State park satisfies outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes
Go to the Cimarron River for the fishing, but bring your hiking boots — or vice versa.
With gorgeous hiking and a great chance at seeing bears, deer and elk, even the most focused angler would do well to check out Cimarron Canyon’s trails. And hikers with even a casual interest in fishing may want to wet a line in one of New Mexico’s premier trout waters.
The tiny Cimarron River, one of only a few in New Mexico that lead to the Mississippi River rather than the Rio Grande, is known far and wide for its large, healthy trout.
“I was at Sportsman’s Warehouse in Albuquerque the other day, and their fishing report listed four of the best places to fish in the state, and little Cimarron was one of them. I met a guy from Phoenix, and he heard where I work and said, ‘Oh, yeah, I go there every year,’ ” park manager Daniel Gurule said. “I can’t believe how many people love this place.”
That’s probably because of very conservative lure and limit restrictions — anglers may only use a single barbless hook and can keep only one fish, which must be at least 16 inches long — on 1.5 miles of the river as it flows through Cimarron Canyon State Park. While those limits certainly help leave plenty of large trout, those trout don’t stay put. Downstream anglers also enjoy fast fishing.
And visitors who step away from the blue-ribbon trout stream find miles of beautiful trail, almost endless opportunities for off-trail exploring and some of the state’s best wildlife viewing.
On a recent trip there, one ranger boasted he’d seen the same large black bear for three days running. Another pointed to the one-mile Clear Creek Trail as one of the best the park has to offer before adding that state lands (also beautiful, but with no trail) extend another seven miles along the creek. An angler said he was on his third straight day of fast fishing action below the 1.5 miles designated as a special trout water.
Originally set aside as a wildlife reserve, the park is left intentionally wild. It is still a small part of the 33,116-acre Colin Neblitt Wildlife Area, managed more for game than for man. No camping is allowed outside of developed campgrounds, and the lack of trails makes the vast majority of the area difficult to access.
Clear Creek is the only trail originally cut for hikers, Gurule said. The rest are old logging roads, regularly cleared of debris but otherwise left as built.
The creek itself is a small tributary of the Cimarron River, and its flow slows to a trickle by late summer. But in spring and early summer, it gushes over a string of cascades and falls that make it one of the park’s best attractions. But even at its peak flow, the one-mile hike is usually lightly traveled.
Across the road from the trailhead flows the Cimarron River, stocked regularly with rainbow trout and boasting a very healthy population of wild brown trout.
Take your pick.
Cimarron Canyon State Park is northeast of Taos, three miles east of Eagle Nest on N.M. 64.
