Tag Archive for 'New Mexico'

On Walkabout At: Ruidoso, New Mexico

Published on March 14, 2010 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: America, Billy the Kid, New Mexico, Ruidoso, Sierra Blanca.

The favorite weekend getaway for my wife and I in the El Paso, Texas area is to take the two hour drive up to the lovely village of Ruidoso, New Mexico. Ruidoso has long been a weekend getaway for us desert dwellers here in El Paso and for good reason because the place is a lush green alpine paradise with fresh air which are both hard to come by in El Paso.

Along Highway 70 to Ruidoso there is a historical marker that marks the location of the gunfight at Blazer’s Mill between Billy the Kid’s gang The Regulators and the buffalo hunter Buckshot Roberts:

Somewhere in these trees near the marker on private property is where Blazer’s Mill is located at where the infamous shootout occurred:

Just up from Blazer’s Mill, Highway 70 passes through the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. The capitol city of the reservation is the small town of Mescalero:

There really is nothing to see in the town other then this strikingly beautiful St. Joseph Mission just outside of town that is currently undergoing a restoration project:

Construction of the mission began in 1920, but wasn’t completed until 1939. The idea to build this church to service the Mescalero Apache Reservation was by Franciscan Friar Father Albert Braun who first traveled to the Apache reservation in 1916. His legacy of constructing this church continues today because this is easily the most striking structure to this day built in the Sacramento Mountains.

Just past Mescalero, there is a lookout along Highway 70 with a great view of the 11,993 foot Sierra Blanca Peak that is quite a site:

From the desert valley to the summit of Sierra Blanca is about a 8,000 foot difference, which is the greatest bottom to summit elevation difference on any mountain in all of New Mexico. Eventually highway 70 enters into Ruidoso where we turned left onto Sudderth Drive to reach the downtown area of the village:

The downtown area of Ruidoso sits at an elevation of 6,920 feet and is composed of mostly little shops and restaurants on each side of Sudderth Drive:

My wife and I have walked through these shops many times, but just about every time we drive up to Ruidoso we still enjoy walking up and down Sudderth Drive and checking out all these same shops:

There is one shop in particular that has an added attraction that draws in potential customers, which is the nest of birds that decided to make itself at home right near the entrance of the store:

Other stores rely on more traditional things to draw people in like carvings of giant Indians!:

The Rio Ruidoso that originates on the slopes of Sierra Blanca Peak is a beautiful creek that runs right through the center of town. A great place to view this creek is to drive up Sudderth Drive to the area known as the upper canyon where a number of nice homes and hotels are located along this beautiful little creek:

The village of Ruidoso takes its name from this creek, which means Noisy River in Spanish. The creek really isn’t noisier than any other creek I have seen, but considering that early Spanish explorers saw very little water in the surrounding deserts before coming upon this creek in the mountains; it probably did sound quite noisy. The water in the Rio Ruidoso though is extremely clean and I made sure to take a few drinks of the water:

Something else I like about Ruidoso is that you never know when you will run into some of the local wildlife that likes to wander around town from time to time:

Ruidoso as I mentioned before is well known for its alpine beauty, but something else that it is equally known for horse racing and gambling:

Just outside of town on the land of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation is the Ruidoso Downs horse racing track, which every year one of the biggest horse races in the entire country happens here:

Also on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation is the huge casino resort, Inn of the Mountain Gods that is located along a beautiful lake just outside of Ruidoso:

Since the lake is on the Indian reservation you don’t need a New Mexico state fishing license to fish here. Visitors can buy a much cheaper license to fish here from the resort:

Since the resort sits along the lake plenty of the local ducks like to wander around the grounds of the resort:

Like I said before Ruidoso is a great place to spend a weekend and we plan on heading back up there to do just that sometime next month when the weather is a little warmer so we can try and do a little fishing. I can’t wait.

On Walkabout On: The Road to Sierra Blanca Peak

Published on March 10, 2010 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: America, New Mexico, Sacramento Mountains, Sierra Blanca.

