We spent a few days at Elephant Butte, camped inside of the State Park in 2 lovely campgrounds (Lion’s Beach and S. Monticello). The facilities are very nice, but we get a bit tired of having the dogs on a leash all the time. We spent each day taking long hikes, increasing both our distances and the weight in our packs in preparation of backpacking. There is a wonderful trail that goes along the lake for 11 1/2 miles, and, once the high winds died down (finally!), we took several nice hikes along the trail. I am impressed by the amount of work someone has done to create and maintain it. In 3 days we saw only 2 other people on it, although all the campgrounds were full.
We left Elephant Butte on Saturday, Mar 4th, had a marvelous breakfast at Passion Pie Bakery in T or C. Crepes to die for, even gluten-free ones! Put it on your list.
After breakfast, we headed west toward Silver City, taking a scenic route called The Trail of the Mountain Spirits. https://www.newmexico.org/places-to-visit/scenic-byways/trail-of-the-mountain-spirits/
It took several hours to go from Hillsboro to Silver City: a very twisty mountain road, but well maintained. There was quite a bit of snow on the hills, which a local told me was unusual.
Once in Silver City, which, if you haven’t been there, is much like Durango, just more Southwest in style, we bought groceries at the local co-op, then headed north toward Gila Cliff Dwellings Nat’l Monument. Unfortunately, the only camping up there was snowy and muddy and cold, so we turned around and headed to another, lower area north of Mimbres, NM. You have to go through Hanover, home of large, active open pit copper mines. But the Mimbres valley is stunning, and we climbed up to our current remote campsite at Comfort Well.
We are finally “off-grid”, relying on Pippin’s solar panels for power. Starlink is working great, but takes a lot of power, so Alan hauled out the generator, which we will likely turn on this evening for a bit to charge the batteries.
Otherwise, Pippin has been perfect: we are sleeping like logs inside, with the dogs, (those who have seen Pippin know how close we all are!) and are staying warm even in 25 degree weather at night.
Today, we took a 5.5 mile hike on small ATV trails in this BLM area. It crossed a lovely creek, and meandered through a Ponderosa and Chaparral forest. Interestingly, we crossed the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). Tomorrow, I think we will try an 8-miler on that.
4Fords Journal 
Great pics and stories. keep writing !
LikeLike