Tetilla Peak Corps of Engineers | Cochiti | New Mexico

 

For some reason, the Rio Grande River is very muddy at this point.  This area has a campground that's spacious and is miles from civilization. 

 

 

 

It looks like the river is low at this point, with some very shallow spots also.

 

In the middle of all the browns and greens, this little area of color really stands out, and it was the only color around.

 

The tower for the reservoir stands out from here. 

Sailboats are very common on this reservoir, since it is a no wake zone. 

 

Kayaks are also popular, and people fish from them.

 

I love these signs on the road to the boat ramp, and this is very steep as you can see from the next sign down, indicating a steep descent.

 

It was so hazy one day we couldn't see across the reservoir to the other side, this is the resulting sunset after it cleared just a little.

  

Lots of money went into building this area, which is now unused and closed off.  They have at least a couple dozen of these picnic shelters that were never finished with a roof.  There were a few that were finished.

 

All different sizes of  RV sites were in the main camping area, and I got one of the nicer ones.  Unfortunately, not a water view but it's nice and large.

Little lizard was just hanging around one day, he's about 4 inches long, and then a long tapered tail. 

Illipah Reservoir BLM Campground | Nevada

 

Bureau of Land Management does a great job with campgrounds.  This one is easy to find, just a mile or so off Route 50, which claims to be the "loneliest road in America". 

 

 

The campground is up on a plateau with hills all around.  There is some great scenery here, and the reservoir has great fishing.  Even with the dumpster available and the picnic tables with shelter, there is no charge for camping here. 

 

 

My campsite was up on a hill overlooking the reservoir.  They had shelters for the picnic table and you'll also notice that they have a fence type enclosure on two sides.  There's a really great reason for this - being up on the top of a hill in the mountains, this area gets lots of wind coming through and those fences block it if you want to sit outside.  However, the RV still gets the full strength of the wind and there were a few days with heavy winds that weren't much fun.  I might have stayed longer if it hadn't been for the wind, since it's a great campground.  I'm sure that there are times of the year that the wind is not as active. 

 

 

The campsites are large and nicely spaced.  Mine was a huge area that I thought I could do just a turn-around in, but it was a little short because of some rutted areas that were left from the rainy season.  In any case, it was easy for me to jockey it around to get set up.

 

There were cattle in the area, mostly on the far side of the lake, but we had some wandering through the camp one day.

 

You could tell that they had been drawing water out of the reservoir because there was a "low-tide" smell down at the lake.  This little rock outcropping was a spit of land out into the water where most of the people fished.  Obviously this was in the morning before the wind kicked up.

 

I don't know how old this, but it looked like a cute little house on Route 50 going to the reservoir.

 

It never rained while I was there, but there were some dark clouds one evening when the sun set.