NEW MEXICO: ORGAN MOUNTAINS, DRIPPING SPRINGS TRAIL

July 3, 2021

On July 2 we stopped at the Dripping Springs ranger station in the Organ Mountains on our way to our hotel in Las Cruces. We were hoping to do a three-mile hike, but rain was threatening and we didn't want to be caught in a storm, so we continued on to Las Cruces and came back the nexr morning

Our son Sam did some rope climbing here with a friend several years ago, so we were intrigued to visit and get an up-close view. These needle peaks loom over Las Cruces like Mordor rises over Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings. 

These first pictures were taken through the car window on our way in just as the sun was rising.

We got an early start and were the first car in the parking lot next to the ranger station and trailhead. The mountains were just waking up and starting to shrug off their fluffy comforters when we got on the trail.

Bob's white hair matched the shrouded mountain tops.

Here comes the sun!

I'm telling you, this is one gorgeous hike.

I love the contrast of the green growth and the red rock.

Who wouldn't want to sit here a while and meditate. (Well, we didn't. We had Places to Go and no time for sitting.)

I'm not sure why this sign is there. There isn't anywhere else to go, and it doesn't indicate how far away anything is. Maybe someone wanted to assure hikers that there is actually something ahead.

We came upon a couple of outbuildings that were once part of a stagecoach stop.

Nowadays it is a popular deer hideout.

Dripping Springs wasn't easy to spot at first, but as we got closer, it emerged from the towering granite walls.

There is an upper section and a lower section. Based on the lower section, maybe it should be called "Spitting Springs."

The desertusa.com website notes: "It was near this spring, in the 1870s, . . . that Colonel Eugene Van Patten chose to build his Van Patten's Mountain Camp resort and, later, that Doctor Nathan Boyd would decide to establish a tuberculosis sanatorium. And it was near this spring, in the late 19th and early 20th century, that the people of the Mesilla Valley experienced both extremes of the spectrum of human experience - from gaiety and celebration to suffering and anguish. Today, standing before the granite surface - sometimes called the "Weeping Wall" - that conducts Dripping Springs' stream of moisture into a small pond, you wonder about the source of the water. Issuing from what appears to be a solid mass of stone above, it seems almost magical."

Some of the "magic" is lost when visitors are advised not to drink the unsafe water and warned that crossing the rope will damage the fragile habitat.

Another view convinced me that even with the downer signs, it is a magical place.

As we headed back down the trail towards our car, I looked over my should to take one last look at Dripping Springs. Can you see it?

  

On our way back, we got a better look at the grazing deer near the stagecoach stop. I love this series of shots:

A "We Were There!" selfie.

By now, the sun was out, the clouds had released the mountains from their embrace, and the earth was flooded with color.

But the magic wasn't over. Bob spied four more deer on a distant ridge.

Only they weren't deer; they were GEMSBOK - a species of African antelope native to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. What the heck?

Bob was ecstatic. 

The next three photos are Bob's, which are much better than mine. They represent less than 1% of the pictures I think he took.

He found out from the ranger that gemsbok were brought to New Mexico about 50 years ago to provide big game hunting opportunities for the locals.

We watched for a while as they made their way slowly up the ridge.

Eventually Bob tore himself away and we got back on the trail.

Back at the ranger station, I enjoyed watching a bouquet of hummingbirds hovering around a few feeders.

One last look at the deceptively enticing blooming ocotillo . . . 

. . . their hard, sharp spines just waiting for someone to draw near.

The photos below show the parking lot when we arrived and then later when we left.

The magic is better without a hundred other people. Just sayin'.