Who knew that a mere 2 hour drive from the sweltering heat of El Paso (95*) lies the small town of Cloudcroft, with daytime temperatures topping out in the low 70s? Once we felt Gerry was stable enough, we elected to head to the higher elevations to do some hiking.
First up on the hiking agenda was the 2.5 mile long Osha Loop. There was nothing particularly exciting or memorable about this hike, although the company we had along the trail made it mildly interesting. In fact, each hike we did this week included some kind of wildlife encounter.
Next up was the 3 mile Zinker Canyon Trail. The reviews of this trail said it was boring, but we really enjoyed it. It meandered through several meadows, interspersed with sections of forest.
We didn’t see any live wildlife on this trail, but we did see a group of feral horses on the way to it. They were gorgeous.
Since the first two hikes were short, we elected to hike a third day in a row- the 3.5 mile Cathey Canyon trail. This trail had a couple of viewpoints we could stop at to see Tularosa Valley and White Sands National Park.
Needing a day off, we spent the following day lazing around the campground. It was so odd that it was so much colder here. In fact, it was too cold to sit outside without the firepit going, but it felt great!
Well rested, our final hike was a bit longer than the others. We chose an “out and back” hike because there is a lot of elevation gain on the trail and we wanted to be able to turn around. Our wildlife encounter on this hike was a hawk, who seemed to be watching us …..like a hawk, haha.
This trail also had several pretty meadows- a little disappointing because, I don’t know, If I were an elk, this is where I would be hanging out but there were none to be seen.
So, after 9 miles and 1400 ft of gain, we were satisfied that we deserved to be tired. Although each trail had some things of interest to see, the trails themselves tended to be frustrating. A good portion of the trails are rocky- really rocky. And this type of rock is really hard to walk on for a long distance.
Our last day was spent at Sunspot Solar Observatory. We had stopped in at the observatory a few days before, and decided it warranted more time so we left without checking it out.
The observatory houses the Richard Dunn Telescope, which studies the sun. This particular week they have a special project going on- this is one of several telescopes contracted by NASA to observe the Parker Solar Probe. The probe was launched in 2018 with a mission to get as close to the sun as possible and nothing has ever gotten this close before. In fact, the analogy they use is a football field. If Earth is at one end zone and the sun is at the other, the Parker Probe is at the 4 yard line (3.83 million miles, lol), in the suns territory. The second closest probe only got to the 30 yard line, so, impressive advances have been made.
It’s too hot to have a camera mounted on the probe, so this is where the telescopes come in. Each telescope is focused on the area where the probe is, and are gathering information and photographs. One of the goal, one that has been being worked on since the end of World War II, is to try and learn how to predict sunspots.
Tours are available during short periods, several times a week. We knew when to show up, so we got to take the tour.
The telescope itself stands 138 feet tall- but that is less than half of it’s height. It continues an impressive 193 feet underground as well. State of the art when it was built in 1969, there have been many more advanced telescopes built since then. What this particular one offers though, is old school technology, keeping it very user friendly. Scientists and students come here from all over the world to test their equipment and ideas.
Keeping the telescope in focus is the job of the observation floor. The platform floats on 120 gallons of liquid mercury. Most adjustments of the floor are barely noticeable, and when major movements are required, an alarm sounds ahead of time.
After a week, we headed back to El Paso. Soon after we arrived, we had a hail storm with the biggest hail I have ever seen.
Paul’s brother Tom and his wife Sue stopped by for a couple of days on their way to Big Bend National Park- always a fun time with them.
While they were here we were treated to a spectacular sunset:
