29 March 2019 Bandelier National Monument

Given the forcast for great temperatures but high winds, we decided a canyon hike would be appropriate to help block the wind. We drove the hour to the main Visitor Center for Bandelier NM. In the summer, the main Visitor Center is not accessible, you must stop at the White Visitor Center and take a bus into the canyon. We watched the park film and collected our 26^thPark Passport stamp.

 The area around Bandelier NM was formed by the super Valdez super volcano. Eruptions from the super volcano 1 million years ago buried the area in up to 1000 feet of volcanic tuff, some of which was hard and some soft. Water and wind erosion formed the Frijoles Canyon. The soft tuff canyon walls made it easy to carve dwellings into the stone and also made building walls easy. The continuous running stream at the bottom of the canyon made for easy water access. There was plenty of game and agriculture in the canyon that played a major part. The canyon was continuously occupied by the year 1300. The Pueblo Indians built the Tyuonyi Pueblo of about 400 rooms housing up to 100 people. In the main plaza, there were three Kivas for community use. Some of the structures were up to three stories tall with the entrance in the roof. Ladders led from one level to another. Tree ring analysis of the wooden beams used to hold up the roofs and floor showed the pueblo was built around 1360. 

We hiked the main loop trail (approximately 1.2 miles) which takes you past a very large kiva, then to the Tyuonyi Pueblo and then to the dwellings carved or built up against the cliff walls. There was also quite a few petroglyphs in the cliff walls. At the halfway point, we took the trail to the Alcove room (and additional half mile each way). We crossed the stream multiple times on the way to the room. The canyon experienced two bad forest fires in 2011 and 2013 followed by multiple flash floods which washed many dead trees down the canyon causing these huge stacks of logs and debris that had to be clear from the trail. The stream was running pretty fast due to snow melt. When we got to the Alcove room, we could see that there were multiple wooden ladders that had to be climbed along with some stone steps climbing 14 stories up the canyon wall. Leslie took one look and decided her knee would not take it. David proceeded on up the ladders to the alcove. There really was not much there. A kiva that was built in 1908 and a couple of small rooms cut into the cliff face. So the real thrill was climbing up and down the tall ladders. 

Following our hike we went to the Second Street Brewery in Santa Fe for some beer and dinner. I can’t believe we had not found this place in our previous trips to Santa Fe, but we will definietly be back!

Entrance Sign

Tyuonyi Pueblo

Leslie looking out of one of the caves

Cave Dwellings

Cave Dwellings

petroglyphs

petroglyphs

Ladder #1

Ladder #2

Ladder #3

The Alcove

27 March 2019 Las Cruces to Santa Fe New Mexico

We moved from Las Cruces to Santa Fe. The weather was warm, low 80s, and the trip was mostly up hill, so the truck was running a little warm, but nothing too bad. We are staying at Santa Fe Skies (53.25 per night with GSC Discount), the same park we stayed at back in September 2017. They have made improvements since our last visit (new patios, upgrade landscaping, new sculptures) and it looks good.  In the distance we could see quite a bit of snow in the mountains. It makes us wish we had brought our ski gear along since the local ski resorts are still open. There are three National Monuments (two NPS and one BLM) that we plan to visit while we are here.  

Sunset

Our Patio

Desert Art

25 March 2019 A Hike in the Trees

Feeling the need to stretch our legs some more, we returned to Organ Mountains – Desert Peaks NM. But this time we hiked on the east side of the mountains in the Aguirre Springs Wilderness Area. We selected the Pine Tree loop trail (4 miles) which took us through a high desert environment before transitioning into a high Alpine type of Ecological zone. Our research on the trail indicated most people hiked the loop counter-clockwise because it made the up hill portion a bit less steep since the climb is spread over more distance. But we hiked it clockwise. Not because we really wanted to, but because from where we started, we completely missed the turn to go in counter clockwise direction. In the end, we were happy we did it clockwise. Some of the stuff we had to climb up we would not have wanted to have to go down. So it worked out well. The views of the rocky peaks of the Organ Mountans were spectacular as well as the view looking out over the White Sands Basin. Looking into the basin we had very good views of White Sands Missile Range Army Base as well as White Sands NM. Our critter sightings were finches, doves, beatles and one lizard. The altitude (6000-6900 feet) defintely took its toll, but so did the steep climbs and long decent. By the time we got back to the truck we were ready for a cold brew and a green chile cheese burger! So we made a bee line for the High Desert Brewery!

Trailhead

Only halfway? Really?