Earlier this winter I took a trip to see the snows of New Mexico’s Sierra Blanca Peak. During that trip my wife and I took County Road 532 up to the lookout near the Ski Apache resort. To go along with that posting I figured I would go ahead and post some pictures of what the mountain looks like when driving up it during the summer time. The most obvious difference between the winter and the summer on the mountain is how green everything is:

Since my wife and I live down in the deserts of El Paso seeing green like this is always a welcome experience:

Not everything is green though, there is plenty of wildflowers to see as well:

Here are some more examples of the wildflowers that can be seen covering the mountain:

As we continued up the mountain the views got better and better. The drive up CR 532 has to be one of the prettiest drives in all of New Mexico:

Here is a view of Sierra Blanca while driving up the road:

We soon pulled into the lookout on the mountain with my wife’s little Hyundai that was backdropped by the massive Sierra Blanca Peak:

The views from the lookout of the surrounding Sacramento Mountains is just incredible:

In this picture you can see the winding CR 532 working its way up the side of the mountain:

The village of Ruidoso that lies at the base on the mountain could be seen as well:

A view of the Capitan Mountains could also be seen out in the distance:

It is in the Capitan Mountains that the legend of Smoky Bear began. Anyway here is the view once again looking back towards the 11,973 foot summit of Sierra Blanca:

Here is a closer look at the summit of the mountain:

Finally at the end of County Road 532 is the Ski Apache resort:

The resort isn’t very big, but it has many ski trails for skiers to choose from during the winter months:

Here are some views from along the highway of the various ski trails that litter the side of Sierra Blanca Peak:

All in all no trip to the Ruidoso area is complete without a drive up CR 532. Like I said earlier in this posting, this has to be one of the best drives in New Mexico and the lookout towards the end of the road may very well have the best view from a lookout in all of New Mexico.

On Walkabout At: Alamo Mountain, New Mexico

Published on February 24, 2010 in Southwest America. 2 Comments Tags: Alamo Mountain, America, Cornudas Mountains, New Mexico.

Prior Posting: Crossing the Otero Mesa

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After driving across the Otero Mesa using various remote dirt roads I found myself in front of the cattle corral that marks the start point to the hike up Alamo Mountain:

There is a lot of water underneath the Otero Mesa and the various wells on the mesa filled with water for the cattle is indication of how much water is underneath the ground here:

I parked my truck next to the corral and proceeded to walk down a dirt road towards the dormant volcano:

Alamo Mountain is one of many dormant volcanoes that composes the Cornudas Mountains that straddle the New Mexico / Texas state line. The volcanic past of this mountain is easily recognizable when viewed from Google Earth:

The dirt road only took me to the base of the mountain and from there I had to break brush through the high desert scrub up the increasingly steep slopes of the mountain:

After only about 20-30 minutes of hiking I soon found myself well above the cattle corral where I had parked my truck at:

Something else I saw from my perch was this group of rocks out in the distance that I definitely want to go check out sometime because it looks very similar to Hueco Tanks State Park near El Paso:

As I got higher up the mountain the terrain became rockier and steeper, which for some reason meant even more yucaa plants for me to traverse around:

Doing some prior research about Alamo Mountain I became informed about some Native American rock art that could be found on the mountain. This rock at the base of the mountain I hoped would be a sign of things to come since it had a few drawings on it:

Anyway I continued to ascend up the mountain working my way up some steep rocks and eventually climbed up to the bench of land that leads to the final push to the summit of the mountain:

From just this bench area I had just a superb view of the other volcanic peaks of the Cornudas Mountains:

What else I began to see on the bench were the first signs of the large amounts of snow that has fallen in the El Paso region this winter:

I also began to see quite a few antelope droppings which shows that these animals work their way up the mountain to graze on the grass that grows here:

To reach the summit of the mountain a bit of rock climbing up this rock wall is necessary:

It is nothing to hard to climb, but the snow right up against the rocks was surprisingly quite deep at some points coming up to my ankles. Anyway I scrambled up the rocks carefully avoiding the various icy spots and soon I was on the summit looking at the rocky ridges below me:

What was really amazing to me was the amount of pinon pine trees that are able to survive in the caldera of this extinct volcano. The Otero Mesa is nearly treeless so it is quite striking to see so many trees on the summit:

I then headed out across the relatively level caldera towards the northwestern portion of the mountain where most of the Indian rock art is said to lie:

From the northwestern edge of the mountain I had expansive views towards the Sacramento Mountains:

I also saw across this vast mesa the rising peaks of the Organ Mountains:

I also had a view to the west of the Hueco Mountains:

With an even closer look I could make out the distant Franklin Mountains out in the far distance:

I walked along the northwestern rim of the mountain looking for petroglyphs on the rocks:

And there was plenty of rocks to check out:

