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| Hiking | 3.50 Miles |
95 AEG |
| | Hiking | 3.50 Miles | | | |
| 95 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | A few years ago I decided on my next trip to Cloudcroft, I would camp at Pines Campground and walk into town then on over to the Cloudcroft Brewing Company on the east side for some pizza and beer. I had not been to the brewery and wanted to check it out. I was able to do this and it worked out about as expected (it was a bit tedious carting the to go box containing some of the pizza from my visit the 1.75 miles back to camp though  ).
The official trail from the campground follows an old railroad grade and loops out, before heading into town. If you look at the satellite view of this, you will see a sharp dip in the route not too far from the campground. When I got to that spot I noticed evidence of foot traffic going up the hill and wondered if this could be a shortcut. Looks like it heads up to what appears to be an old ball field, before dropping into town along Mescalero Avenue. Next time I'm there I will check that out, though there may be private property issues.
The stop at Cloudcroft was part of a 3 day, 2 night trip to New Mexico that covered a lot of miles in a short time. The furthest point was a stop at Hobbs to eat at a fast food joint that is part of a small chain located in the region, and one of my favorites back in the time I lived in Midland from 1975-1979. Once I saw that Taco Villa was still in operation, I decided to see if their combination burro with green chile sauce was still as good as I remembered it. When I was working at the Midland NWS back then, I lived in an apartment complex that was at the regional airport (now named Midland International Air and Space Port  ), which is where the weather office is located, so it was very convenient for work. This is about midway between Odessa and Midland. Our go to Taco Villa back when I lived there was one on 8th Street in Odessa. We called the trip to town for food "a junk run."
Day one was the drive to Cloudcroft, with the hike to town and camping at Pines CG. Day two entailed driving down the mountain on US 82 through Artesia then over to Hobbs for the stop at Taco Villa (by the way, the green chile burro was about as I remembered  ). Somewhere around Artesia the air conditioning in the truck crapped out, so the rest of the trip was going to be uncomfortable at times (it's June so the heat is getting real in lower elevations). From Hobbs it was on to Roswell to spend night two at the Best Western Motel. Roswell is a fun place, and I have been to a number of UFO festivals there over the years, but this visit was just for a place to sleep before the long hot drive back to Tucson on day three. 
I decided to make a loop drive of the trip, so from Roswell I headed west on US 380 and stayed on that highway all the way to its junction with I-25 at San Antonio, New Mexico. From there it was south on I-25 to the turnoff for NM 152, one of my favorite drives in the state. Just love going over Emory Pass and then winding your way to the junction with US 180 at Santa Clara. I was a little surprised and disappointed to see the two old narrow steel truss bridges over Percha Creek being removed for a highway improvement project between Hillsboro and Kingston. One was already gone. So much fantastic scenery along the route.  Then it was on through Silver City and to Lordsburg via equally scenic NM 90. The final slog back to Tucson was on I-10 in my non-air conditioned truck.
Crazy but fun trip! |
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