Alamogordo: Dog Canyon

Before the interruption, I was in the area near Alamogordo, New Mexico. I camped at Oliver Lee State Park, in the shadow of the Sacramento Mountains. The park is south of the city, the mountains are to its west. This place was the jumping off point for a hike into Dog Canyon.

The astute will note that I was in a different Dog Canyon earlier this trip.

The night before the hike, I enjoyed a beautiful sunset, and the company of some quail.

The trail wasn't too difficult, and it provided a nice set of views. The total elevation change was about 3000 feet, but I didn't carry a full load to the top. I chose a camp site about 2000 feet up, from which I caught a very interesting view of the White Sands blowing up a storm in the basin below.

After an uneventful night under the stars (I decided to forgo the tent), I returned down to the park.

(Coming soon: accounts of the Gila Wilderness...)

Mostly back on track again

Well, the trip can now get back on track, after a brief visit back east. I'm still having computer problems, so postings will probably be sporadic. Most of the coming week will probably be spent in wilderness areas of the Gila National Forest. With luck, I will post pictures from the Alamogordo and White Sands area before disappearing there.

On a semi-humorous note, Fox "Fair and Balanced" News (nothing about accuracy, there) had a crawl in which the Chinese were blaming Tibetan violence on the Dalai Llama. Where's Oscar Wilde when you need him?

Carlsbad Caverns: Left Hand Tunnel Tour

The Left Hand Tunnel Tour is a ranger-guided, lantern-lit trek into a lesser-developed area of the main cave. There is no pavement, and no artificial lighting. Participants are given candle-powered lanterns, with the intent of giving a feel reminiscent of what the original explorers would have experienced as they explored the cave for the first time. It's an experience that is different than the more artificial setup in the self-guided Big Room and Natural Entrance sections of the cave, as well as the King's Chamber Tour, which is also artificially lit. As a result, I was unable to take long-exposure no-flash pictures, as I was in the other areas of the cavern. (The difference in how well no-flash pictures capture the actual lighting vs. flash pictures is quite striking. See if you can spot the difference in the previous posts.)

The tunnel is called the Left Hand Tunnel because it goes off to the left from the Natural Entrance.

Carlsbad Caverns: King's Chamber Tour

The King's Chamber Tour is the high point of a visit to the Caverns. It shows the best parts of the cave, which the original explorer, Jim White, gave names referencing royalty.

Carlsbad Caverns: The Big Room

The Big Room is about a mile long, with a paved path for visitors to follow. Lots of indirect lighting shows off various features to some effect.

Carlsbad Caverns: Intro

There's something odd in road-sign math on the southern approach to Carlsbad Caverns.

The first picture is taken, well, 67 miles from the Caverns. But was it taken 80 miles from Carlsbad? The second picture was taken in White's City, the junction where the road to the Caverns turns off. Hmmm.

Guadalupe Mountains: Williams Ranch

[This post describes things that occurred before the interruption.]

On my last day at the Guadalupe Mountains, I joined a ranger-guided drive (in a 4WD high-clearance van) to the Williams Ranch, an outpost on the south side of the park that is 11 miles over a bumpy road, at the base of the mountains. This was a poorly-promoted first attempt at this sort of thing, attended only by myself and the German couple I met at the summit of Guadalupe Peak (whom I had told about it). We spent about 1.5 hours bumping along the road, stopping at a few places along the way (see e.g. the eagle pictures from an earlier post), and then arrived at the abandoned ranch house. The NPS has restored the exterior of the house, but not yet done anything of substance to the interior. Becuase we had the ranger along, we were able to get in! The original settler of this ranch was from Louisiana. Some of the backing of the wallpaper was old New Orleans newspapers (sorry no dates, but they say the house was built in 1907, making it not much older than my house back in Somerville...)