Mountains and dunes

My ride today had me thinking about soap commercials from my childhood. There was one which used a “Springtime in the mountains” theme. I think it was Irish Spring but I’m not sure. Whatever it was I sure had that same happy feeling on this ride.

I rode from Alamogordo up into the mountains east of there to the small town of Cloudcroft. It is a resort community that serves the various outdoor hobbies that take place in the Lincoln National Forest – skiing, snowboarding, camping, hiking and hunting among others. The ride to Cloudcroft was a constant climb of turns and s-curves that made the 15 mile ride up a sheer delight.

I stopped for breakfast at one of the restaurants recommended by some search engine. The staff was clearly having a bad day with only one cook and waitress but they were very pleasant people and a delight to talk to over a second cup of coffee. Somehow I never got a spoon to stir my coffee but a little improvisation with a Splenda packet and all was fine.

I had it on my mind to buy a pair of those fancy hiking pants that have the zip off legs and since there was a bike/hike shop just down the street I figured I was in luck. Who knew that you had to have either a 32 or 34 inch waist to be a hiker in New Mexico?  I left with my unspent cash safely in my size 38 pants and went back to my bike.

I left Cloudcroft and rode a long loop through and around the forest over to the White Mountain Apache reservation. Don’t confuse this with the White Mountain Apache reservation in eastern Arizona. Same tribe different places. Cloudcroft is at about 8750 feet elevation and the ride took me even higher. At one point the alpine forest thinned considerably  and I thought I might ride above the timberline but the road turned downward and back into the forest where I was greeted with more miles of wonderful curves and curves and curves. Most of you reading this know I am a novice at this type of riding. I kept wondering what a really experienced rider would have done on these roads. Still, I am confident I got my monies worth for the morning. I toured some National Forest campgrounds while I was up there and made plans to return and camp there tomorrow night. The campground host told me all of the Cloudcroft area campgrounds are pretty much full on the weekends but during the week you can have your pick.  I’ll let you know how my camping excursion went on my next post.

In the afternoon I wanted to visit two places in the area  – White Sands National Monument and the Oliver Lee State Park. I made it to both of them.

White Sands national Monument abuts the White Sands Missile range. The monument consists of thousands of acres of protected gypsum (I think) dunes. The dunes are formed by the effect of evaporation from nearby lakes. The residue is the gypsum which blows onto the dunes area as it has for millennia. Just imagine going to the beach without an ocean or water of any kind and you will understand the reality that is WSNM. There are picnic tables, grills, shelters, areas to play in the sand dunes and instead of swimming people sled down the dunes on the little round discs we all used to use on the snow when we were kids. The dunes are really tall so sledders pick up a lot of speed coming down the dunes. I watched  several groups do this. It appeared the grandparents were content to sit under the sunshades and just watch although they did seem to make frequent trips to their Yeti coolers to remove beverages and return to their beach chairs to drink them.

I used my nifty little BMW GPS to plan a route from WSNM to the Oliver Lee State Park. Remember how I was complaining about the overly sensitive German engineers yesterday? Well I take it back. I love them today. They have planned the GPS to configure routes based on available road surfaces. There was a perfectly safe and reliable route to the Oliver Lee on major highways but the Germans would have none of it. Instead they gave me back roads and gravel and red dirt and ruts and dips and oh, I wish it had never ended. This GS is absolutely rock solid on those roads. Again I felt they were wasted on  the likes of me, but I was glad to have taken my turn at it.

So why did I go to the Oliver Lee? If you’re an Old West buff you know who he was . If you’re not then I’ll enlighten you. Oliver Lee and Albert Fountain were on opposite sides of the famous Lincoln County range wars of the late 1800’s. Lee was ruthless in trying to become top dog in those parts. Fountain was a lawyer who wanted to stop what he perceived as Lee’s land grab. Fountain ended up with a group of young men on his side who were known as the Regulators. They were all young men. One of those young fellows was William Bonney. You know him as Billy the Kid. Well, Lee hires Pat Garrett to kill the Kid which he did. Then someone ambushed Fountain and his eight year old son on the road. Their bodies were never found. Pat Garret knew Lee hired it done and so Garret went after Lee and had him brought to trial. Money talks and the money talked Lee into an acquittal. Later, Pat Garrett is ambushed and killed. Lee was the last man standing and he got it all. He got the land, he got the woman, he won elections, he was the founder of Alamogordo. He had many children and grandchildren. They still live here. They still have the same kind of clout old murdering Papaw Lee had so they got a state park named after him. It’s really a nice park with a well thought out campground and the restored Oliver Lee ranch house. When you visit you owe it to your view of history to visit the place. It is a lasting reminder that the winner writes the history no matter how many people he had to murder to be the winner.

I wrapped up my day with another, shorter back roads ride outside of Alamogordo having been to the mountaintop, the beach and then the home place of a really bad guy depending on how you read your history.

I’ll ride some more back roads tomorrow and do some camping and let you know how it goes.

Be safe,
Brian