This day started off early, as most days will do in this trip. We left the Guadalupe mountains after packing the car and headed west towards El Paso for breakfast. The state road 62 runs close to the Mexican border leads directly into El Paso. From the mountains to El Paso this road goes for 100 miles on a drive over salt flats, which were very primitive, and made us a little uneasy as we only had half a tank of gas left. I highly recommend to make sure you have plenty of fuel for this drive, as this 100 mile stretch had no services! We finally we reached Interstate 10, and El Paso, and realized that Jaurez was right across the road, where you could see the poverty struck town which had become notorious for crime. This also was uneasy with the recent tension with Mexico and the USA building a wall across our southern border.
El Paso proved to be a unique experience as I felt we were the only white people at any place we went to. I wouldn’t say it was a bad thing, however I believe we were served with disdain at breakfast. The breakfast place we went to was called Lucy’s Cafe. The food there was very good for breakfast and the price as we made it out in under $10 for two people! Once we had fueled up for the day we headed north to White Sands National Monument. It was at this point in the trip I felt as the landscape had changed, and we had accomplished our goal of getting to the western stretch of the USA in the shortest, most efficient amount of time.
In order to get to White Sands you must pass the Organ Mountains National Mountain range, which in their own right are quite spectacular, reaching out of the ground upwards of 6000 feet! In order to get there, you must first head north from El Paso to Las Cruces (from El Paso) and go through the city and then head east on the interstate. This road takes you over the mountains and when you reach the top of the apex you’re treated with a spectacular view of the valley. You can see the monument and the White Sands missile range to the north part of it. Evidently, this place was used to test nuclear missiles and bombs many years ago.
White Sands National Monument is about 15 miles down the mountain and is a spectacular sight, as it is the largest collection of alabaster sand in the world (over 20 mi.²) of pristine white dunes that are as fine as flower! You can take your car halfway into the park on a paved road but then the remainder of the trail for about 3 miles is a dirt graded sand trail. This can prove to be a bumpy ride but in the end it is worth it as it puts you in the middle of the dunes.
PROTIP– You can camp for free here! The only thing is it must be back country camping, but the experience of camping on the sand dunes under the starry sky is absolutely life changing. This particular trip we did not take advantage of this, as we had time constraints, but I highly recommend doing this once in a lifetime!
When we parked the car, it put us literally in the sand dune area. We decided to walk a few of the dunes and explore for about 20 minutes. If you are not camping there, there are no hike to do, thus we didn’t need much time to take in the awe inspiring beauty of these white master pieces. These were some of the most impressive sites of the trip, as one would not expect to see this in a valley with brown mountains surrounding it. We highly recommend visiting this as it will really put in perspective some of the oddities of nature, and give you a deeper appreciation of the natural beauty of the USA.
We had to head west towards Arizona at this point to reach Chiracahua National Monument. This was a four hour drive, but we were ready to tackle it to get us in position for tomorrow. So we headed west back over the Organ Mountains from where we came and continued through Las Cruces heading west on the interstate towards Chiracahua. We were still on schedule and we’re planning on being there by 5pm, so we had three hours to hike.
We stopped at a gas station for burger king and had lunch, bought gas, and purchased food at the store in Las Cruces to cook for the night. We were now ready to camp again with appropriate supplies. We noticed on the way to Chiricahua NM, that there are security checkpoints. I believe this is mostly because there was a military base near, and heavy drug trafficking in this part of the country, but it was interesting that we checked in three hours east of the checkpoint near White Sands and four hours later they knew we were coming back from White Sands at the other checkpoint. Fortunately they let us right through with no issue or loss of time.
For someone from Florida, land of flat earth, the drive for three hours is spectacular, even though it is barren and desolate. The dessert and mountain flora out here in southern Arizona are visible. This long stretch on I-10 we were on was a tough leg of the trip, as there was not much to see or do except drive, however in order to get to Chiricahua, we had to drive on a rocky dirt road. This had me scared as I didn’t want to puncture any tires on our car Toyota Corolla. With what I know now, and what I have done with backroad driving since then, I would never had been scared, but for the moment, this was new and treacherous. For eight miles we drove on gravel and rocks the size of golf balls and finally after what felt like forever, we were able to make it through to paved road and continue into the monument. This place featured structures that were not what you would expect to see in this area. Whether you call them hoodoos or columns, they look like human figures in the shadows.
We checked into the visitor center, and as this place wasn’t a popular camping area, we were able to get a campsite that night late in the day, which put my mind at ease. We immediately setup our tent, and went to go on a hike, since we had 3 hours of sunlight left. We headed up the only road into the park, which ends at an overlook, and the beginning of the parks loop trail. This hike is about 3 miles, and was the perfect experience of the day. The trail immediately descends into the valley of Hoodoos. These were impressive from a distance, but not until we were up close to them, did we realize just how big they were. What you think would be quite small is actually quite massive as these columns extended upwards of 100 feet from their base.
This trail traversed the perimeter of the mountain, as well as the outer perimeter of the entire Monument. As we walked in amazement of this geologic wonder, we came around the far end of the mountain, which gave us a gunsight view of the valley during sunset, which was one of the most beautiful things we had witnessed in our lives. It forced us to take it in for about 10 minutes, taking a break, and eating beef jerky while there.
One thing we learned this trip, as evidence by this day, was national monuments tend to have campsites that are more available on first come first server basis, than National Parks. We spent $11 to camp, fired up our propane stove and cooked steaks, potatoes and vegetables for the evening. This concluded our day as we had to get up early once again (as with every morning this trip) in order to make it to our next destination. With what we saw today, and the ground we covered, I was as they say….a happy camper!
June 4 Expenses
19.72 El paso breakfast
30.62 walmart food
19.72 gas
2.50 ice
10.81 burger king
12 camping fee
Total – 95.38
Guadalupe National Park to Chiracahua National Monument – MILES DRIVEN – 504