2006/03 Southwest USA trip (AZ-MN) - Oliver Lee state park |
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We were running short of propane, so we filled up in Deming, and headed for the mountains to the north of Las Cruces. I had hopes of taking a look at the dunes at White Sands and then camping north of there in the Valley of Fires, but, as usual, we just didn’t have enough time to do everything. We climbed into the San Andreas mountains to the northeast of Las Cruces and then dropped down into the Tularosa Basin. The basin is home to the White Sands Missile Range and the Holloman air force base and the town of Alamogordo, close to Trinity, the site of the first ever atomic explosion. For about thirty miles the valley is flat and empty, with no towns: I guess no one wants to live on a missile range!
It was ten degrees cooler there than back in Las Cruces, so when we finally got to the White Sands National Monument, hiking around the dunes in the wind didn’t seem all that attractive. There is no camping at White Sands so we got directions to the nearest state park, and planned to come back to White Sands in the morning. We could see the edge of the dunes, pure white against the yellow-brown of the rest of the valley. We’d have to wait till the next morning to see the full extent of the dunes.
We drove to the town of Alamogordo, which looks to be past its best, and then a little way south to Dog Canyon and Oliver Lee 
state park. The park is at the mouth of the canyon, a very scenic spot at the foot of the Sacramento Mountains. The town of Dog Canyon is an insult to the dog, just a collection of decaying trailers and trash. Dog Patch might be a better name. We found a nice camping spot in the park looking out across the Tularosa Basin to the distant San Andreas Mountains. It would have been a great place to watch a sunset, but there was too much cloud, and a strong cold wind blowing from the north discouraged any outdoor activity.
Sunday February 19th
The night stayed windy, with an occasional spitting of rain. I took an early walk up the canyon floor, but the trail ended quickly at a rickety boardwalk. It was nice that the state had built the boardwalk to protect the canyon’s stream bed, but 2X8 pine boards on 4 foot centres? Don’t they have any building inspectors in New Mexico?
The park is named after Oliver Lee who was an early cattle rancher. He built a concrete flume system to bring water from the canyon to a reservoir on his ranch. Even now there was water running in the canyon, a rare sight in the desert.