Organ Mountain Spires

White Sands Basin

The wild flowers were spectacular

Organ Mountain Spires

The Spires backlight by the setting sun

23 March 2019 Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

We got up early this morning for the 3.5 hour drive to Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument in western New Mexico. Its really not that far from where we are parked in Las Cruces, but the roads to the NM, through Gila National Forest, are narrow, twisty, windy, steep mountain roads. We went in through Silver City on the Mountain Trail National Scenic Byway and returned through Hatch via Geronimo Trail National Scenic Byway which connected to New Mexico Back Country Scenic Byway. The road to Hannah in Hawaii has nothing on these roads and the scenery was pretty awesome! We stopped at the Visitor Center, collected our 25^thPark Passport Stamp, viewed the exhibits and watched the Park movie. We then drove to the trailhead.

The mountains around the monument were formed by two super volcanoes that blew 28 to 30 million years ago. The rock formations are a combination of soft volcanic tuft and harder lava flows. The cliff dwellings were built by the Mogollen Puebloan Indians between 1276 and 1287 based on treee ring dating of the wood used in the buildings. They did not stay long. Scientist believe the Mogollens had moved on by 1300.  The Cliff Dwellings were made a NM by President Roosevelt in 1907 but by then the caves had already been looted of most of their archilogical treasures. There are 40 rooms with many of them accessible from the trails. We left Etta in the supplied dog kennels and hiked the Cliff Dwellings Trail (1 mile) and explored the ruins for about an hour. We looked for, but did not see any, Pictographs that were supposed to be in the main room. But we saw lots of grafitti from the early days of the NM. The only critter sighting was a lizard from the trail. 

This used to be the hardest National Monument in the country to reach. In the 1910/20s they had to organize caravans of automobiles over dirt roads to help folks reach the NM due to its remoteness and rugged road conditions. 

Entrance Sign

Cliff Dwellings from the lower trail

Cave 2 Dwellings

Leslie in the main cave

Main room

Lower walkway

The exit ladder

View from Emory Overlook

22 March 2019 White Sands National Monument

Visited White Sands National Monument and White Sands Missile Range Museum today. It was a beautiful but windy day with excellent visability. We drove to White Sands NM on US70 from Las Cruces around mid morning. When we got to the visitor center around 11AM, the place was overflowing with families and lots of children on spring break. Who ever thought of selling those plastic disks, normally used for sledding in the snow, to sled down the sand dunes has to be making a fortune! They were selling hundreds! That gave us our first clue of what to expect in the park. We discussed the hiking possabilities with the rangers, collected our 24^thPark passport stamp (were not counting our two BLM stamps since they are not NPS), viewed the exhibits, watched the park film, and purused the two gift shops before heading into the park. Leslie had not been to the park since she was a young girl and David had last been there in the early 2000s while he was supporting testing at the missile range. 

The sand dunes at White Sands NM are very active. The dunes on the western edge of the park can move up to 38 feet in a year. Dunes on the east side of the park only move a few inches a year. The dunes are gypsum that has washed down from the mountains that are all the way around the Tularosa Basin that the park is located in. The rain and snow run off dissolves the gypsum in the rocks in the surrounding mountains which runs to the lowest point in the basin which is called Lucero Lake. There the water evaporates leaving selenite crystals which are very soft. The high winds from the southwest break apart the selenite crystals into flakes which break apart into fine grains as they are blown across the dry lake. The grains pile up into the dunes. Surprisingly, the dunes are only 6000-7000 years old compared to the surrounding mountains which date back to the permian period. Many of the creatures and plants that live in the park have adapted over thousands of years to survive in the desert conditions. The water table in the basin is only a few inches to a foot below the surface. The gypsum tends to absorb the moisture  and draw it up into the dunes glusing the bases in place.

We knew we want to do a hike in the park. There are only 4 marked trails across the dunes. Although you can hike anywhere in the park, it is very easy to get lost in the dunes since your tracks disappear quickly. The wind was blowing 15-20MPH causing a lot of sand to go airborne. The most popular trail, the boardwalk, was closed for repair. As we drove into the park, we could see the Nature trail and Alkali Flat trail parking lots were overflowing with cars, many of the picknick areas were full with families (and children sledding down the dunes), but the parking lot for the Back Country Camping trail was pretty empty. So we hiked the two mile loop trail. Although the distance was not great, the constant up and down in soft sand turned out to be quite a good workout. The wind was picking up sand particles which were pelting us as we hiked. But it was still a beautiful hike. Part way through our hike, one of the fighter jets that launched from Holloman AFB, right next door to the NM, broke the sound barrier resulting in a double sonic boom. This was the first time Leslie had heard a sonic boom.

