Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Sumner Lake

Sumner Lake State Park can be found sixteen miles northwest of Fort Sumner, NM. The lake was formed by a dam on the Pecos River and is popular for boating and fishing.


There are four separate camping areas.The main campground has two areas of it's own, one with electricity and one without. The restrooms in the main area are modern with hot showers.



Here is a look down from the upper restroom over the electric sites.


That big shelter is one of two group shelters available for reservations.





The main campground has a three lane boat ramp and just to the north is a day use area with it's own boat ramp and dock.







OK, let's take a look at the campgrounds.

As I said, the main campground has two areas, Pecos and Mesquite. See if you can figure out which one has electricity.


If you guessed Pecos, you win a taco, my favorite food.




There are 13 sites here and about half can be reserved.


Mesquite has 15 sites and you can reserve four of them.


A couple have nice lake views.



If you want to get closer to the water, just do it.



Most of the lakes I have visited here in New Mexico offer primitive lake shore camping and I think that is cool. Hopefully campers can keep the shore clean so this can continue.

Across the lake is the East Side Campground.


There are 10 developed sites, half with power, and primitive camping available along with a boat ramp and vault toilets.




Very nice.

Below the dam are two more campgrounds. The East River Campground, also known has Raccoon, has four developed sites.





Across the river is, wait for it, the West River Campground, also known as Shady Side. Not to be confused with Slim Shady.






If we didn't need electricity, this would be my choice. A few dispersed sites next to the river. And shady.


Neither of the river campgrounds have drinking water but both have vault toilets.

Here is a look from above near the dam.


Slim on the left, Shady on the right.

There are several locations around the lake to take in the view. Let's start at the main campground and work our way around to the east side.





This looks like a fun place to camp.


Someone agreed.



Here we are a little closer to the dam.



Next to the dam.


And lastly from the east side, looking over the lake at the main campground.



During our stay at Sumner, we were asked to drive to Albuquerque to take photographs of the annual State Parks Award Ceremony.

It turns out that they had made an extra one and decided to give it to Freddy and myself.


Freddy was ecstatic to see his name engraved on the award. He keeps it next to him all the time.


Regards,
Greg and Freddy (the Wonder Pup)