New snow on Sierra Blanca Peak, 11,973 ft, from Alamogordo.
The weather finally cleared this morning so we went up to Cloudcroft. It's a tiny town in the Sacramento Mountains, about 20 miles east of Alamogordo, but 3700 feet higher. It's a lot like the area around Mt Mitchell with Douglas firs and similar trees, although it doesn't look like Mt Michell's tree-graveyard. No acid rain die-back here. It also reminded me very much of northern Idaho. The two little communities just west of Cloudcroft are in a fruit-growing area.....apples and cherries.....high enough to be cooler and wetter and good for fruit trees. It's the only place we've seen good-sized deciduous trees since the east side of the Mississippi.
On Hwy 82, natural gorge into the Sacramento Mountains. Note the level sedimentary layers.
The Cloudcroft area has a history much like Asheville/Cashiers/Highlands.
The late 1800's brought in the logging industry which opened up a transportation route from Alamogordo. In 1900 a railroad was completed up the mountains which had the most unbelievable route......58 trestles, bridges, switchbacks.....one switchback so sharp the train had to back up to get around it. (I haven't figured out yet how that worked.) In 1947 it became more economical to bring the logs down by truck so the train stopped running. The trestles and bridges are all gone now except for the Mexican Canyon Trestle which was rebuilt in 2009-2010 as a historic site. There's no track running to or from the trestle.....it just stops at each end. Seems like a lot of work and expense just to show what the original trestle looked like.
Mexican Canyon Trestle, off Hwy 82 near High Rolls, NM
Cloudcroft did two other things which were similar to Asheville..... medical treatment at tuberculosis sanitariums and relief from the oppressive summer heat in places like El Paso. People who could afford it spent all summer up there. That business dwindled as the TB epidemic slowed. Air conditioning in El Paso probably finished it off.
Falling-rock barrier along Hwy 82 near Cloudcroft, another similarity to the Asheville area with the Pigeon River gorge section of I-40 needing constant attention due to rock slides.
Today, for the first time, we've heard tremendous roaring coming from either Holloman Air Force Base or White Sands Missile Range. Thought at first it was jets taking off but never saw any planes. They have a ten-mile long test track at Holloman so perhaps tests were being run on it. I'm sure the people around here are used to it.....it's the sound of money. The military and tourism (White Sands National Monument) are what keep this place going with the military accounting for about half the economy. It is not an attractive town at all. Like the rest of NM it's dilapidated. It's "best" attraction is the NM Museum of Space History which is only slightly interesting and rather pathetic. Everything about it needs refurbishing. (Might be more interesting to people who haven't also been to the Kennedy and Stennis Space Centers and the two Smithsonian Air and Space Museums.) The Alamogordo Museum of History was downright pitiful. I wanted to find out more about the history of this area but the information is totally disorganized. The museum is being moved to a new building soon so maybe it will be set up better at its new location.
Hwy 82 view from Cloudcroft across the Tularosa Basin to the San Andres Mountains with White Sands National Park looking like snow in the middle.
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