Campground Review: Roper Lake State Park, Safford, AZ

Roper Lake State Park sits just South of Safford, AZ and immediately East of the Pinaleno Mountains. Mt. Graham, the highest peak in the Pinaleno's, looms impressively over the area at 10,720 feet. Like all water sources in the desert, this lake makes for a good birding site. During our stay the yellow headed blackbirds were most prominent; there seemed to be thousands of them!

The park offers 45 electric/water sites, each with a picnic table, shade ramada, and fire ring. Roads and sites are paved and level. We had site #14 which opened onto an open area lined with trees and reeds with the lake just beyond them. We only had a neighbor on one side, our non-view side. Perfect!

Facilities include a few new looking rental cabins, group camping area, day use areas, non-motorized boating, fishing, swimming, restrooms with showers, and a small natural stone hot spring (which we did not try--it seemed to get a lot of use).

You can walk or ride a bike all the way around the lake. We discovered if there is no wind there are zillions of tiny flies or gnats. They don't bite, but they are ever present. The swallows like them!

For $23/night, this was a lovely place to stay. Fluctuating fair to decent 3G Verizon service with our booster and trucker antenna. Plenty of services just a few miles down the road in Safford.

Site #14. That's our ramada and fire pit behind the rig.
Out our front door there was only dirt and trees and reeds between us and the lake.

View from the other side of our site.
That's our only neighbors driveway immediately to the right of Hans.
Nothing but nature beyond our rig.

From across the lake our site is on the far left of the photo.
Mt Graham provides a very picturesque setting.

This is a tiny fraction of the yellow headed blackbirds we saw during our stay.