Monday Feb 27, 2023 - We got to our next campground late this afternoon, after re-stocking and doing laundry in El Paso. The campground is located at the base of the Sacramento Mountains, with great views all around our campsite. We stopped at the visitor center which had a nice little museum. The area was inhabited by Oliver Lee and Frenchy Rochas who both lived and ranched here in the mid to late 1800's. Frenchy's house has been excavated and they found a lot of his possessions that are on display in the visitor center. We hiked the short nature trail and enjoyed the succulent garden that has name plates for all the cacti that we've been seeing for the last few weeks.
Campsite 14 (no services at our site, but some sites here have electric and water)
Many sites have pavilions to protect from the sun (and the wind!)
Our hike on the nature trail
the foundation of Frenchy's cabin
and remnants of the stone fence he built to keep his cattle in. The fence starts in the left foreground of the picture and goes up the mountain.
Our first fire of the trip. Texas didn't allow campfires
sunset shadow on the mountain peak
another nice sunset
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023 - Today we headed off early for White Sands NP. It is visible from our campsite, especially when the wind blows and you can see the white cloud above it. It's an 8 mile drive into the sand dunes and we were told to drive directly to the back of the park for the biggest dunes. The camp host at Oliver Lee, let us borrow two of his plastic sleds so we could slide down the dunes. We watched a movie at the Visitors Center that told us that the white sand is formed from gypsum, left from when the area was covered by the Permian Sea 280 million years ago. The dunes are constantly moving (approximately 15 feet a year) from all of the New Mexico wind!
Our drive to the back of the dunes
lots of pretty wind patterns in the sand
in search of the perfect dune for sledding
We were the first to the top of this dune, today
Video of me sledding
going back to the top after a run down the dune
Kev's headed down again
so vast
the dunes with the mountains in the background
We've had enough fun for one day
We stopped for a hike through the dunes, this was the view back at the parking lot. with snow-capped Sierra Blanca peak in the distance
a pretty tree
A stop at the world's largest pistachio, at McGinn's PistachioLand in Alamogordo. They had a great spot to taste test all sorts of flavors of pistachios
Another pretty sunset
Wednesday March 1, 2023 - Today we hiked the Dog Canyon Trail that leaves from the Visitor Center. It is 10 miles to the peak (3000 ft up). We decided to hike for an hour then turn around. We felt good after the first hour and decided to keep going. Two young girls saw us at about 1.8 miles and said we should keep going, there was a spring and old cabin just a bit further. When we got to 2.6 miles and still hadn't seen the cabin we decided we should head down. In all it was a 7 mile day with all the other walking we did. I think we will sleep well tonight.
At the first switchback a view of the campground
now we're a bit higher
I'm coming....
nice view of the canyon
the trail leaves the state park and enters Lincoln National Forest
Nice bench for a water and apple break
Cholla
This was the second mesa of the hike and was full of cholla cacti
We decided to turn around here
The weather forecast said the wind would pick up around 11:00, and we see it blowing the sand, in the distance at White Sands NP
headed down
tonight's sunset was very sandy
