From Alamogordo we headed to the Ruidoso area. We had a site booked at the Along the River RV park, which is located yes, along the river. We had a nice site that backed up directly to the river and is in a nice wooded area. The deer here have become quite tame and one in particular had no qualms about hanging out in the RV park begging for food.
Will built a fire that night in the provided fire pit, which was constructed using an old drum from a washing machine. Very clever use of recycled materials. It was nice to have a fire as the temperatures were quite a bit cooler in the White Mountains of the Lincoln National Forest.
This area had been badly damaged by the Little Bear fire in 2012, which burned over 44,500 acres and about 200 homes. This lead to all that silt, ash, and sediment cascading down the hillsides into Bonito Lake. So, Bonito Lake is not so bonito (beautiful) anymore. The lake itself is closed until they remove the water, let it dry up, and remove all the debris. The new estimate on that completion date is August 2018. This means that the associated campgrounds are closed as well. However, there still are a number of hiking trails in the area, which are still open and quite nice. As we only stayed one night we chose one that was a little over 5 miles. We did the Little Bonito trail to the Argentina Canyon trail. It makes a nice short loop when using the Cut Across trail. This is another area that we really want to come back and spend more time.
As we left Ruidoso, we moved on to Socorro. I know, you’re thinking, why Socorro. Well, it’s on the way back to Albuquerque and it just happened to coincide with the Crane Festival at the Bosque del Apache Refuge. So, I figured why not check it out. We stayed at Tom’s RV park. The RV park’s not much to look at by any means, but Tom was really nice and it was an inexpensive night’s stay. Tom also told us about the San Lorenzo Canyon, which we hadn’t heard about. So, we thought, we might check out that area as well.
The Bosque del Apache is a Wildlife Refuge, which has a festival every year to celebrate the migration of the Sandhill cranes. Some of the cranes winter here or in Texas or Northern Mexico. In the Spring, they begin their trek back to Canada, Alaska or Siberia. (And we complain about a 6 hour flight.) We did the driving tour and checked out some of the cranes and snow geese. I also developed serious case of camera lens envy. Most of the people we saw are hardcore bird watchers and had huge camera lenses or telescopes. I hope Santa is good to me this year…..
The refuge also has a few hikes. We did the Canyon National Recreation Trail, which is a 2.2 mile loop. It’s dog friendly and does provide some nice views of the refuge. We want to come back and also do the Chupadera Wilderness Trail, where you can hike to the peak of Chupadera Mountain.
Since, Tom doesn’t really have a check out time at the RV park, it gave us time to explore the San Lorenzo Canyon area that he had recommended. This canyon is another hidden gem. The area is jointly managed by the BLM and the US Fish and Wildlife. There are no facilities, but the area is really beautiful worth the drive. We were able to drive our car well into the canyon and have our picnic lunch. This is another area that we would like to come back to. I’ve read that you can hike further back into the canyon.
