Cibola National Forest, San Mateo Mountains - Monica Cabin

Monica Cabin

We stopped by here on the way home from the cabin on Horse Mountain on the Sunday before Christmas. I'd been wanting to visit Monica Cabin for a while now, and I was also curious to see if FR 52 to NM 107 was a viable back way home. It's not, but at least I can say I've driven the whole thing now. 

We turned off of  US 60 onto FR 549 that morning around 11. It's more or less a straight shot as this good dirt road heads for the northwest corner of the San Mateos. Eventually we came up to some railroad tracks seeing that there were several more components of the Very Large Array out here which can't be seen from US 60 or NM 107. After 5 more miles is the turn-off to the east on FR 52. The road quickly brought us down into the pretty little valley that is Monica Canyon. The stream is dry here but lined with mature oaks that likely make a lovely display in late October. The cabin, several outbuildings and a windmill  are just past the creek crossing. I can't find much about the cabin's history but it looks to be built sometime after WW II I would guess. I read that it was for  Forest Service personnel who were doing field work, so that they wouldn't have to drive all the back to Magdalena everyday. It reminded me very much of the stuccoed  Forest Service cabin we saw last year of FR 522 in the Black Range, except this one was not encumbered with the accumulated junk of fifty or more years which made it quite a bit more scenic.

 We wondered around the environs a little bit, ate our lunch and then we were on our way. I had tentative plans to do short hike on an old road in Little Monica Canyon, but it was getting late on a very short day and we didn't relish the though of driving for several hours after dark. 

 FR 52 was okay for a mile or two past the cabin but then it got very, very rough and stayed mostly rough most of the way back to NM 107. If one could forget about getting one's bones constantly rattled, one might notice that it's a very scenic little drive with views down in to the rugged Estaline Canyon and beyond to the peaks and canyons on the east side of the Withington Wilderness.