Following the hike we headed to the White Sands Missile Range headquarters facility where the missile museum is located. We spent a couple hours working our way through the museum which covered some of the history of the land that the missile range encompasses, including civil war battles, native american battles and leading up to the acquasition of the land by the US Government in the early days of WW2. It also had exhibits on range instrumentation and the various missiles that has been tested there over the years. The museum is not funded by the governemnt and is in need of some serious work, but it was interesting.

Leslie in the Dunes

David in the Dunes

20 March 2019 Prehistoric Trackways National Monument

Prehistoric Trackways NM is another BLM run national monument in the Rabledo Mountains north west of Las Cruces. There were no signs on the roads to point the way to the monument and the last half mile to the parking lot was a dirt road with a dry wash to cross. Luckily David had printed out a map. There was an entrance sign, a few exhibit signs and that was it. No visitor center, no rangers, no bathrooms, just a dirt parking lot. A dirt track continued past the parking lot and Leslie, who was driving, decided to do a little off road exploring, at least until it got a little difficult and she turned back (But she is getting better at it!). From one of the signs at the parking lot, it was clear there were only two hiking trails, only one of which was accessable without an ATV. All the rest of the trails were ATV trails of varing difficulty. 

Ridgeline trail was accessible from the parking lot and the map showed it went to the “Discovery Site” where they originally found the prehistoric mammal tracks (tracks are prior to the existance of dinasours in the early Permian period). But it did not show mileage or terrain. The website had even less information on the trails. Over 2500 slabs of rock with fossilized tracks were removed from the site in the 1980s and donated to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Unfortunately none of them are on display there. But the museum in Las Cruces has one on display.

We decided to hike to the “Discovery Site” to see what might have been left behind. As we started up the trail (being a mountain trail they all go up from the start) we came to a pretty steep grade and slugged up only to find another even steeper grade. The trail was very rocky and poorly maintained. David continued up the second steep grade only to find another steeper grade that looked like you might have to go up it on all four. A quick check of the satillite map on his phone showed there was more climbing beyond the third slope. He decided it was not worth the effort given the lack of information on what we would find at the Discovery Site. He later did more research on line and found that people who had made it to the site could not find any tracks or fossils. But the view out over the valley toward the Organ Mountains were great including the completely dry as a bone Rio Grande river bed (some natural barrier!). All the water is held back in reservoirs up stream given the current drought. 

 

Dry as a bone Rio Grande River bed

All in all, our impression of BLM run National Monuments is that they are poorly maintained, run down and under funded. 

18 March 2019 Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument

It was a beautiful day and we decided to visit Dripping Springs Natural Area in Organ Mountains – Desert Peaks National Monument. This monument is run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and it is obvious it is not as well funded as the National Park Monuments. But we collected our first BLM NM stamps for our book. We hiked the Dripping Springs trail (3 miles round trip) to the springs, the nearby Van Patten Mountain Camp and Boyd’s Sanatorium ruins. The spring was running very well and their was snow visable on the north slopes of the mountain tops. The uphill hike to the springs at the high altitudes definitely got our heart rates up. But the views were fantastic. We did have a critter sighting of some mule deers on the trail out, thanks to a dutiful father leading 3 small children and one papoosa on his back, who pointed them out to us.  Otherwise we would have missed them altogether. He was a brave and fantastic father on an uphill hike that takes a slow toll. We wished him a successful afternoon.

Entrance sign

Organ Mountains

Dripping Springs

Van Patten Mountain camp Ruins

Cactus growing out of the ruins

Dripping Springs

Leslie by the Boyd Sanatorium

David at the base of Dripping Springs

17 March 2019 Carlsbad NM to Las Cruces NM

We drove from Carlsbad NM via Texas along US180 to I-10 in El Paso to Las Cruces NM. As we rolled through El Paso we could see the Rio Grande, river from the freeway. It look like a small stream that could easily be jumped over there was so little water. Then we got stuck in a construction traffic jam for an hour! The trip across the salt flats and desert of far west Texas was monotonous! But the jumping between time zones twice after a Daylight Savings time change was a mind twister! We are staying in the Las Cruces KOA ($41.25 per night for a premium site with the Value Card discount) on a hill west of town. The views of the Organ Mountains and Las Cruces from the park are very nice. The pull through sites have concrete pads for the wheel tracks, are fairly level, and are gravel the rest of the way around. But are very close together. By the time we put the slide outs out, you had to walk sideways to get between the sites! 

After setting up, we drove to the small, quaint and Historic village of La Mesilla and ate at La Posta. The village square was very cozy and the resturant was excellent. We had arrrived late enough that most of the shops were closed so we will need to come back in the following days to vist the shops and eat some more excellent food and margaritas.

Founding of La Mesilla

Close neighbors