Rockhound St.Park, Carlsbad Caverns Jan 2022

 We kept to the desert after leaving Hatch and headed over to Rockhound State Park.  Folks have told me that there is nothing left to find there, but a guy in my rock club told me where I might still find some geodes there, and we paid the fee to spend the day in the park.  We spotted several heart-shaped cactus leaves on our hike up the mountain.

Jason hiking up the trail at Rockhound St. Park in NM.  He stopped near the top of the trail to wait for me as I hiked farther up the hill, beyond the park boundaries in search of the geode nuggets.  A precarious perch from which to swing a rock hammer, so I just gathered anything that looked remotely rounded and carted it all back down in my backpack.

The Florida and Little Florida Mountains around the park

Lots of the rocks had these green inclusions in them.  Green tuff or chlorite?

Quite the vista from the top of the hill.

Only the veins remain of this giant cactus that has mostly decomposed.  We were hiking up to the Lost Spring, but it was truly lost and we never found the water.  Jason persevered the farthest up the hillside, but found no spring; he did find a spot where the rocks could've formed a pool if there was any water.

We parked on a hilltop between two parks.  What a view.

Our parking spot on top of the hill just outside the park.

Nice light and shadow on these rocky spires.

Next stop will be Carlsbad Caverns, but El Capitan, the peak below, was along the road on the way there, so we stopped at the visitor's center to get a bit of info about the area.  Seems the area is the remnants of an old reef.

The view from our campground looking across the valley to the plateau where the entrance to Carlsbad Cavern is located.

The 'campground' is rather hardscrabble and barren, but is the closest free camping to the caverns and the place filled to overflowing.  We met another couple who wanted to go to the caverns, too, so we rode with them the next day.  Like so many parks, you need to make reservations for a particular arrival time to be able to enter.

The other couple chose to ride the elevator down, but Jason and I opted to hike down to the natural entrance and then the mile down into the cave to meet them.

The natural entrance to Carlsbad Cavern.

A giant dark hole in the Earth.....

Lots of little pocket caves and holes in the walls near the entry.  Bats in most of the caves we've been near lately have been troubled by the white nose disease, which sadly is killing many of them.

It was cold so we wore our coats.  And the rules required we wear masks the entire time.

The cool limestone formations started showing up right away.

Eons of dissolved minerals dripping form these amazing formations.

It was a constant grade downhill with lighted formations all along the way.

Some skinny spires still stand in the open areas.

Jason admiring a flowstone formation.

These wonderful formations come from the top and bottom.

Sometimes they almost meet.

This looks like a giant melting cake.

This looks like straws stuck into the ceiling.

more giant layered flows.

The men all had the same idea as to what this looked like.

Some of these are just massive

The whole wall is covered with this wonderful design from Mother Nature.

This one reminds me of a giant medusa jellyfish,

Huge columns decorate this grotto.

Touching and almost touching, side by side.

Sunset over the ancient reef that is now part of the Carlsbad Caverns.

Over the three days we were at the campground, this vehicle lost 3/4 of it wheels.  Someone drew a message in the dirt on the windows asking the cops not to tow.  A rumpled note under the wiper, supposedly written by the owner, said he was going into town to buy smaller tires and pleaded for the vehicle not to be towed.  He'd be back as soon as he got the tires.  But we think thieves may have left the note to buy more time.  There are no trees in sight, so whoever took the wheels and left the vehicle sitting on three hunks of wood had to bring the wood with them.  It had four wheels when we arrived; it was sitting like this when we left.

An interesting color pattern in the rippling hills as we left the area.