However, everywhere I looked I couldn’t find the petroglyphs on any of these rocks:

There are a lot of rocks to check out on this mountain and I spent about an hour and a half on top of the mountain looking at the rocks. I even walked into the interior of the caldera looking for any possible rock art:

The only thing I found was that someone had gone camping up here some while ago:

It was fun though walking around the interior of the summit just taking in this wilderness of pinon trees and cactus:

Here is the view from the mountain looking directly towards the south and into Texas:

Here is the view once again back towards the Sacramento Mountains in the north:

Finally I took in the view of the rugged Cornudas Mountains that lie to the east backdropped by the distant Guadalupe Mountains:

I had no luck finding the petroglyphs on the mountain and would have to come back here when I had more time to look because I had to meet my wife later on in the day to watch my daughter, which caused me to abandon my search for the Native American rock art. On the way down I decided to follow a fence line instead of breaking the same brush I did on the way up:

Following the fence line was actually a pretty good way to go up the mountain and I recommend it for those hiking up the mountain. All in all this was a fun hike though very remote. I saw no one on the mountain the entire day and in fact saw one rancher with a pick up on the dirt roads the entire day. The remoteness of this mountain makes it a great place for hikers that want to escape the crowds of more popular trails in places such as the Franklin Mountains. It is a bit of drive on dirt roads to get to, but the expansive views once on top of the mountain makes the work to get there worth it.

On Walkabout Across: New Mexico’s Otero Mesa

Published on February 23, 2010 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: Alamo Mountain, America, Hueco Mountains, New Mexico, Otero Mesa.

Prior Posting: Across the Hueco Mountains

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At the end of west Texas’ Hueco Ranch Road is the New Mexico state line:

Other than this sign there is no way to tell whether I was traveling in Texas or New Mexico. The Otero Mesa is just a vast and remote desert wilderness where things like a state boundary means little to life here. The mesa is composed mostly of flat grasslands covered with the occasional cactus or yucca tree:

In both of these pictures you can see some of the smaller hills of the Hueco Mountains on the New Mexico side of the border providing some relief from the flatness of this vast mesa. Far to the north the high mountains of the beautiful Sacramento Mountains are easily seen from the mesa as well:

According to the Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development website, this vast 2,400- square-mile area contains 1.2 million acres of public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Roughly half of the area is covered by grassland, including the largest remaining tract of black grama grass in North America’s Chihuahuan Desert. In addition to breathtaking landscapes, Otero Mesa features New Mexico’s only remaining native pronghorn antelope herds, a healthy mule deer population, a complex ecosystem full of native plants and more than 1,000 species of wildlife, including the rare Aplomado falcon. Hidden below Otero Mesa’s grassland is a large reserve of groundwater known as the Salt Basin.

With such a vast grassland it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the mesa is used for cattle grazing by the few ranches that dot the mesa:

However, cattle has a much lower impact on this unique environment than the controversial plan to allow oil exploration on the mesa, which for now has been suspended. As I continued to drive down the country road I took a moment to stop and take a picture of the Cerro Alto Mountain, the highest point in the Hueco Mountains to the west:

If you look closely in the above picture you can see a large airplane beacon tower that rises above the horizon. As I continued down Country Road F001 the large volcanic peaks of the Cornudas Mountains came into view:

Half of the Cornudas Mountains lies in Texas while the other half lies in New Mexico. The highest point of these remote mountains is Wind Mountain which rises to the lofty height of 7,280 feet. However, Wind Mountain will be a peak that I will have to attempt some other time because on this day my reason for coming to Otero Mesa was to climb Alamo Mountain:

To reach Alamo Mountain I had to make a turn south on to County Road F018, which fortunately was well sign posted:

However, my next turn was a little bit more difficult to locate because the sign for F015 had been blown over:

I had to turn around and backtrack to find this road due to the sign falling down, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Soon I was on the right road heading for the mountain:

A four wheel drive vehicle is not necessary to traverse this road, but a sturdy vehicle is recommended. There is also a fence you have to open to reach the base of the volcano. Make sure you close any gates you pass through when driving on the various roads that traverse the mesa. Along the road to Alamo Mountain I was fortunate enough to see a large herd of Pronghorn antelopes race across the road right in front of my truck and cluster off the road to the south:

As I stood outside to open a gate I noticed out in the distance the snow capped peaks of the Organ Mountains just outside of Las Cruces:

I also had a great view looking directly to the west of Cerro Alto Mountain once again:

Before I knew it I was in the heart of the Cornudas Mountains and the cattle stables that marks the start point for hikers heading up Alamo Mountain:

Next Posting: Hiking Up Alamo Mountain

On Walkabout On: New Mexico’s Snowy Sierra Blanca Peak

Published on February 15, 2010 in Southwest America. 2 Comments Tags: America, New Mexico, Ruidoso, Sacramento Mountains, Sierra Blanca, Ski Apache.

