Carlsbad II

On Sunday, April 3rd I decided to hike from White's RV resort to the Carlsbad Caverns visitor center.  By car it is 7 miles, but if you hike the ridgeline it is 4-1/2 miles.  It takes about 3-1/2 hours to do the hike, but you can hitch a ride back down with the shuttle bus.  However, the ridgeline trail is not well marked and I ended up following dear trails up the wrong ridgeline.  I figured this out when I reached the top and saw that to get to the right ridgeline I would have to hike down into the gully and then back up to the right ridgeline.  I had already been hiking for two hours, so I decided  to just hike into the gully and back to base camp.  It was still a very interesting hike with a lot of beautiful desert cactus, blooming yucca, other wild flowers and dear.  Following are a few photos.  For a better view simply click or double click on the photo.

After returning to my trailer I packed up and headed south into Texas.  Southern New Mexico and West Texas are full of wide open spaces, sand and sagebrush.  I stopped for the night in Fort Stockton, Texas, pulled into a dusty RV park and slept through another dust storm.  Heading for San Antonio, Texas tomorrow.