CAMPANAC.Powered by public lands intelligenceMore Than Just Parks
The map
Bureau of Land Management · Lower Sonoran Field Office · AZ

Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and Campground

First come, first servedNo reservation, and none to be had: the sites go to whoever pulls in first.

This is how it should work.

Get directionsWhat it costs, and the rules
Right now
Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
Photos · BLMArizona, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
590 ftElevation
3.0 miWater · Painted Rock Reservoir
8.4 miNW of Gila Bend, AZ
0%Tree cover
Bortle 3Night sky · 152nd darkest of 262 in AZ

The place

the agency’s own description · what’s there

In the agency’s own words

The Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and Campground are located approximately 90 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. The petroglyph site provides visitors the opportunity to view an ancient archaeological site containing hundreds of symbolic and artistic rock etchings, or "petroglyphs," produced centuries ago by prehistoric peoples. There are also inscriptions made by people who passed through during historic times. There is a $2 per vehicle fee for the site. Cash or check payment is accepted. Overnight camping is allowed at the adjacent Painted Rock Petroglyph Campground. Keep reading

This is a separate facility from the petroglyph site. Camping reservations must be made through the recreation.gov website . We no longer accept cash or check payments for campsites. The campground has picnic tables, grills, steel fire rings, and a vault toilet. No potable water is available at the facility. Several historic trails lie within the campground. The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail , The Butterfield Overland Stage Route and the Mormon Battalion Trail are three trails that played prominent roles in the history of Arizona and the American West. Visitors can learn about the site and historic trails through professional interpretive panels located on the site.

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

Facilities

Toilets
Vault Toilets
“…tables, grills, steel fire rings, and a vault toilet. No potable water is available at the facility.…”
Drinking water
None, bring your own
“…steel fire rings, and a vault toilet. No potable water is available at the facility. Several historic…”
Source: read from the agency description, shown above · Sep 12, 2026

Around the campground

Hiking
Historic site
Horseback riding
Hunting
Picnicking
Wildlife viewing
Source: Recreation.gov activity records · Aug 23, 2026

Nothing to book, just show up

One of 1,623 federal campgrounds where the site still goes to whoever pulls in first. Get there before noon on a summer weekend.

recreation.gov publishes no availability for a campground you can’t reserve, so there’s no thirty-night reading to draw here. The season bar above is what the agency does publish.

BookingNo reservationsNothing to book, and no release date to wait forthe agency’s record
Runs itBureau of Land Managementthe agency’s record
Directions
Every line of the receipt · 5

What you actually pay

The sign priceBureau of Land Management
The Bureau of Land Management publishes no per-night rate for this campground that we can read, so there’s no sign price to print. That’s a gap in the record, not a free campground.
Vehicle for day use, $8/vehicle/per night for camping$2
Stay limitDay use or 14 days at campground
The booking feerecreation.gov
Nothing. This campground takes no bookings, so there’s no reservation fee to pay.
What a stay costs
The agency publishes no nightly rate for this campground, so there’s no total to show.
How we know this receipt · 4
Booking fee, change fee, cancellation fee, no-show: Rules and Reservation Policies, Recreation.gov, the published fee schedule, curated by hand into lib/reservation-fee-schedule.json (9 rows, each carrying its own verbatim sentence). The publisher states these policies were last updated September 2019. · Sep 9, 2026
The two totals: Derived by CAMPANAC by adding the agency’s own published nightly rate to recreation.gov’s own published reservation fee. Both components are cited above; the addition is ours and is shown only where every component is known. · Sep 9, 2026
Who keeps the booking fee: Recreation.gov facility policy text, Dead Swede Campground (facility 234221) · Not on the national policy page. This is agency policy text recreation.gov publishes on individual campground pages; this site holds it verbatim on 45 active campgrounds (campground_rules.cancellation_description, scripts/load-facility-rules.mjs). · Sep 9, 2026
The contract: Reservation Gods: Who Stole Our Campsites and Sold Them Back to Us, More Than Just Parks, April 2025 · Apr 1, 2025
Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

rules read Sep 7, 2026 · record Aug 23, 2026 · How we know all this

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Getting there

the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Coordinate33.02437, -113.04543

Where it is

Source: Recreation.gov data (RIDB), full extract · Aug 23, 2026

The weather

the next four days · the thirty-year normal

Next four days, and the thirty-year normal

Forecast

Overnight72°Mostly Clear1% rain
Friday87°Patchy Blowing Dust3% rain
Friday Night70°Partly Cloudy3% rain
Saturday78°Slight Chance Rain Showers17% rain

NWS forecast for Gila Bend, AZ

Source: National Weather Service, PSR forecast office · Oct 16, 2026

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.

120°30°

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.

Measured at: PAINTED ROCK DAM, AZ (USC00026194), 4 miles away and at about the same elevation
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, monthly normals · Sep 8, 2026

The land, and who answers for it

who answers for it

Who answers for this land

Adelita Grijalva, official portrait

Painted Rock Petroglyph Site and 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 →

Seen something wrong here? Tell us.

Source: U.S. Census district boundaries and the MTJP Congressional Public Lands Score

How we know

every fact on this page, and where it came from
Right now: Bureau of Land Management publishes no season and no closure for this campground, and it takes no bookings we can read. That’s a gap in the record and not a locked gate: the number below is the only way to be sure.
Elevation: USGS 3DEP elevation point query at this campground’s coordinate · Sep 7, 2026
Night sky: VIIRS Day/Night Band annual cloud-free composite, VNL V2 2024 (Earth Observation Group, Colorado School of Mines), read at the published coordinate: 0.23 mcd/m² of artificial all-sky glow, ranked against the 262 rated federal campgrounds in Arizona · Sep 8, 2026
Sky-glow model: Duriscoe, Anderson, Luginbuhl and Baugh (2018), a simplified model of all-sky artificial sky glow derived from VIIRS Day/Night band data, the National Park Service sky-glow model
Cell signal: the BLM’s own campground description, read as text by CAMPANAC. None of this is a measurement. It’s what the land manager published about the place, and phones, carriers and weather all disagree with each other; treat it as a warning, not a promise.
Nearest town: U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line 2024 places, measured by CAMPANAC to the town boundary; population is the ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimate · Sep 9, 2026