crest, close enough to the city that half a million people look at them every day. South of them the Manzanos run down toward the Salinas missions; west of Grants, Mount Taylor stands alone at 11,301 feet, a stratovolcano that is Tsoodzil, one of the four sacred mountains that bound the Navajo world. The Magdalenas above Socorro hold the Langmuir lightning laboratory, and the Zuni Mountains carry the scars of a century of logging railroads. The whole forest is free to enter, largely undeveloped, and holds some of the darkest skies within an hour of a major city anywhere in the country.

2113 Osuna Road NE, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87113, United States

Open all year, day and night, with no gate and no entrance station on most of it. Ranger district offices at Tijeras, Mountainair, Magdalena, Grants and Mount Taylor keep weekday daytime hours. A few developed sites such as Sandia Crest have day-use fees and gate hours. Campgrounds are seasonal, generally May to October. The Sandia Crest road and the higher Mount Taylor roads close or become difficult in winter, and fire closures run March to June.

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