About two hours north of El Paso is the nearly 12,000 foot peak of Sierra Blanca located near the charming village of Ruidoso:

This scenic mountain is part of the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation and is considered holy ground by the Native Americans. From Ruidoso there is a twisting road that takes visitors to the Ski Apache Ski Resort that is owned by the Indian Reservation:

However, my wife and I didn’t drive up here to go skiing. We just drove up here to the overlook that provides some stunning views of the surrounding mountains, to include the impressive Sierra Blanca Peak:

In Spanish Sierra Blanca means the white mountain and in the winter time Sierra Blanca definitely lives up to its name. From elevated area all the way in El Paso which is over a 100 miles away this great white mountain can be seen on clear days. From the lookout looking towards the east the the Capitan Mountains are easily visible:

Here is a closer look at the Capitan Mountains, which are famous as the mountain range where the legend of Smoky Bear began:

Looking towards the southeast the various peaks of the Sacramento Mountains opened up in front of us:

Down below in all those pine trees and snow is the village of Ruidoso:

My wife and I had a great day out and really enjoyed all the snow up in the Sacramento Mountains.

Picture of the Day: Winter On the Rio Ruidoso

Published on February 14, 2010 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: America, New Mexico, Ruidoso, Sacramento Mountains.

I took this picture of the Rio Ruidoso creek recently while visiting the charming city of Ruidoso in New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains.

Picture of the Day: Book of Eli In Carrizozo

Published on January 18, 2010 in Entertainment. 0 Comments Tags: Book of Eli, Carrizozo, Movies, New Mexico.

Via Duke City Fix.

Carrizozo is a town just up the road from El Paso where parts of the new Denzel Washington movie Book of Eli was filmed.

On Walkabout At: Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico

Published on January 13, 2010 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: America, Carlsbad Caverns, caves, New Mexico.

The Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southeastern New Mexico is the United States most expansive cave system that luckily for me is only about a 2.5 hour drive east of El Paso, which makes it a doable day trip. The cave is located in a mountainous spur that extends from the main range of the Guadalupe Mountains:

Like the main range of the Guadalupe Mountains, this spur is also the remains of an ancient limestone reef from about 250 million years ago. The elevations of these mountains range from 3,595 feet (1,095 meters) to 6,520 feet (1,987 meters), which gives them plenty of room inside to form caves. It is unknown who first discovered the caves, but it is known who was the first person to explore them. In 1898, the Texas born cowhand Jim White entered the cave for the first time. He would continue to explore and map the cave over the coming years. However, it wasn’t until photographs from inside the cave were taken by Ray Davis appeared in the New York Times in 1923 that interest in this cave outside of the local area began. The publication of the photos had the immediate effect of causing the cave to be designated a National Monument that same year. The cave would soon begin drawing tourists to include Amelia Earhart who visited in 1927:

Carlsbad Caverns would eventually become a National Park in 1930.

My wife and I on a recent weekend decided to take a trip to see America’ second largest cave and has overall the seventh largest single cave chamber in the world. If you are wondering Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the largest cave system in the world and Sarawak Cave in Malaysian Borneo is the world’s largest cave cave chamber which is twice the size of Carlsbad’s Big Room.

To reach the park’s visitor a single lane road twists up the side of the mountain range through the native Chihuahuan Desert scrub:

Despite the desert environment along one part of the road I was actually able to see a frozen spring of fresh water that is part of the water system that over millions of years has leaked through the surface of the earth to form the cave system:

The visitor center at Carlsbad Caverns is mostly new, but seems more catered to sell things to tourists instead of educating park visitors about the cave. Because of this I wasted no time heading towards the cave entrance to begin my hike to the cave’s bottom. There are two option to enter the cave and one is by using the elevator, which is what most people do, or hiking down yourself through the cave entrance. The elevator stops at the lunchroom located in the middle of the cave system at 750 feet (230 meters) in depth:

