Friday, February 8, 2008 - Alamogordo NM
< previous day | archives | next day >
Walking up-canyon on the Second Bench at Milepost 2.75, Dog Canyon Trail, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo, New Mexico, February 2, 2008:)
The Dog Canyon line cabin is just ahead
The remains of the stone line cabin in Dog Canyon is less than 1/4 mile ahead of where I took this picture but is well hidden down in the canyon. In tomorrow's journal I'll post a picture of what is left of the cabin down near the stream. I'm not sure of this and I might have it wrong but I think the cleft you see in the rocks a bit left of center in this picture is the route of the trail as it heads up and out of the canyon above the line cabin. The brochure I so conveniently misplaced describes the section of trail above the cabin as rather difficult and if that's the route I would tend to agree with that assessment.
Today I broke camp to head off toward Deming New Mexico
My three weeks at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park are up and I need to move on. The rules at New Mexico State Parks limit the length of time one can stay to three weeks on and one week off. My plan is to meet up with my new friends Andy and Kate & Terry at Rockhound State Park when they move over there in a couple of weeks. Today I went into Alamogordo to run some errands and do laundry and tomorrow I'll wander the 125 miles or so over to Rockhound.
Night camp
Wal-Mart Parking Lot in Alamogordo NM
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Alamogordo NM
Wal-Mart Supercenter Store #1306, 233 S New York Ave, Alamogordo, NM 88310 - (575) 434-5870
- Good level parking
- Verizon cell phone service- I don't recall
- Verizon EVDO Broadband service - I don't recall
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
Listening
As the poet Gary Snyder said so well, "Beyond all this studying and managing and calculating, there's another level to nature. You can go about learning the names of things and doing inventories of trees, bushes, and flowers. But nature often just flits by and is not easily seen in a hard, clear light. Our actual experience of many birds and wildlife is chancy and quick. Wildlife is known as a call, a cough in the dark, a shadow in the shrubs. You can watch a cougar on a wildlife video for hours, but the real cougar shows herself only once or twice in a lifetime. One must be tuned to hints and nuances." After more than thirty years of living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and spending a great deal of that time out-of-doors, Snyder has seen the mountain lion on just a few occasions. One of these sightings was most unusual. Gary had been visiting a neighbor and was walking down from the nearby ridge to his home when he observed a cougar sitting near one of the windows of the house. The animal appeared to be listening intently as one of Snyder's stepdaughters practiced the piano.