Sumner Lake State Park

Sumner Lake covers some 4,500 acres. Sumner Lake State Park contains 6,700 acres, which probably includes the entire lake. This is another great fishing lake in east-central New Mexico, offering abundant channel catfish, largemouth bass, walleye and crappie. Sumner Lake is also a major resting and feeding point for migratory birds on the Pecos River Flyway.

Sumner Lake State Park offers a visitor center, two group picnic shelters and 50 developed campsites, 18 of which offer electric hookups. The camping area also offers restrooms and showers while the park has a central RV dump station. There is a playground for the kids and several boat launch areas for the adults. There's enough land available around the lake that the park offers a discovery (interpretive) trail and several hiking and mountain biking trails. There's also picnicking, swimming, boating, water skiing and wildlife watching.

Sumner Lake State Park entry gate is open 24 hours a day, every day. To get there: go about ten miles northwest of the town of Fort Sumner on US Highway 84, then go west on New Mexico Highway 203 for six miles. Nearby is the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument and the graves of Billy the Kid and Lucien Maxwell.