This map helps give a great 3D view of the cave within the Guadalupe Mountains:

According the National Park Service website this is how the 110 different caves in this area to include Carlsbad was formed:

Most of the world’s limestone caves are created when surface water flows down through cracks in limestone rock and slowly enlarges the passageways. In all surface water, there is a weak acid called carbonic acid. This acid slowly dissolves and scours out the rock in more than 90 percent of the world’s limestone caves. These types of caves are typically very wet and have streams, rivers and sometimes lakes or large waterfalls in them. However, there are no flowing rivers or streams in any of the hundreds of caves in the Guadalupe Mountains—and no evidence that these huge cave chambers were dissolved by carbonic acid.

It is since the 1970s that geologists have come to understand that sulfuric acid played the major role in the dissolution of all Guadalupe Mountain caves.

Evidence shows that when hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) from oil deposits in the area and a whole range of newly discovered microbes combine with oxygen in the underground water table, sulfuric acid is the result. This very aggressive dissolution of passageways occurred at the level of the water table along cracks, fractures and faults in the limestone.

As the Guadalupe Mountains uplifted little by little, the level of the water table dropped in relation to the land surface; therefore, the highly aggressive “acid bath” drained away leaving a newly dissolved cave behind. [NPS]

Now that the science lesson is over, I of course decided to hike down the natural cave entrance instead of taking the elevator like most people do. My wife decided to stay at the visitor center and wait for me return since she didn’t want to bring our daughter in the cave. So after exiting the visitor center and beginning the short walk to the cave’s entrance there is a checkpoint manned by a park ranger that gives a safety brief to everyone entering the cave. Apparently in the past they have had to rescue a lot of people who thought they were physically able to handle the hike, but once inside they tired and could not continue.

Once I passed the checkpoint I then saw the entrance of the cave where there is a seating area for visitors to view bats leaving the cave in the evenings:

However, since I was visiting during the winter months, there was no bats currently calling the cave home. They have all flown south into Mexico to spend the winter there:

I can’t blame the bats for leaving because the day I visited the cave it was below freezing and the wind was blowing, which only further dropped the temperature outside. So I entered the cave bundled up, but quickly discovered that the cave was much warmer than outside. In fact by the time I reached the bottom of the cave I had taken off all my cold weather gear because it was so warm. Nevertheless I definitely need to come visit the cave some time in the summer just to see the bats.

As I continued down into the cave, I found the hike to actually be quite steep at times with plenty of signs displayed warning hikers of the physical toll the cave can take on the unprepared:

As I continued down the cave it was interesting to see the lone bit of sunlight entering the cave from its opening:

The opening looks so big from the surface, but looks small from inside, which provides a great perspective of how big this cave really is. Despite all the warning signs, I actually found the hike to be quite pleasant and not all that strenuous. However, all along the trail there were park rangers patrolling to help anyone in need of help. In fact I have never seen a park of this size with this number of park rangers. This national park definitely has to be a major employment industry in the area.

Something else I noticed while hiking down the trail was that the cave was really not all that scenic except for the occasional unusual cave formation:

The various information signs though along the trail were quite well done and informative about the various formations and wildlife found in the cave:

After about 45 minutes of walking down the trail and working up a mild sweat due to the increasing temperatures; I found myself walking into the lunchroom in the middle of the cave system:

Walking into this cafeteria has the feeling of walking into some kind of alien city because it just seems so weird to have a cafeteria and a gift shop so far under the earth in this unusual cave. After stopping to eat the pack lunch I bought with me I then headed out to check out the Big Room, which is the real attraction of this cave system:

One of the things about caves is that it is hard to take photographs due to the lighting conditions. Sometimes the pictures look better with a flash and other times the pictures look better without the flash. Here is a picture I took with the flash on:

Here is how this same picture came out with the flash turned off:

So I had to continue to switch the flash on my camera on and off in order to see how the pictures would come out. Here is a strange rock formation hanging from the roof of the cave that I used my flash to take a picture of:

Here is a picture of one of the prominent stalagmites in the Big Room:

These stalagmites at Carlsbad Caverns are so impressive that even Ansel Adams made sure to make a trip to the caverns to see them:

Besides the giant sized stalagmites there are plenty of smaller ones to see as well:

Then there are areas where you can see the small stalagmites mixed with the larger ones:

Something I found of interest inside the cave was that evidence of early cave exploration is still visible:

This ladder was installed in 1924 by cave explorer Jim White during a six month survey of the cave sponsored by the National Geographic Society. This ladder extends 90 feet into the lower cave and is one of many examples of passages from the Big Room extending further down into the cave system.

