Sun, Sand and …… Snow

15–17th Feb

Our next stop was White Sands National Monument which is situated in the middle of the White Sands Military Missile Range.  The Range is in the Tularosa Basin and is approx. 150 miles long by 40 mile wide.  Route 70 took us right across it. 

On the way we came across a road block closing the road to all traffic and we had to wait 15 minutes whilst a missile was fired.  Blink at the wrong second and you almost miss it!

We spent all day Saturday at the White Sands NM – it is not a National Park; the difference being that a NP is created by an Act of Congress whereas a National Monument is created by a Presidential decision.  By making it a NM it put a stop to plans to mine the gypsum.  These Sands Dunes are made of white gypsum and sparkle in the sunlight.  They cover around 275 sq miles, are the largest gypsum dunes in the world, and are constantly changing with the wind.

You can walk where you like and we found it was best without shoes – so we spent most of the day walking bare-foot! 

 

 

 

It was like being on the beach with the sun in the clear blue sky.   You can rent ‘sleds’ and slide down the dune slopes.  Many families were there making a day of it as this was also a 3-day holiday weekend. 

 

  

 

 

At the end of the day we joined a Ranger for a Sunset Stroll over the Dunes and watched the sun go down behind the Mountains.     

 

 

 

 

 Sunday we took a drive up into the Mescalero Mountains, to Cloudcroft, at a height of 8650ft.  We were most surprised to see SNOW!  Although much of the snow from a couple of weeks ago had melted there was a ‘ski resort’ feel to the place.

 

After spending the past month in the desert it was nice to see trees again.

 We drove up to the National Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak at Sunspot, just 16 miles further up into the mountains in Lincoln National Forest.  We saw a couple of telescopes they use to study the sun, one of which is 136ft above ground and 228ft below ground.  Unfortunately we did not get to see into the telescopes.  However from our vantage point at this height (9200ft) we could see the wind whipping up the sands in the Dunes down in the Basin. 

Before going back to the RV we stopped at a Pistachio Nut Farm where we sampled most of their wares including several different wines one of which was Pistachio nut flavoured – and “hic” very nice too!

El Paso Texas

10–14th Feb

We left the camp site at Guadalupe Mountains on Sunday morning.  Unfortunately we will never know how the other Hikers/Campers fared on the Mountain that night, in the high winds and freezing weather temperatures. We can but assume they were experienced and knew what they were doing.

We drove to El Paso through the Salt Flats and past the Hueco Mountains.  We camped at Anthony just a mile from the state line with New Mexico on the north western edge of El Paso. 

 

 

The camp site was conveniently situated behind Camping World so that we could have the generator checked as it has not been reliable recently. We found out that the altitude setting on the carburettor had been set to zero, so all this time we have been travelling under the sea. Paul also bought and fitted two new AC roof vent covers as one had blown away in the high winds and the other one wasn’t looking too good either.

We used this week to do some maintenance and admin etc.  We took a trip out one day around and then over the Franklin Mountains. 

El Paso is a V-shaped city that has spread around the southern end of the Franklin Mountains next to the Rio Grande.  On the other side of the river is Mexico and the city of Juarez.  The two cities seem as one continuous urbanised sprawl.  From a view point on the Mountain side we saw queues of traffic at one of the bridge border crossings.

 

The weather has been lovely sunny days at around 15C but the freezing temperatures at night have meant frozen pipes every morning. Sunset has given us some spectacular photos.

We have also seen what can happen when fire gets a hold of an RV. Fortunately the owners were away so no-one was hurt. The fire was started when the battery’s over heated.

 

 

Guadalupe Mountains

8–9th Feb

We drove 60 miles south of Carlsbad to the Guadalupe Mountains National Park which took us back into Texas.  The Guadalupe Peak is 8749ft and was a tempting challenge but the Rangers advised against such a climb as high winds were expected over the weekend (55mph with gusts up to 80mph). 

So we set up camp at the base of the Mountains and then spent Friday afternoon walking up the Devil’s Hall Trail with The Natural Steps at the far end of the canyon. 

We saw some Mule Deer on the walk back. (Mule Deer are like ordinary deer but with large ears, like a mule).

 

At night the place was really dark and the sky was full of stars.  One fellow camper was sleeping in the back of his pick-up truck – we didn’t envy him as the temperature dropped.

 
Saturday we saw several different groups of people setting off for The Peak and as it was such a lovely sunny day we were a little tempted to try; but we’ve experienced horizontal rain at the top of a Welsh Mountain so don’t feel the need to prove anything to ourselves any more. 

