Every morning, we've been adding "one more day" to our stay at the Coachlight RV park in Las Cruces. We have been happily surprised with things to do in this small city. We are especially happy with the hiking in the national monument area east of the city. So on our last day, we headed out to the Organ Mountains for a final hike.
These are the same mountains we had hiked a couple days ago on our Dripping Springs hike. But now we are on the backside, where the afternoon sun never hits. That means that the white stuff in the pictures today really is snow up at the higher elevations!
We've picked the Pine Tree Loop trail this day, and it is rated as "Strenuous." When the sign at the trailhead starts with "People have died while climbing in these mountains" you know it's going to be a great hike!
The best things about this hike is that you always have those snowy craggly mountain peaks in front of you as you climb up a relentlessly steep trail.
We are hiking among the scraggly desert trees as we got closer and closer to the base of the mountain.
As we continued to climb up, we were excited to see our first patch of snow. We had heard that Arizona had been hit with more cold weather and some unusual snow in early January. It looks like some of that is still lingering in the higher elevations.
The trail followed a little creek as we worked our way up the mountain and the water meandered down. We had our first-ever frozen water crossing as we continued higher.
Meanwhile, Mark is doing the rock scrambling that he is so good at. He is enjoying the sunshine of this beautiful day sitting on that boulder. We have really been blessed with perfect weather and no wind while we are visiting Las Cruces!
As we worked our way higher, there was more and more snow on the trail.
Because it has been trampled down by hikers, and has frozen over many cold nights, it is more like a skating rink. Because we are well up the face of the mountain with considerable drop-offs, ice skating is not our favorite sport right now.
Even with the snow, Mark has rolled up his sleeves as the temperatures rise to the 70's. Have we mentioned that we have been blessed with perfect weather this week?
We notice that the scraggly desert trees have suddenly turned into pine trees.
It's been a while since we have seen pine cones in the snow on a hiking trail!
We reach the half-way point of our loop trail at the highest elevation of this trail--6,880 feet. According to Denisa's Vivo Smart, we have climbed the equivalent of 88 flights of stairs. That's almost as many as the Empire State Building--but with better views! You can barely see Mark in his black shirt, perched on a boulder just a little right of center in the picture below.
As we head downward for the remainder of the loop, we are now looking at the sun-shine flooded valley rather than the snowy peaks.
About four miles away in that valley, we get a bird's eye view of the military base that is part of the White Sands Missile Range.
After we finished the 4.5-mile Pine Tree Loop, we drive towards that military base. White Sands Missile Range proudly proclaims it is "the birthplace of America's missile and space activity." They have an outdoor Missile Park that looks like toy rockets have been strewn about carelessly (until you see Mark standing at the base of one of those "toys.")
But actually, these are examples of the rockets, missiles, aircraft, and radars that have been developed and tested on this range since 1945.
We took a picture of the Patriot Missile, mostly because its name was the most familiar to us. This surface-to-air missile is the Army's most advance air defense system. They began testing the Patriot here at White Sands in 1970, with "innumerable" tests since then.
We should mention that the Missile Park is on an active military base, so we had to show our ID and get security clearance before we could enter the base. We're proud to say that we passed the background check with flying colors.
There were more missiles in the indoor museum, as well as historical information about the earliest people that lived in this area. Being a military museum, there is also information about the battles and military efforts that took place at White Sands.
One of the biggest projects of White Sands Missile Range was the V-2, so it got its own building.
We had a full day on this final tour of La Cruces. The sun was setting as drove closer to our campground on the other side of the city. We could see those beautiful Organ Mountains turning colors with the sunset. We had planned to stay three nights, and stretched it to five instead. That's what we love about our wandering life-style that allows us to stop and wander through special places longer.
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