Home Forums Gear Free Classifieds Off-the-grid cabin in New Mexico elk unit 13

My god I'd give my right nut! Spent time in Reserve, Gila Forrest area, absolutely beautiful.

You can say that again.

JIm

Rsk: How many Hunters (people!) can sleep in your cool cabin?
BTT
TIA
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have seen some tremendous bulls in the P-J country between Reserve and Datil. How close are you to Carbon Springs?

Is there any surface water on the property? Do the other 30 ac landowners hunt too? Can you hunt other parcels?

Sorry for the delay in responding to the several recent questions:

For VarmintGuy -- we' set up sleeping space on the ground floor for three people (cots). The upper loft area could easily accommodate 2-3 more on cots, pads, or even regular beds if they were brought in.

For kid0917 -- I don't know exactly where Carbon Springs is but think I've found it on the National Forest map. Magdalena is about 36 miles east from Datil, and we're about 12 miles as the crow flies north from Magdalena. If this is the Carbon Springs located north and slightly east from Magdalena off of Forest Road 354, we're about 8 miles to the west.

For SDHNTR -- there is no surface water on our 30 acre parcel, other than a supplemental wildlife watering system that we installed to make use of excess water that previously was spilling out of our rainwater collection barrels. However there are several year-round springs located nearby on adjoining National Forest lands. The two nearest springs are about 1/4-1/2 mile to the east, There are multiple other springs located within roughly 1 to 3 miles both east and north and east and south from the cabin on FS land, and those are the areas where we've done most of our hunting. We've not encountered another landowner from the Abbe Springs Ranches properties who is hunting in this area; with one exception (a non-hunter) none of the parcels within a mile of our place has had a cabin built on it. Because the Abbe Springs roads are posted as private and not for public access, and because the 30 acre parcels along those roads further limit access to the Cibola Forest lands (eastern border of our parcel), we've seen very few other hunters in the areas where we hunt from the cabin either by departing on foot or via ATV. In the years that we've hunted from the cabin we've encountered just 2 or 3 other hunters when we were on the ground in that area, though we have encountered others more often on the rare occasions when we've driven off to locations farther from the cabin within Unit 13.

I just realized that I failed to respond to SDHUNTRs last question. Unit 13 has extensive public land access (large tracts of Forest Service, and also BLM and State lands). In addition, all private ranch properties that are enrolled in the state's landowner tag system and that receive unit-wide landowner tags are required to leave their gates open and allow hunters to access their properties. We've never taken advantage of this opportunity to access private lands in the unit, since we've had access to good hunting opportunities on Cibola National Forest lands that are immediately adjacent to our parcel.

I think I pegged it on google maps, long straight driveway, as you get to the cabin a big pushed out area to the left (west side) of cabin?

kid0917 -- that wouldn't be our place, as the drive is not long and straight and there's not a large excavated area anywhere on the property. The Google Earth location coordinates are 34'20'41"N 107'22'09W.

Hopefully this will bring my original post on this New Mexico hunting cabin back to the top --with photos still in place -- so I can avoid the task of starting everything over again from scratch!

When I first posted the ad for this cabin back in December of 2019 none of us had any idea what was about to happen with regard to the COVID pandemic and its effects. By mid- spring travel to New Mexico was essentially shut down and we decided to put our plans to sell the property on hold for the immediate future. Now that the vaccine is rolling out and things seem likely to return to something closer to normal in the coming months, we're putting the cabin back on the market.

As indicated in the original post, the cabin sits on 30 deeded acres adjoining Cibola National Forest lands in New Mexico's GMU 13, one of the state's premier (archery and muzzleloader only) elk units. We've experienced considerable success in terms of both shooting opportunities and harvest of mature bulls over multiple years, but I along with my two partners have reached the point where our bodies are no longer up to the demands of a serious elk hunt. We did not hunt there at all in 2020 -- my two partners both had knee replacement surgery this past November, and I'm scheduled to have a knee replaced in April. At that point there will be a total of 9 joint replacement surgeries among the three of us -- the time to pass this place on to someone who has more hunting years ahead of them has clearly arrived!

We originally listed the property at an asking price of $75,000 but have since decided that was a bit on the high side, so the asking price for the property is now set at $65,000. We will give careful consideration to reasonable offers for a cash purchase, but are not in a position to deal with a land contract sale involving payments over an extended time period.

If interested feel free to contact me by pm, or you can text me (Rick Krannich, 435-770-5298) or my hunting partner (Paul Holden, 435-757-1647) and we'll respond to set up a time to chat on the phone.

Tag

Is a well possible?

Any power?

Tag

Damn, just asked my wife if she wanted to move to New Mexico and go off the grid. She said no. I hope she doesn't miss me too much. Looks like a great place, wish it was closer.

David,

Power lines do not extend into this area, so access to public electric power is not a possibility. A well was drilled successfully several years ago on another parcel located about 1/2 mile to the north from our property, with a solar-powered pump installed. A well could be a possibility on our property, with either solar or generator power used to run the pump.

Rick

The family and I checked it out last March when we came through. We didn’t go in to the cabin site, but the area is way cool and pretty remote. Saw some antelope and not many other people. We’ve since decided to stay in AK, but this area was high on our list if we ever decide to relocate..

GLWS...

Rick,

Any idea on depth to water?

David,

I don't know exactly but from the last conversation I had with that landowner several years ago I believe they hit a good water layer at just under 100'. The key in this otherwise fairly dry landscape would be to drill in an area that feeds into one of the springs located at lower elevation to the east of the property. There is a spring within about 1/4 mile from our southeast corner so I would guess the prospect of getting a productive well should be reasonably good. They other property owner used a well witcher and I'd certainly go that route.

What is cost of land owners tag for the area?
Darryl

Landowner tags have increased in price in recent years. When we started out they were going for something like $4,500... but over the last couple of years they've been as high as $7,000-$7,500. Our strategy has been to have all of those planning to hunt in a particular year apply in the random drawing, and then if someone does draw we buy landowner tags for the others and split that cost across all of those hunting. While random drawing odds for non-residents are awful, we have been successful a couple of times in making this strategy work and spreading the cost for landowner tags across two or three of us. Since in other western states with preference point systems it can take 20 years or longer to have a good chance of drawing a tag in a premium unit, we decided that the cost of landowner tags if needed was something we needed to be prepared to deal with if we wanted to hunt every year. And, by hunting year after year in the same areas we've learned a great deal about where we need to be (and how to get there) -- information we'll be ready to share in full detail with whoever ends up buying the property.