We drove up the road to McKittrick Canyon and walked up to Pratt Cabin, a trail of about 2.5 miles.  It was a delightful area with water running in the creek; sometimes going below the ground.  There was a considerable variety of vegetation including trees and cacti.  We are still in the Chihuahua Desert and although this may not be the best time of year to see the canyon you could imagine what an oasis this must seem in the summer time, in the middle of the desert.

 

We had lunch on the cabin porch listening to the wind in the mountain tops.  As we walked back down the trail the mountains gradually started to disappear from view. Upon arriving back at the car park we realised it was dust in the air as the winds whistled around, once we were out of the shelter of the canyon.  We were really glad we had taken the Rangers advice on which Trails to do this weekend!

As we drove back to the camp site the mountain range was all but obliterated from view by the dust and the car was buffeted about.  Back in the RV the winds had forced in debris such as leaves and dust.  Doors and draws had been flung open and the (3lb) fruit bowl knocked on the floor.  It wasn’t until the morning that we discovered we had also lost one of the Air Conditioning roof covers and two of the vent covers were loose as well.

We noted other hikers coming back from the trips, including the guy on his own who had driven off in his truck.  However there were two vehicles still in the car park when it got dark.

We brought the slides back in to reduce the profile of the RV and then sat out the night listening to the wind howling and shaking the motorhome.

 

Next morning things had quietened down but it was only just above freezing.  The two cars were still parked with no-one around.  We then spotted a Ranger setting off to hike up the mountain.  We presumed this was not a task he would do for the sake of it and assumed he was going in search of the car owners …….. who were still up the mountain?

Carlsbad New Mexico

4-7th Feb

We travelled north into New Mexico via Pecos.  We stopped there for fuel at a Flying J.  The Pilot/Flying J chain is essentially a petrol station but they provide facilities for Truck Drivers such as showers, TV lounge and games rooms plus restaurant and shop with spares and fast food etc.  A really good idea to attract customers and at lunch time this place was really humming with 20 odd trucker’s spending money.  RVers are also welcome and we have a loyalty card for discounted petrol.
As we crossed the State Line we went into Mountian Time, that now puts us 7hrs behind the UK.

 

 

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

 We visited the Caverns on the Wednesday.  The Caverns were discovered when a 16 year old saw what he thought was black smoke in the distance.  It turned out to be thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats coming out of the Caverns.  We went down the Natural Entrance which takes you 750 feet below ground via a steeply descending path of one mile and then came back up to the surface in the elevator for lunch.

We then went back down for a guided tour of the Kings Palace which goes 800 feet underground for a mile and then walked another mile around the Big Room.  The Caverns are enormous having been created when water combined with the hydrogen sulphide, from the oil and gas fields below, to make sulphuric acid which dissolved the limestone.  There are over 30 miles of passages with the deepest chamber being 1037 ft below the surface. 


These are not the biggest, deepest or prettiest of caves but the enormity of the size of these chambers is awesome and most impressive.  We only walked around 5 miles but we were underground for nearly 6 hours admiring the formations.
Sadly 95% of the formations have stopped growing.  The pools have dried out and there is little water seeping down from the surface these days.  There will be a number of reasons for this but they are reviewing whether the paved car-parking above has contributed.

The bats still live here but only in the summer months – they migrate south of the Mexican border for the winter months.  We were asked before we entered the caverns if we had visited other caves in the past 7 years as they are trying to avoid the White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) a fungus that is killing colonies of bats on the east coast.

Roswell UFO Incident

Thursday we visited Roswell. Well it had to be done didn’t it!  Alison couldn’t come this close to the International UFO Museum and not pay a visit.  There is little else in Roswell and if you aren’t into that sort of thing it is not worth making a detour.  However the UFO Convention in July might be interesting ………?

(Paul say’s “not a chance”!)

 

 

We saw a sign “National Fish Hatchery” and paid a visit to Dexter.  The Hatchery specialise in the protection of rare and endangered fish species with breeding and re-introduction programmes.  However there was little to see as the ‘pond’s were being prepared for the new breeding programme in the Spring and hence were currently empty.

Balmorhea Lake

1–3rd Feb

We travelled 40 miles from Fort Davies to this Lake-side camp site where we had a really relaxing weekend.  Paul got to sit by the Lake all weekend providing some good fish for the BBQ.

This one was about 2.5 lbs.



It was really pleasant waking up in the morning and looking across the lake watching the bird life.  There were a surprising number of seagulls around (60+) considering the sea is about 400 miles away.