The signs to the park are pretty easy to follow, but as soon as we leave Willcox behind the road turns to dirt. It's been raining steadily for the past few days and we briefly consider turning around. There are muddy puddles on the road, we no longer have 4 wheel drive and we'd be stuck in the middle of nowhere. Houses here are few and far between.
We decide to keep going and luckily the little dirt road connects to a paved road after a few slow & bouncy miles. It is actually a straight road.
Woohoo! No more hairpin turns for a while
It's supposed to be only partly cloudy today, but menacing clouds have filled the sky. Notice too how the scenery has changed again. The cacti and bushes are gone, there is nothing but whitish grass as far as the eye can see.
Cute bull
We make it to the park without incident, only to find the park is engulfed by clouds and fog! You can't even see the mountains in the distance.
It's drizzling when we get to the visitors center and we sit down to watch a brief movie about the park's history. The ranger at the station tells us that the road going into the rest of the park is closed (we assume because of the fog), but that we can hike any of the trails.
We start out of the lower Rhyolite Canyon trail. Supposedly after 2.5 miles or so you get to the rock formations the park is famous for.
As you can tell there's still some snow on the ground.
The higher we climb, the more snow we find and there's a big change in the plants surrounding us.
Here you can really see the difference in the vegetation between the different altitudes.
Finally we get a glimpse of the eroded rock pillars:
The really nice views are still a ways up ahead, but the altitude is making it hard to keep going. There's also snow everywhere at this point and the trail is pretty slick in some spots so we decide to turn around.
I'm feeling the water in the stream. I thought that with all the melting snow running into it it'd be freezing, but it's just a little cold.
A close up of my new hat. It feels like the perfect southwest souvenir to me :)
The lower elevation of the park has quite a few strange bushes with orange/reddish bark and we decide to stop by the visitors center to ask what it's called. If it can withstand snow and 100+ degrees temperatures it can probably grow in Maryland too!
When we start to ask the ranger about the strange bush, she interrupts us as says "so I guess you heard the road is open now?" Uh, no ... turns out they opened it just 5 minutes earlier after they cleared all the ice. We get so excited about the road having opened up that we have no idea what she said the bush is called haha.
Our first view from Massai Point. The mountains are obviously still shrouded in fog & clouds.
Great view from the outlook tower. I wonder how many people will get to see it the way we saw it today?
A look into the valley below.
A small balancing rock. Most of the formations in the park actually have names. This one probably has a name too.
The trees are all frozen
The first part of the trail hasn't been used in a while. The snow is completely untouched and it's hard to see where the trail leads. Somehow I manage to make it back to the parking lot in one piece.
On our way back the weather is starting to clear up.
We pass through Willcox again on our way back, but decide to drive someplace else for lunch. The restaurants there were just really run down and our stomachs are still upset from last night.
We pass the New Mexico border. Our 5th state in 8 days!
It's only 5pm when we reach Las Cruces. I read somehwere that it's apparently New Mexico second largest city. I don't know if that's true ... everybody always talks about Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but it looks pretty substantial from the highway. Like Willcox it's a little shady; lots of run down motels and yards littered with trash.
Our hotel for tonight is really nice though! It's being remodeled and so it's not as fancy as some of the other hotels we've stayed at, but the owners go out of their way to make sure we have everything we could possibly need.
There's still a little bit of sunlight left so we head for nearby Mesilla, a settlement from the 1800s with a rich history.
One of the restaurants.
We take the hotel owner's advice and dine at a Mexican place called La Posta. Quirky decorating and several tropical birds make for a great atmosphere and the food is delicious. Another great day!
Back to the snow tomorrow. Hopefully we can stop at a dollar store somewhere and pick up a couple of kids shovels to dig out the car. Wish us luck!
Mileage for today: 282 miles
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1 comments:
Posted a lot of comments today. Could not react sooner. Had to work day and night (well evening).But I did follow your trip everyday.
Is it normal that there is snow in the south or are you that high in the mountains? Handsome picture of you in the cowboy hat. I will put it in a frame to show it to everybody.
Love for both of you, Joeve and Rob
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