Lost Dutchman State Park

My wife and I stayed here with Electric and 50Amp service, no Waste hookup but there is a common dump station.

The sites are clean and well kept. Raked between guests. Plenty of space between sites for good privacy. Showers were clean and water was hot. There are more camp hosts than I have ever seen in a campground. Each small loop had at least one or two hosts. So that my explain why it is so clean.

The view of Superstition Mountains are amazing. My wife and I hiked up Siphon Draw trail. We were not planning on going all the way to the top of Flatiron summit as time did not permit and we had heard that it turns into a boulder climb the last mile. I think I will go on my own later this week early in the AM. If you hike this trail, bring lots of water and prepare for more effort than you may have thought.

Early one evening we saw a rattler "Diamond Back" heading across the road into the camp sites. I told the host but of course it was gone by the time he got over there.

The mountains are positioned so that the setting sun casts it orange glow on the towering rocks. It is quite magnificent. Be ready with tripod and camera.

There is much to do in the surrounding area of Apache Junction. The wild west recreation of Goldfield mine across from the park is great for walking with an ice cream cone and the mine tour and train ride are worth the price.

Of note, there are Pack Rats in this area, and many campers will have a string of LED lights under their cars and trailers to try to detour the rodents from picking up shiny things like car keys, red wires from your electric system or other things that make their den complete. Look up desert pack rats if you don't what they are, strange creatures.

We loved our stay and actually extended it in favor of another spot we were going to stay after.

Lost Dutchman is one of those campgrounds where not all the sites are created equal. As a result, your experience will vary depending on which site you have. This was our second time staying here and the site we got this time around (#120) was amazing. Tucked into the corner of the dry camping loop we had an unobstructed view of the Superstition Mtns. and easy out-the-door access to all the trails. The only negative was without power hook-ups we had to listen to a cacophony of generators most days.

Nice park, I had a pull-thru which seemed to have enough vegetation that I had enough privacy. They put the water and electric on the picnic table side of the site but it was easy enough to hookup so that I could have my front door facing the mountains. During my stay it was a bit rainy so the mountains had clouds and fog which created a magical place.

It does get busy on the weekend with day use but overall very nice and quiet at night. Decent mountain bike trail and hiking trails outside your door. The showers are private but are unisex and it didn't seem like there were many of them (4 in my loop). As others have noted, if leaving on a Sunday, there is only a 2 hole dump station which will get backed up. Convenient to the everything on the east side of Phoenix.

I loved this place, but it had some drawbacks. The sites are relatively spread out and well-groomed. There's a mix of back-ins and pull-throughs. Campground hosts were prevalent. The Superstition Mountains make for a spectacular backdrop for the campgrounds when you're facing east. The western "backdrop" is mostly a view of the suburban sprawl of Phoenix and the light pollution associated therewith. Once upon a time I'm sure this State Park was out in the sticks, but over the years the eastern edge of the Phoenix metro area has crept pretty close. Still a very nice place to spend a night or two.

The views of Superstition Mountain were spectacular. Just before sunset the mountain glowed with a crimson light.

Due to 95 degree weather in October, we opted for a water/electric site. Both worked well.

Our site was a pull through site in the newer section number 95. Regarding the pull throughs - most are very tight with a pretty sharp turn in the middle. Also, our site had NO privacy. We tried to move but the park said they were completely full for the coming weekend. I would avoid the center section of this first loop.

There are a couple of nice back-in sites, in the first loop. Number 92 and 103. Sites 20 - 30 were pretty nice sites. 42 and 44 looked pretty nice. If you don’t need hook ups, the overflow sites if open - 107 thru 134 look really nice.

There is a dump and fresh water near the first loop. On Sunday morning there was a huge backup at the two hole dump.

I've camped here many times in the past and it's one of my favorite places to get away, yet still close to town and have some amenities. It's about a 20 minutes drive to a store.

Views of the desert are nice, especially the Superstition Mountain background. I usually stay in a barebones site, using my solar panel, but if you want to camp a little closer there are hookups available. Rest rooms are clean and many places to hike.

Only real negative here is the small "Theme Park" several miles away blows their whistle every once in awhile, but it adds to the ambiance of the gold mining origins.

Another beautiful public park campground near Phoenix, with great mountain views. We stayed a week in the new section, sites 76-104, which all have electric and water. The sites here are much closer together than in the old section, with those around the outside of the loop (like ours) having a bit more privacy than those in the center of the loop, which looked really crammed together, one on top of the next. Sites are paved which is nice, but not level; we needed wood blocks under our front tires before our jacks could get us level. There is no bath house in the new section, so it's either a drive or a fairly long walk to get to one of the two bath houses in the old section. The old section has much more spacious and private sites, some with electric and water and some without hookups. Generators are allowed on the no hookup sites, so there will be some noise from them. The showers were a bit dated-looking, but the water was hot with good pressure which is what matters to us! We like that the various trails are easily accessible right from the campground, rather than having to drive to a trailhead. There were plenty of places to walk our dog. It's an 8-10 minute drive to supermarkets and restaurants in Apache Junction. Our Verizon and AT&T both worked pretty well without a booster, though our AT&T signal was only 1 bar at our site. There were lots of cholla cactus around the campground, including several right at the edge of our site, and our dog and our neighbor got stuck by them, so be careful! We'd return here.