Along the trail that circles through the Big Room there are a number of sides passages lit up that are to full of rock formations for someone to walk through:

Then there was some of the rock formations that looked like something an alien would hatch out of:

There was actually enough water dripping from the surface of the cave at this point that it actually appeared to be a flowing creek:

Towards the end of the walk around the Big Room some of the passages looked like I was about to be swallowed up by some ghostly demon:

This was the last significant rock formation before completing my walk around the Big Room:

What was interesting about this rock formation is that I could see the both the stalagmites and stalactites slowly growing towards each other. I can only imagine how many more decades of dripping water it will be before these cave formations form into one pillar.

Anyway, the walk around the Big Room takes about an hour or more depending on how long you linger to read all the displays and concludes back at the lunchroom area where the elevators are located:

If you hike down the cave you have to take the elevator back to the surface because hiking in the cave is limited to one direction, which is down and I have no complaints with that. So after a short wait a elevator opened and emptied its passengers and I jumped on for the ride up:

The elevators are operated once again by the plethora of National Park employees that work at the park. The ride up took less then a minute and before I knew it I was back inside the visitor center surrounded once again by more National Park employees trying to sell me things. If you can believe it I didn’t buy one thing at the visitor center and didn’t even pay for a ticket since I have National Parks Pass. So besides paying for gas for the long drive out to the cave it was a realitively cheap way to spend a day and hopefully one I can take again in the summer in order to see the bats fly out of the cave as well.

Autumn In New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains

Published on December 2, 2009 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: New Mexico, Sacramento Mountains, Sunspot.

We drove south out of Cloudcroft, New Mexico and into the wilderness of the Sacramento Mountains. We decided to drive south to the small village of Sunspot that is a location where numerous scientists live and work at. These scientists man a number of telescopes and other equipment located in the village to study the stars and the sun. While on our way there, just outside of Cloudcroft there is a really nice viewpoint of the 12,000 foot Sierra Blanca peak that towers over all other peaks in these beautiful mountains:

Sierra Blanca is the tallest most southern mountain in the United States as well as being home to a ski resort located on the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Besides this viewpoint there is another great lookout further down the road at the Haynes Canyon Vista:

From this lookout there is not only some great views of the surrounding mountains, but also of the incredible White Sands National Monument located in the desert valley floor far below:

The desert valley below the Sacramento Mountains is known as the Tularosa Basin. Here is how the basin was formed millions of years ago:

The gypsum that forms the white sands was deposited at the bottom of a shallow sea that covered this area 250 million years ago. Eventually turned into stone, these gypsum-bearing marine deposits were uplifted into a giant dome 70 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed. Beginning 10 million years ago, the center of this dome began to collapse and create the Tularosa Basin. The remaining sides of the original dome formation now form the San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges that ring the basin.

This basin is roughly 150 miles north to south and 60 miles east to west. Where I live in El Paso is at the very southern end of this basin. Here is a picture of my wife at the lookout rubbing her baby bump, backdropped by this basin:

We continued down the road admiring the various aspen trees that were in various forms of green and yellow:

Not all the trees were yellow, there were occassional trees that bursted in shades of red:

After about a 45 minute drive from Cloudcroft we arrived at the Sunspot Astronomy & Visitor Center:

The visitor center has a small display that you have to pay to see, but outside there is plenty to see where you don’t have to pay for anything, such as this device that was deployed to Antarctica to study the sun there:

Since the sun stays out 24 hours a day during the summer time in Antarctica it is a great place for scientists to study the sun from. On the trail from the visitor center the first building we came upon was the John W. Evans Solar Facility:

This building is named after the first director of the Sunspot Observatory where they use this telescope to study the sun:

Easily the most impressive observatory at this facility is the Vacuum Solar Telescope:

This is the large telescope that can be seen from Highway 54 when driving north from El Paso. This telescope is just absolutely huge, towering over the area at a height of 132 feet. Along the trail to the telescope we saw some odd plants such this one pictured below:

Besides odd plants there was also some really nice wildflowers that were still out in bloom in the fall:

We walked into the observatory and something interesting about this facility is that you can actually walk in and watch the scientists work as long as you remain quiet:

Something interesting we learned from visiting the facility is that telescope they use in this facility to study the sun is actually much bigger than it appears from the outside:

This telescope actually extends 228 feet below the ground, which is pretty incredible when you think about it. While walking around inside we could actually look over the shoulders of people working and see images of the sun being transmitted on monitors from the telescope.

