Oliver Lee Memorial State Park — Attraction in Alamogordo

Oliver Lee has a nice visitor center and desert garden with labeled plants. Getting there takes you through a pretty bad area and you might question if you are headed to the right place.

The hiking is very limited and really has only one very strenuous trail up into dog canyon then a few very short trails that couldn’t even fill a half day. The dog canyon trail is 5.2 miles to the top gaining 3,200’ of elevation then back down making for a full very strenuous day. It is beautiful landscape but the challenge is not for everyone. And the trail maps they have available are ridiculously tiny, you need reading glasses to read the 1/4 sheet of paper and does not have the complete dog canyon trail on it.

There is a nice desert campground with very sweet camp hosts and spacious gravel sites, some with utilities and picnic table shade shelters, some without. There are a couple of scattered pit toilets which were actually cleaner and nicer than the one “comfort station” with flush toilets and showers. It was dirty, smelled bad and the showers were scalding hot (not adjustable) and barely spit out enough water to rinse off in. Granted both times I showered were the end of the day after all the families had washed their kids, so mess is expected. But stink? And the showers were just bad.

The campground was said to be booked full the whole time we were there but about a quarter of the sites were unoccupied because people who had reserved them didn’t show and didn’t cancel so that someone else could use the site. There were people who had to camp in the overflow parking area with no amenities because of folks who weren’t thoughtful enough to cancel when they couldn’t show up. Please don’t be those people! Cancel if you can’t be there even if it is the same day and you can’t get a refund. Parks are busy and people are...

Obnoxious, confrontational Ranger made us decide to stay elsewhere. We were in the area and decided to check out this State park as a potential spot to camp in our RV. We pulled into the dump station as our tanks were rather full, and it was before the visitor center or camp sites. There was a sign saying only people camping in the park were allowed to use it. No problem. We thought that might be the case, but were hoping maybe you could pay to dump (as a lot of places do), and we might be staying anyways. We were just checking the situation out. As soon as we stopped, and before we could even finish reading the signage, a Ranger came up in his pickup and asked to see our park pass. Obviously, we didn't have one at this point. He then proceeds to talk to us like we're criminals, lecturing us, and generally being patronizing and slightly confrontational. We tried to explain that we were just checking the place out and enquired if there were any spaces for us to camp there. He just shrugged off the question and told us to check online. I've interacted with countless Rangers, and this guy was easily the most unfriendly, unhelpful, and unwelcoming guy I've ever encountered. He obviously just sits in his vehicle near the entrance all day looking for an excuse to go on a power trip. About dumping waste. An absolute disgrace to the usually brilliant Park Ranger service. Also, if this is such a huge issue, then maybe the park could offer a pay-to-dump service, which would generate them much needed money and not require a miserable Ranger to sit near the entrance making people feel like trespassers instead of visitors. We went down the road to the KOA and paid a few bucks to incredibly friendly people to dump our tanks and fill our water. The difference was night & day. Do better, Oliver...

My get away in late fall early spring from Santa fe. This place is one of the better state NM parks, always clean with a free shower and somewhat hot water. Shower heads suck but they work for conserving water, a better shower head would make me and others happy. Rangers are nice and helpful they have to lock the money drop off box at night due to local vandals fishing money out of it. So get paid in when you get your spot or you can pay the next day, rangers will just stop and pick it up if your at camp No hassle people. I have never had anything messed with in all the years i have camped in this park. Site 11 is private and a path to the road, use it for motorcycle camping I wont wake up the other campers at 1:00 am. Beautiful sunsets and sunrises over the mesa edge, bring your telescope or binoculars as at night around 1 to 2am the sky is in full glory, even with the small amount of light pollution from Alamogordo.. If your into desert critters and birds just sit and watch and things start moving out of the brush. But do be careful as some of them are Rattle snakes. I have camped at the is place over a dozen times and never seen one, my friend and his family go's once and his dog confronts one next morning. For $10.00 it's a nice relaxing place until it hits 80+ then your cooking in a tent even at night. Super Walmart is about 13 miles in town to get your provisions. Or you can hit the local restaurants, the Chines Buffet is not bad the Breakfast Pancake joint next to it is So So just go to Ihop. I just get my own stuff and cook at camp. This place just has a...