Swallows nests in Bluewater canyon.
My 14 days were up at Bluewater Lake State Park so I packed and headed 150 miles up to Navajo Lake State Park. I was a little worried about finding a spot with it being a holiday week. Navajo Lake is over 1000′ lower than Bluewater so I was hoping I could find an electric site to run my AC for a few days. Forecast for Navajo Lake was high 80’s through the weekend.
I pulled into the main campground, called Pine, and drove a couple of loops looking for a site. Everything was filled or reserved, even the non-electric sites. I thought for sure I would have to go up to one of the loops on a back dirt road look for an empty site, but I turned the corner in the last electric loop and there was one electric site open. It is fairly small but Minnie fit fine. After I parked and paid the extra for hook-ups, I walked all the loops and discovered I got the last one.
Rain on the way.
Later that evening we got a pretty good rain storm. The dark clouds brought a pretty rainbow before the rain began.
This morning I unloaded Honda and rode around the lake to Sims Mesa campground. Sims Mesa campground is only a mile across the lake as the crow flies, but it is 40 miles on paved road as the motorcycle drives. The campground over there was as crowded as this one. I drove the loops to check it out and headed back after a butt rest.
Navajo lake from shortcut road.
On the way back I noticed a dirt road that followed the lake shore, and a sign announced it as the Navajo Dam shortcut road. I’m all for shortcuts but it usually means a rough road. The road lived up to my imagination and bounced me all 10 miles to the dam. A lot of the road was so rough that I had to stand on the pegs to keep my internal organs in place!
Nice view of the dam and San Juan River below.
I was here a couple of years ago and parked down below the dam by the river. There is a campground along the river called Cottonwood but I didn’t get any cell signal there. All the campgrounds here are nice but warm for this time of year. I will probably move on after the weekend and look for something a little cooler.
Is there any good swimming there at the lake?
I see lots of waterskiing and pulling tubes but don’t know about a beach.
Nice photos of the area. Swallows’ nests are so interesting!
You pretty much have to have a boat to get to beach areas. There is an area near the marina where some people swim, but it’s not very nice.
I was here almost two years ago in September and the nights were down near freezing. What a difference to the high 80’s right now.
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Thanks for commenting, Kim. Still hope we will run into each other some time while we travel the highways of the US.