Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks

it was a cold and misty morning in the mountains surrounding Las Cruces

It was a cold and damp day when we awoke on our first full day in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We had originally planned to visit the world-famous White Sands National Monument, but with the rainy weather and a planned missile test delaying the park opening, we needed a new plan. Instead, we decided to visit the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, one of the country's newest national monuments, located just outside of Las Cruces.

a beautiful and misty morning in New Mexico

Pinky, Anny, Puy, and I awoke early. After a quick breakfast at the La Quinta, we hit the road in the battered rented car which we had driven all the way from Texas (affectionately nicknamed "Jeremy" due to the license plate number, which started with JRM). It was around 7:30 in the morning when we pulled up in front of a locked gate at the monument. I stopped the car, zipped up my jacket against the icy cold breeze, and stepped outside into the quiet desert morning for a look around.

beautiful morning scene

Organ Mountains is the newest national park unit in New Mexico, and one of the newest in the United States. It was created in 2014, and is still relatively unknown outside of the Las Cruces area. In fact, as we checked in at the park headquarters (someone came and opened the locked gate around 8:00), the ranger on duty seemed quite surprised to see us.

"How did you hear about us? I didn't think we would have any visitors today!"

at the Organ Mountains

We got to chatting for a while. He was really interested in my work as an overseas English teacher. It turned out that his wife had been a teacher at an international school, and that they had lived in India for several years before retiring. They had visited Bangkok many times during their years overseas.

off on our hike

"Keep an eye out", my friend the ranger told us as he handed us a hiking map to the Organ Mountains. "I doubt you'll see it, but there's even a mountain lion wandering the park".

He gestured to a photographic print of the Dripping Springs frozen in the icy stillness of winter. Above the springs crouched none other than a dangerous puma.

the trail through the desert

"The photographer who captured that picture is one of our favorite visitors. He does a lot of work for the NPS." he told us. "He didn't see that puma until he developed his pictures... Oh, and watch out for javalinas. You know what scat is?"

Pinky, being a veterinarian, knew far more about scat than I ever could hope to dream of.

"Look out for the bright yellow scat. It's the marking of a wild javalina. They can be dangerous, so stay alert on the trail."

With that, we bundled up in scarves and jackets, shook up our chemical hand warmers, and set off on the trail (after collecting the stamp in our national park passports, of course!).

on the way to see some of the top sights at Organ Mountains

It was damp and chilly, but the fog was kept at bay by the mountains that rose up all around us like the pipes of a great church organ (hence the name of the monument). The national monument is located around what was once a sort of mountain retreat for the people of Las Cruces and the surrounding desert, and there are still some ruins of the old postbellum hotel at the end of the trail.

it was a chilly morning!

The Dripping Springs Trail was long and winding, but relatively flat. To one side of us, a desert prairie stretched out to the distant mountains. On the other side, rocky boulders gave way to mountain foothills. It was rugged and wild scenery, and you begin to understand why these mountains are still considered to be sacred by the local Tortuga people.

our first relic of the long-past glory days of Van Patten's Mountain Camp

About a mile and a half later, we arrived at the first trace of what had once been Van Patten's Mountain Camp, a small resort hotel that had thrived in the mountains in the decades after the American Civil War.

old wooden structures along the trail

Eventually, we came upon the old ruin itself; the stone brick skeleton of what had once been a popular retreat for the people of Las Cruces, where they could escape the heat of the desert for the relative cool and humidity of the mountains.

the ruins of the old hotel near the Dripping Springs

The old hotel was relatively small, today nothing more than a few crumbling walls. Even so, I could almost feel myself slipping back to the glory days of Van Patten's Mountain Camp. The mountain retreat reminded me somewhat of the old French Village atop the Ba Na Hills in Da Nang, Vietnam, though more rugged and much less grand.

Van Patten's Mountain Camp

19th century ruins at the Dripping Springs

old post-Civil War ruins

As the trail passed by the old ruins, it ran near another relic of a time gone by - the remains of a turn-of-the-century sanitarium, dating back to the days when fresh mountain air was the prescription of choice for a variety of ailments.

old abandoned sanitarium - a little bit creepy!

cold, damp, and mossy in the mountains

We spent several mountains hiking around the Organ Mountains. By the time we left the national monument, more cold fog was beginning to roll in, and the air was growing damper. The temperature continued to drop, and eventually it began to rain. All of this ended up making me really glad not to have gone out to White Sands that day after all.

we were the only ones out there on the wind-swept trail through the desert