Las Cienegas National Conservation Area

Think emptiness.The place is empty, and it would only take a few minutes walking away from the road to be in a place where, quite possibly, no human has ever gone before. There's a reason for that. Without impressive landforms, water, trails, or other attractions, it's not a destination suitable for most.This is BLM land, meaning that camping is allowed for free, and from all the signs I saw, fires too were perfectly legal. Only thing is that there are designated camping areas, which are shown very clearly by signs on their spur roads and on a couple of big kiosk maps on the land. Their website has some decent info, but your best source are the signs on the reserve itself. Don't worry - it won't be full. No one goes here.I made the drive (about 25 minutes to the camping area from the entrance at Mile 40) in a 2WD Hyundai Accent at night, with nothing worse some disconcerting scraping here and there. If I can do it, you probably can too. But not if it's rained recently. I'd steer clear then.I would say that the free camp in the wilderness, under a blanket of perfect stars, is the main attraction. People probably hunt and mountain bike here too, but I'd wager that very few hike, given that there's no fantastic sites to which to hike.A strange thing about this place is the cows. Apparently some ranchers keep cows on this land, and it does detract from the pure wilderness feel.