After exiting the facility we walked around and checked out the other telecopes, but they all fail in comparison to the Vacuum Solar Telescope:

Sunspot as you would imagine also has some pretty nice views of the Tularosa Basin down below:

After visiting Sunspot we headed back towards Cloudcroft enjoying the autumn scenery:

The Sacramento Mountains have quite a few aspen trees that provide the vast majority of the color in the mountains during the autumn:

Once we got back to Cloudcroft we drove back down the mountain and headed home to El Paso. All in all as usual we had a great day out enjoying the trees and fresh air in these mountains because both things are in short supply once we get back to El Paso.

On Walkabout at: Cloudcroft, New Mexico

Published on November 30, 2009 in Southwest America. 0 Comments Tags: Cloudcroft, New Mexico.

Earlier this fall my wife and I took a drive up to our favorite place in the El Paso area, which is the Sacramento Mountains. These mountains are located about an hour and fifteen minute drive north of El Paso. We planned on visiting the small village of Cloudcroft and seeing the autumn leaves in the mountains:

Highway 54 from El Paso travels north to the city of Alamogordo, which lies at the base of the Sacramento Mountains. These mountains are densely forested, but you would never realize it when viewing the mountains from the desert floor. Here is view of the mountains from just outside of Alamogordo where you can see the mountains’ impressive cliff faces, but appear very arid:

You probably can’t see it in the picture above, but if you look closely you can see a large telescope that is perched on one of the peaks of these mountains:

My wife and I would actually drive up to this telescope later on during our day trip. We continued up Highway 54 to Alamogordo and from there we turned east on the smaller Highway 82 that lead us up into the interior of the Sacramento Mountains and the small town of Cloudcroft. When we were driving up Highway 82, I stopped and took a picture of this sign because I thought it was humorous to see a prevent forest fire sign in an area with no trees:

However, later on as you will see, there are plenty of trees in these mountains. However, when first ascending up these mountains there is little indication of the lush forests to come:

Eventually Highway 82 slowly, but surely begins to be cloaked in first pinon trees and then finally lush ponderosa pine forests:

One of the most prominent landmarks located along Highway 82 just before reaching the village of Cloudcroft is this old railway trestle:

In the 1890’s the El Paso and Northeastern Railroad completed a rail line to the newly established city of Alamogordo. Soon after the line was completed survey crews were already trying to see if it was possible to construct a spur line into the Sacramento Mountains in order to harvest wood from the thick forests up there. It was determined that the line could be made up the mountains and this trestle was part of that railway line that was completed in 1900.

Here is a closer look at the railway bridge:

With the construction of the railway line it was also determined that a village of some sort would need to be constructed to support the timber and railway industries being developed in the mountains. Additionally it was believed that the mountains would make for a great tourism area considering its incredible views at it’s 9,000 feet of altitude. Thus a catchy name for this new village was needed and so that is how the name Cloudcroft, (pasture of the clouds) came to be.

Cloudcroft is now a city with all the modern admenities, but the village has kept its old west image:

Nearly every buidling in the downtown area is of a historical vintage and really gives the village a really nice charm:

This village was so charming in fact that a number of famous people in the village’s early days visited the Lodge in town such as Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Pancho Villa, and Conrad Hilton.

There is probably not a whole lot of famous people visiting Cloudcroft now a days, but it does get plenty of tourists who make the drive up into these mountains to visit the village’s various shops:

Located just outside of downtown is this nice stone church

Of course with so many trees up here at this high elevation, there are plenty of woodcarvers selling their wares at various stores in Cloudcroft:

Cloudcroft really is a great place to spend half a day checking out the shops and grabbing a bite to eat before setting out to explore the surrounding mountains. My wife and I have been up here many times due to its proximity El Paso. Anyway after eating lunch at one of the local restaurants we headed out to see the autumn leaves here in New Mexico’s high country.

Next Posting: Autumn in the Sacramento Mountains

Tag Archive for 'New Mexico'

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Autumn In New Mexico’s Sacramento Mountains

On Walkabout at: Cloudcroft, New Mexico

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