El Pinacate | Tourist Attraction

February 8th, 2024 by Azmo

Great visit. They required 4x4 at the entrance, which was helpful. Some fairly deep sand, washboard, and some water on tracks. Airing down tires definitely made for a comfortable ride. The wet areas on the tracks have a hard bottom, so they look impassible, but are fine. The possibility of getting charged 100 pesos per person by 2 ejidos, never happened. We camped alone and had the whole reserve to ourselves. Just an amazing area!

February 4th, 2024 by Azmo

EL PINACATE RESERVE IS OPEN, but…it can close after big rains and road washouts
We went to the entrance at Km 72. They would only let you visit if you had 4 wheel drive, not all wheel. Rains has done lots of damage to the roads, so they are being cautious.
They also worked out agreements with two local ejidos who will each charge you $100 pesos to cross their lands. NO MORE ROAD BLOCKS (hopefully.)
If you don’t have 4x4, go the visitor center at Km 51. The visitor center and museum are all solar and very impressive. Two trails from there are nice. You can register and drive out to a parking and camping area to hike up onto the dunes. Spectacular views and great hike, about 3.5 miles roundtrip.

January 9th, 2022 by robert.ullman

This specific entrance is still closed. You can enter the preserve from the north side on highway 2, with the permits that you get at the visitor center and museum.

However, just south of this entrance is a road that connects with the park road and it is not closed. The land dispute must be about the land at the closed entrance.

May 12th, 2021 by flymikey1

still closed.... need 40 characters
so Access Cerrado

April 12th, 2021 by Buffalo_Gal

El Pinacate is still closed. Too bad because this is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

November 23rd, 2020 by cgmazur

Went by this week and still closed. BTW, got a speeding ticket leaving Sonoyta, be aware.

January 22nd, 2020 by brigitta

Unfortunately this entrance is still closed - haven't really figured out the reason. The north entrance seems to be open.

June 29th, 2019 by Tucks' Truck

NOTE: for the foreseeable future this entrance is CLOSED due to a dispute between the park and the owners of the access land. They told us entry is possible from the Mex 2 on the north side of the park, but only for high-clearance 4x4 vehicles. If you want to use the north entrance, you still need to check in first at the visitor centre Gran Desierto de Altar.

March 30th, 2019 by essesloyon

closed for the winter 2019
Le parc est fermé cet hiver 2019 par manque de personnel et chemins dégradés, reste a voir le musée de Sonoya........mais cela ne remplace pas

December 1st, 2018 by Make Like An Apeman

This is the entrance station to El Pinacate. Come here to get tickets to the park and for camping. Cost is per day - so if you camp over night you pay for two days.

The park is a one way dirt road loop about 50 miles. There are two main attractions - two volcano craters. You don't need 4WD for the road but many sections are washboard and it is a bumpy and long ride to do the loop.

There are two campgrounds - one only accessible to 4WD vehicles. We are not 4WD so we went to the other, Tecolote. We got in late which was a bad idea. It is a long trek to the campground. My suggestion if you are going to camp at Tecolote is to arrive early and drive to the campground along the one way loop seeing all the sights on the way, camp and then see all the sights on the other half of the one way loop when you leave the campground.

I would not recommend bringing a large vehicle or a towed vehicle. There is not much room to turn around at the craters.

The park is absolutely beautiful.