Drove up to the little town of Cloudcroft, NM (about 17 miles from Alamogordo) and visited the Lincoln National Forest Ranger Station and surrounds today. We went from about 4,000 ft. in elevation to 8,000+ elevation in only 17 miles. The terrain changed from desert to mountains with tall trees, green meadows, and running creeks (tiny ones, but creeks nonetheless!). The town is a quaint resort town (the major trade being hiking in Spring, Summer, and Fall, and skiing in Winter), with a community ice skating rink, little shops, restaurants, and a bakery where we bought a loaf of garlic bread that contained whole roasted cloves of garlic (for me) and a chocolate croissant (for Darell). Interestingly - to us anyway - Darell's grandfather was born in Cloudcroft in the early 1900's. It is a town that was built on logging, and train tracks to move the timber. It also hosted a children's TB sanitarium in the 1920's. The last train left in 1947, but hiking trails mark where the tracks used to be, and ruins of trestles are still visible. They've even reconstructed one trestle so the public can see what it had been like. The Ranger Station was one of the best we have encountered, and the staff was really helpful with maps and info. A nice bonus to our day was the discovery of the National Solar Observatory, along the Sunspot Scenic Drive: An absolutely wonderful visitor's center offered a fascinating look into the scientific research that is done there by a consortium of many different organizations and universities, including University of Washington, Johns Hopkins, New Mexico State, and others. I even bought a t-shirt.
 |
| This is the overlook to the Mexican Canyon Trestle |
 |
| The trestle, as reconstructed |
 |
| This is a view from a short hike we took off the main road - that white layer at the horizon is the White Sands National Monument |
 |
| A little spring-fed stream that led to a small waterfall at Bluff Springs, where we may camp next week |
 |
| Check out the ears on this deer - taxi cab with the doors open, eh? |
 |
| At over 9,250 ft. elevation, the view from the Apache Point Observatory was striking - dare I say it was the high point of our day? |
No comments:
Post a Comment