The Canadian River and Sabinoso Wilderness, New Mexico

The Canadian River in Mills Canyon

The Canadian River (Wikipedia article) is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River and rises on the east side of the Sangre de Christo mountain range in southeastern Colorado. It joins the Arkansas in eastern Oklahoma.

Of particular appeal is Mills Canyon, a protected area which the Canadian flows through. The Arkansas joins the Mississippi about 60 miles southeast of Little Rock, Arkansas.

A nice view of the Canadian River from the south end of the road a mile past the canyon campground. The massive formation left is Dakota sandstone, per a 1981 study provided by USFS (no longer available). A Patagonia.com article mentions the area has become popular for bouldering, on blocks of the Dakota formation in particular

Mills Canyon is in Kiowa National Grassland. Here is a page at SummitPost.com with a topo map. This map is a little hard to read but helps make sense of the river.

To get here you drive west on road U-1 from NM hwy 39 at Mills, a wide spot in the road, which is a bit north of Roy. Six miles west on U-1 you are at Mills Rim campground, a good place to camp with an RV. At 10.4 miles you have come down the east side of the canyon 700' on a pretty well maintained road to Mills Canyon campground on the east side of the river.

The latter is very nice; neither campground has running water, and take out your trash. Further south beside the river there are a few at-large campspots. Very few visitors; the last trip in June 2021 I saw one other vehicle in the canyon.

Looking west across the river about halfway between the south end of the road and the canyon campground.

Looking west from the road most of the way down into the canyon. Earlier inhabitants of the region were the Kiowa and Comanche tribes. Melvin Mills' ranching and farming operations were established here on this side of the river in the late 1800s and wiped out by a flood in 1904. The ruins of his hotel are out of the picture left.

Sabinoso Wilderness

Sabinoso Wilderness (Wikipedia article) is east of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and includes mesas and canyons draining eastwards to the Canadian. Sabinoso Wilderness is 30 miles south of Mills Canyon.

An article in Santa Fe New Mexican explains that the wilderness, established in 2009, has been nearly doubled in size due to grants in 2017 and 2021, with the latter confirmed by a Department of Interior page. The 2nd expansion includes land to the north of the previous extension, including Cañon Ciruela. The BLM page says it is working on providing a 2nd access point.

Right now the only access is at the southwest corner, which is via a dirt road with a steep AWD spot a mile before the trailhead. Maybe impassible when wet. Here's the BLM page with a map that is hard to read unless you correlate with an area map and other sources. But looking closely I could find the trailhead, which is above the head of Higgins Canyon, and Cañon Ciruela.

When I visited in June 2021 the only person I saw was a guy working on the road coming down around the peninsula in the last picture below. Said he was the only one still allowed to drive into the canyon, so had to maintain the road himself; maybe he was the original landowner. He asked how far I had gotten down the canyon. He was whacking into an enormous limestone block that had fallen onto the edge of the road. I joked that hopefully he didn't have his truck in the canyon when more of the rock above fell; looked like it was ready to go any year now. He said in that case he'd have to find a sledgehammer.

When the northwest access is possible maybe I will return and have another look. That may be more interesting than the southwest access as it likely would entail a route coming down Cañon Ciruela (see a note in the caption of the picture below).

I wondered if there was a backpack trip option to the river, which is 13.5 miles straight line distance from the southwest trailhead. Though on maps a county road enters the canyon from the northwest about halfway to the river and there is a historic church a little further on. Likely the creek is usually dry not much further down the canyon than my pictures.

Looking east toward the Canadian River down the Largo Creek drainage. This hike got around the bend upper center a ways, 4 miles round trip. The following picture was taken from the marsh on the left. The road, just a route now, I believe is mentioned as connecting a couple of army forts during the Indian war years. Cañon Ciruela, mentioned above regards the 2^nd wilderness expansion, enters from the left (west-northwest) about 4 miles past the bend upper center.

Looking west toward the head of the Largo Creek drainage, which is not far right past the peninsula center. The previous picture was taken from the lookout point at the end of the peninsula, which is 1/3 of the way down. The trailhead is around the peninsula to the left.

Outings: The Call of the Wild

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The Alamo Sierran Newsletter

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