Hiking Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller
Date: May 13, 2024
After hiking two trails in the heat at White Sands National Monument, we drove from 4,000 feet at Alamogordo to 8,000 feet up into the National Forest. We pulled into the parking lot where elk were grazing. The 3.5-mile trail would climb and descend through the shady mountaintop consisting of white fir, Douglas fir and ponderosa pine. Sometimes the trees opened to areas of bluegrass. The cooler temperature made this a tough but enjoyable hike. At one location there was a bench on the trail where you could sit and look down the canyon and see White Sands a long distance away. One cool find: I picked up a rock on the trail and found petroglyphs/pictographs drawn on a rock.
