April Roadtrip, Day 9...White Sands

 Day 9

Sunday April, 10

     East of Las Cruces, along Hwy 70 you’ll pass the White Sands Missile Range.  After WWII, sixty-seven captured V-2 rockets were test fired there.  On the northern part of the range sits the Trinity test site.  There’s a marker at the spot where the first atomic bomb was detonated in July, 1945.  They do offer tours of the site twice a year.  Would you believe, I missed the spring tour by a week.

     Not a bad shot considering I was doing 75MPH at the time and blindly aiming the camera towards the windshield.  

       White Sands National Park was opened as a national monument in 1933.  Due to it's proximity to the missile range, test firings occasionally close the park.  Fortunately, today wasn't one of those days.  

      Having hiked through dunes before, I know the trick is to get there bright and early, before they're covered in footprints.  With that in mind, I got in line with perhaps another ten vehicles.  The park service opened the gates, and in we all went.  

     In the low morning light, it was a bit trippy.  It felt like I had driven into snow, complete with the lower traction, drifts and stark white coloring.

     I chose a four and a half mile loop trail through the dunes.  It's been a while.  I had forgotten just how slow going that can be.  It was all up and down steep dunes.  To the Park Service's credit, the trail was well marked with orange posts driven into the sand.  There was a sign at the trailhead warning, if you can't see the next marker, turn around.  I could see how easy it could be to get turned around here.  

      I would spend most of the morning on this trail, making it back to the car on tired legs.  Between that and the constant glare, I knew I was done.  But, so well worth it.

   From the hike...

     The second stop of the day was Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument.  They were named by Antonio de Otermin, second governor of the Spanish Province of New Mexico.  He felt they looked a bit like organ pipes.

      As the 1600's began, the Spanish continued to spread northward, bringing Spanish law with them.  They also brought friars, assigning one to every Pueblan settlement they encountered.  

     After ten years, the Pueblans and Apache had enough.  They banded together and started raiding settlements, eventually causing the Spanish to retreat back south.  It was during this retreat Otermin’s party passed  these mountains.  

      For the afternoon, I chose the three mile Dripping Spring Trail.  When I read it had both an abandoned resort and sanitarium, I knew it was the right one.  The trail begins at the visitor center.  After hiking on sand dune in the morning, firm footing was quite welcome.

     The first structures I encountered were the livery and stage coach stop, once serving the resort and sanitarium.

    Just beyond, the trail loops up into the hills.  These abandoned buildings were once part of the Dripping Springs Resort.  Confederate Major Eugene Van Patten built and ran a fourteen room hotel here, opening in 1872.  Citing financial troubles, he sold the resort to Dr. Nathan Boyd in 1917. 

      All these buildings are barricaded wit heavy gauge wire and screens.  But, there's always that one little gap, just big enough to line up a cell phone camera.  

     Dr. Boyd had already built a sanatorium nearby for his wife, who was dying of tuberculosis.  A few years later, he sold it all to Dr. T.C. Sexton, who continued running it as a tuberculosis sanatorium.  

     From what I’ve found on line, Boyd and Sexton were trying any new treatment they could find on their patients, with no positive  results. There were also stories of patients being taken outside to fend for themselves, simply to open up space for the next patient.

     There’s even a campground in the area and many reports of strange sounds in the night, sudden feelings of dread and disembodied faces.  No one really knows how many died back here and conditions seemed to be pretty bad.  

     After hiking all day, it was time to find a late lunch.  Ice Box Brewing Company was just the place.  Beth and Carla were really great and let me sample as I went along.

     One more stop to make before calling it a day.  Yesterday, I hit one of the Billy the Kid spots.  Today, I drove down a high end residential street to the dead end.  Somewhere, a quarter of a mile into that open ground is a memorial to Sheriff Pat Garret, the man who tracked down Billy the Kid.  I went looking, but the trails intersect and curve off in every direction.