Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $8From, per site
- Sites
- 62All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, approximately 90 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona, provides visitors the opportunity to view an archaeological site containing hundreds of figures and designs carved into rocks, known as petroglyphs. These were produced centuries ago by indigenous peoples. This site is considered important and even sacred to many of the Native American tribes in southern Arizona. Please keep this in mind when you visit and be respectful. Climbing on the rocks is prohibited and we ask that you keep dogs out of the area. Keep reading
There are also inscriptions made by people who passed through during historic times. Many important trails are near the site, some of which have been traveled for thousands of years. The 1775 expedition of Juan Bautista de Anza passed nearby on his way to deliver soldiers, padres, settlers, and their livestock to a new home in northern California to secure the area for Spain. In 1846, the Mormon Battalion passed through, following Philip St. George Cooke along some segments of this trail to help secure California from Mexico. This venture included road building tasks along the trail, assuring that future trips could accommodate wagons. A need to improve communication and travel from east to west prompted Congress to fund a stage line. The result was the Butterfield Overland Stage Route, which began service in 1858 and traveled by this site. This mail and freight service guaranteed that the mail, freight, or passengers would be able to travel from Saint Louis to San Francisco in 25 days. Use was halted when the railroad was constructed in 1879. Formerly a unit of the Arizona State Park system, jurisdiction of Painted Rock Petroglyph Site returned to the Bureau of Land Management in 1989.
Recreation
The day-use site is right next door to the campground and offers two shaded picnic areas and a small interpretive trail around the petroglyph site with informational displays. The petroglyphs face the east-southeast primarily and would have been noticed by any travelers approaching from that direction. Hiking, birdwatching, and star gazing opportunities all present themselves at this site.
Facilities
The campground offers visitors 59 individual campsites and two large group sites featuring picnic tables and steel fire rings. There is no water or electric hookups at the campground, but there are two vault toilets and trash collection. The neighboring day-use site has two shaded picnic areas with tables and charcoal grills. The path to the Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground is on 11 miles of paved roads with an additional 1/2 mile of a dirt road. All roads in the campground and day-use site consist of hardened dirt and gravel suitable for larger RVs (Class A) and trailers (fifth wheels) when road conditions are dry. This area is prone to flash flooding during monsoon season, so be sure to check the weather before planning your visit.
Natural Features
Set between impressive geologic features such as Oatman Mountain, a few miles to the northwest and the Painted Rock Mountains, situated on the eastern horizon, this campground offers scenic panoramic views and plenty of opportunities for solitude and vast night skies. The surrounding area features a diverse Sonoran Desert plant community including the iconic saguaro cactus, various cholla species, barrel cactus, creosote bush, and both ironwood and palo verde trees. The area is home to a large population of desert mule deer and many other desert species such as kit fox, Gambel’s quail, chuckwalla, and desert iguana. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (602) 867-5400.
Nearby Attractions
Woolsey Peak Wilderness Woolsey Peak Wilderness offers rugged topography, colorful scenic vistas, rich variety of wildlife and vegetation, and outstanding opportunities for solitude and unconfined recreation. Woolsey Peak stands 3,270 feet above sea level and about 2,500 feet above the Gila River (to the south). The Painted Rock Dam flood- control dam is situated on the Gila River not far from the southwestern corner of the area. Encompassing a major portion of the Gila Bend Mountains, it is barely separated from the smaller Signal Mountain Wilderness to the north. Signal Mountain Wilderness A narrow, four-wheel-drive road is all that separates Signal Mountain Wilderness from Woolsey Peak Wilderness to the south. Signal Mountain itself, rising just north of the center of the area, reaches a summit of 2,182 feet (1,200 feet above the surrounding desert floor).
What the agency tells you
Respect these fragile features by taking only pictures!
Water is not available at this location.
Electrical hook-ups are not available at this location.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
There is no dump station at this location.
Please plan accordingly as reliable cell phone service isn’t available at the campground.
There are a number of unique animal/insect species native to this area, so, for your own safety, please do not approach or disturb wildlife.
There is no fire wood available for sale at the campground, please plan accordingly if you intend to have camp fires.
Fire Restrictions may be imposed due to dry conditions, at which time smoking, wood and charcoal fires may be prohibited. Call the Phoenix District Office at (602) 867-5400 to see if any restrictions are in effect.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 62
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- 3
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- ACCESSIBLE VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 62 campsite records
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Hiking
- Historic site
- Wildlife viewing
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:35 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 16
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $8 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:35 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
64 records
All 64 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 62 of the 64 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Hohokam Loop | 1 | standard nonelectric | yes | $8 |
| Hohokam Loop | 10 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 11 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 12 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 13 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 14 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 15 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 16 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 17 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 18 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 19 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 2 | standard nonelectric | yes | $8 |
| Hohokam Loop | 20 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 21 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 22 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 23 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 24 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 25 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 3 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 4 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 5 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 6 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 7 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 8 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | 9 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Hohokam Loop | Assistant Host Site | host pad | ||
| Inner Loop | Host Site | host pad | ||
| Main Access Road | Group Site A | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Main Access Road | Group Site B | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 26 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 27 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 28 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 29 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 30 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 31 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 32 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 33 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 34 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 35 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 36 | standard nonelectric | yes | $8 |
| Patayan Loop | 37 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 38 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 39 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 40 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 41 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 42 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 43 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 44 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 45 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 46 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 47 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 48 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 49 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 50 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 51 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 52 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 53 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 54 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 55 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 56 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 57 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 58 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 59 | standard nonelectric | $8 | |
| Patayan Loop | 60 | standard nonelectric | $8 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It names them host pads. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 64 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and CampgroundLower Sonoran Field Office · 0.0 miMargies Cove West CampgroundSonoran Desert National Monument · 28 miTable Top CampgroundSonoran Desert National Monument · 56 miGunsight WashLower Sonoran Field Office · 57 mi
Alamo Canyon Primitive CampgroundOrgan Pipe Cactus National Monument · 68 mi
Twin Peaks CampgroundOrgan Pipe Cactus National Monument · 76 miExit Interstate 8 at Painted Rock Dam Road/Exit 102, about 12.5 miles west of Gila Bend. Travel north on Painted Rocks Dam Road 10.7 miles to Rocky Point Road. Painted Rocks Petroglyph Site is 0.6 miles west of Painted Rock Dam Road on Rocky Point Road.
The agency publishes this point for 2 campgrounds; it’s likely a district office, not the campground. Use the agency’s own page for directions.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Gila Bend, AZ
Typical weather
Typical October night 59°F, day 91°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical December night 40°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground is in Arizona’s 7th congressional district. Its representative, Adelita Grijalva (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →