Cloudcroft New Mexico

At first, our landscape was pretty much what I expected: flat desert.

After our second night in the fabulous AirBnb, Pedro and I hit the highways of southern New Mexico to get closer to where the wedding would be on Saturday. Our next night would be in the town of Tularosa.

From a rise, we got a better look at it. Yep, flat desert.

To break up the roadtrip, I had used my AllTrails app to find a trail along our journey on Friday. There was a place with the aspirational-sounding name of Cloudcroft. Our excellent salesman, Jesus, had talked about it the day before when we visited the Mexican import store. He had raved. But really, looking at the landscape above, we weren’t sure it could be all that.

In the photo above, you can barely see hints of higher elevation on the horizon. We reached those eventually, and it was much more dramatic than we expected.

We found a place to pull off the road and enjoy a view.

A better view of the rock wall behind the sign, which explains that these layers were formed under a sea long ago.

The view down into the valley from the Lincoln National Forest Sign. Not sure I would label this “forest,” but I can see a tree here and there.

Pretty little valley. On the horizon we were seeing White Sands NP in the distance, but we didn’t know that.

We did have hope that the trail we were heading for now might be interesting, if there were elevation changes. We were not expecting a real, honest-to-god forest, but in the end we had that too. Shade, elevation, beauty, and free parking with my America the Beautiful Pass.

Then the landscape changed into green, forested mountains. This was more like it!

The air got cooler, the landscape transformed, and soon it was time to pull onto a side road and find our trailhead. It was very easy to find the parking area with great bathrooms at the trailhead for Old Cloudcroft Highway Trail Loop. We changed into hiking shoes and off we went, eager to stretch our legs and revel in the cool air after all the heat of the days prior.

Wild roses were in bloom along the trail

We spotted an interesting building at the top of a nearby hill.

What is it? We couldn’t guess. But from those top windows there was undoubtedly a great view.

The mountains were impressive. We hiked at elevations between 8,000 and 8,500 feet (2438-2591 m). The weather was fine, and with elevations that high, we had some great views along the trail, when the trees weren’t in the way.

Out on the horizon I saw an unidentified feature of pale land.

I used my camera’s zoom to bring it closer, but still did not understand what I was looking at.

It was my very first time in this area, and even though White Sands National Park was on our itinerary, I had no idea that is what we were looking at. In fact, we would be IN that park that very evening. It will be my next post.

The trail provided historical information about the railroad that had once come through. We could see the old, oiled timbers below us, from the S trestle.

This shelter near the creek at the bottom also had informational signs and a map.

We walked under canopy most of the time.

We didn’t spot much wildlife, and that we found was not always welcome.

At first I was a little too cool, due to the elevation making it chilly here. But the end of the trail was all uphill, and that warmed us up considerably.

The final climb back to the parking area.

We had worked up an amazing appetite, and recalled seeing a sign for craft beer and artisan pizza somewhere in the tiny town. We quickly found Cloudcroft Brewing Company and asked for seating outside in their spacious and beautiful patio. The pizza was outstanding, and the craft beer was great. It was an excellent discovery. I cannot tell you how important it is to the enjoyment of travel when you find great food and drink.

But it was time to get going and find our next room in the daylight. Off we went to Tularosa.