YOLO heading to Hatch, New Mexico Jan 2022

I've wanted to go rockhounding in New Mexico for years.  Friends from Wyoming, Dee and Shirley, had told me of their wonderful finds long ago.  They were in Colorado when we visited my family and they again stoked my desire to go.  It had always been the wrong time of year before; you must hunt for rocks in the desert in the winter when the snakes and scorpions aren't out and about.

So we headed towards Hatch, NM.  Famous for their chiles (I get them in MI and make green chili with them), the town also had a spot where Dee and Shirley had uncovered treasures in the rocks and they'd provided me with their field notes to try to find the place.

We passed miles of pecan orchards in the area.  The barren trees looked dead, but were just resting for the winter.  I had no idea they grew pecans in this part of the country.  We had to stop in Hatch to try the green chili for lunch.  We were told by a Border Patrol lady that we couldn't go wrong eating at Sparky's, so we stopped there.  The pictures above and below are from outside the place, but it was closed, so we couldn't eat there.  Quite the collection of brand mascots, though.

We ended up at Bee Burritos and tried their green and red chili on smothered burritos. 

I gotta say, mine is better; I wasn't impressed but we'd dutifully tried Hatch green chili and then wandered a bit.  It was off season and there wasn't much to see/do here other than walk through the chile market.  I love the long hanging red beards of chiles and bought some fresh ground cumin (one of my favorite spices) at a local store.  We'd asked at the restaurant about where to find a pecan pie, figuring since they grew pecans here, they'd have everything associated with pecans, but the locals couldn't think of anywhere that made pecan pie.  

In the chile market, these rocking chairs made from old wagon wheels looked really inviting.  Very different, too.

Red chiles hung to dry in lots of different shapes and designs.  I found a few on the roadside and crushed them for our use.

It took us a few days to get as far as Hatch, though.  We stopped along the way and camped.  We found this canyon that required 4WD vehicles to get any further, so we parked in a spot used by horses and hiked down the canyon. 

We'd seen these folks walking down with huge square packs on their backs, like thick sleeping pads, and we thought they might be camping down in the canyon.  Turns out they were rock climbers and the pads were for when they fell off this cliff face while practicing.  They'd land on the pads to avoid injuries.

Jason hiked the full 3.5 miles down the steep trail to the river you can see here.  I gave up part way down and caught a ride back up with a truck.

I wandered around the area while waiting for Jason's return and spotted this tarantula spider sitting in the shade of a pine tree along a creek.  Scared me at first (I don't like spiders) but he didn't move at all, even when I poked him with a stick.  He'd apparently frozen to death in the overnight cold and was still unfound by whatever eats them.

A deer carcass nearby, too.

And then this coyote pelt.  We've seen several of these pelts left hanging or just scattered on the ground.  We imagine the locals don't really like the coyotes and kill them and leave their pelts as a possible deterrent to others??

Guess they couldn't decide which side of the road the windmill should go on, so they just left it in the middle of the road.

Mud nests the swallows have daubed onto the underside of the overhanging rocks on this cliff.

We found a nice little road end at this spillway and were going to spend the night here.

We got comfy and set out the chairs to catch the late afternoon sun.  But a Parks Service truck found us way out here and claimed we were still within the State Park controlled area and if we wanted to camp, we'd have to go back to the pay campground we'd stopped into earlier. We think the camp host there saw the opportunity for dollars driving away and sent the Parks guy after us.  So we had to move.

We found a dispersed camping area that allows you to just drive anywhere you want in the grassy lands between the trees and we found a nice secluded spot to spend the night.

These clouds look like windblown feathers.

Perhaps someone tie-dyed the sky?

Capitan, New Mexico claims to be the hometown/birthplace of Smokey the Bear.  These signs tell the story of how he came to be and they sell all kinds of Smokey memorabilia in the stores here.

We left Smokey behind and headed to White Sands.