Ponderosa Campground - Cimarron Canyon State Park

This was a very "strange" state park RV campground, but I still really liked  and enjoyed our 3 days camping here. The overall park is very beautiful & was wonderfully green for this time of year in the southwestern desert mountains.

Its a strange campground, because its basically a huge paved parking lot with truck & trailer combo or RV sized marked parking spaces, but zero hook-ups (which I have since come to learn is a norm for many NM state park RV campgrounds).  There is also 2 bathrooms - one with sinks, & another huge vault toilet without running water - but there were no showers anywhere.  There was also no marked dump stations.  There was 3 running water spigots to use in random places in the parking lot that you were permitted to fill your tanks with, but 2 were located at sites (one was occupied by the host), so are therefore essentially inaccessible.

In spite of these issues I still like the park, as the camp host was super nice & helpful and we met some very nice & helpful other guests here.  Its also a pretty location overlooking a mountain/canyon wall (I was even inspired to paint it!).  I should also note that the facility is also very well-maintain & kept clean by super nice staff.  There is also walking access to the creek, which was nice.

I gave a 4 due to the lack of infrastructure & facilities,  however, as I don't think it should be much of a stretch for the state on NM to put in at least a few more electric pedestals & more publically accessible water spigots (since the host has one each) - but I really liked it.  I also gave it a 4 for noise.  Since its mostly an RV boondocking parking lot, in the summer it seems like every other person is running a generator.  The campground is also literally right off the highway (which I've also learned is another NM state park norm).