I had visited Santa Fe once before on my 2015 road trip, albeit not for very long, but I remember the unique flavor of architecture, and its positions nestled up in the foothills of some of New Mexico's highest mountains. On this visit, we planned out a full day-trip to the area, featuring the Saturday morning farmer's market, two museums (NM International Folk Museum, and NM History Museum), with a little time to walk around the downtown area, and then I wanted to drive up to the Santa Fe ski area lookout before we left town since I had tent-camped up there on my last trip in a late-season snowstorm.
We left Albuquerque late morning, wanting to get a little more rest after our confusion finding the AirBnB the previous night. The trip up I-25 in daylight gave us a better picture of things, and we noticed that the city did a nice job of blending into the surrounding landscape colors by using dusty pink signposts that looked a bit like huge cactus arms. We were hoping to encounter some tumbleweed flocks crossing the road, but I guess it was the wrong area or wrong season? We did see a few tumbleweeds stuck on fences nearby the road, so maybe those are doing the job of keeping them off the road itself. I recall encountering them before while driving at night, and that's so scary because they look just like a herd of animals.
Driving from Albuquerque to Sante Fe, we would climb 2000' up to over 7000, though the slope is very gradual, since it's still within the valley technically speaking. We got into town just before lunchtime, and got a parking spot below the farmer's market, which is located a few blocks southwest of downtown along the railroad for the Railrunner Commuter Line serving central NM. We saw it pass during our visit and it was well decorated with a funny roadrunner painted on the side.
Rail Runner Train
Santa Fe Farmers Market
The market was as you might expect, with tents set up on each side of the main walking area, with an assortment of foods, produce, baked goods, artisan shops, and so forth. We walked down first to see what they had to offer, turning the corner toward a warehouse that was home to a dance class that presumably meets each weekend. They were led by a very energetic woman and a drumming group offering up some groovy beats for everyone circled around the instructor! No pictures or videos allowed here, so you'll have to imagine.
Another warehouse door led us into an indoor part of the market with native-style rugs, small trinkets, leather goods, and clothes. We browsed one clothing rack that had very unique button shirts, with fun, creative patterns and designs. Most of them were one of a kind, so the sizing was hit or miss, but we each found one we liked - you'll see Yilin's pink leopard with sunglasses in the photo below, and I chose an aquarium themed one, which was often stolen by Yilin throughout the remainder of the trip...
Brunch at the market - green chili sausage and garlic flatbread
Feeling hungry, we circled back to a food stand selling enormous green chili sausages that smelled delicious, we had to get a couple. We were assured they weren't spicy, and surprisingly he was right, I was even able to eat it safely. We also got a heart shaped focaccia-style garlic and herb flatbread from an adjacent vendor, and headed into another warehouse building just behind that had a seating area. This was our late brunch, and Yilin was certainly in need of coffee, and conveniently next to our spot was a coffee and ice cream place. I was feeling better after some food in my stomach, and we decided to see what ice cream flavors they offered. Having sadly missed the world's largest pistachio gift shop, Yilin wanted to try some of this flavor, along with the raspberry. The ice cream dude was asking which flavor we wanted on top, and was judging us hard when Yilin said she didn't care either way. He told us there's no way you can have pistachio on top of raspberry, so he made it with pistachio on the bottom, and it turns out he's right, that is the best way.
We found a nice bench in the shade outside to relax and enjoy the ice cream (they gave us very deluxe spoons to eat with, very sturdy and reusable!) We browsed some artisan tents on the other side of the road, passing ornate jewelry, various paintings, wooden carvings, to name a few. My favorite art however was a sticker placed on a trashcan featuring a sombrero-wielding chicken.
We were planning to leave the car by the market and walk what we thought was about 15 minutes to the first museum, but in our haste, we entered the wrong destination into our phone, and the correct location would have had us walking for at least an hour. Back to the car it was, and we took a more reasonable 10 minute car ride over to the Museum of International Folk Art.
Now I have to admit this is not the usual type of destination I visit, or write about for that matter, so sometimes I don't know how to capture or convey the experience of the museum. There were many things to see in all the different rooms, but I will pick out a few of my favorite things that caught my eye and/or made me laugh.
South African telephone wire art
After visiting Fossil Rim, the giraffes stood out to us
A large town scene with an assortment of disproportionately-sized creatures
Band featuring a frog playing... a fish?
I see no problem with 3 accordions and a cello played perched on one leg
Show me a better-looking cat, I challenge you
Oh, maybe these ones?
More animal musicians
I was starting to feel a bit nauseous after walking around the museum, and my first thought was the elevation, since I know Santa Fe is pretty high, but it seemed too severe of a reaction for 7000 feet, since I had to sit and rest so frequently. After feeling fine once outside again, we determined it was probably just such poor air quality inside the building. While it was very pleasant outside, it was as hot as a pizza oven when we got to the car, and we nearly boiled upon entering, even with my sun shield in the window.
Our second museum stop was right in the heart of Santa Fe, only a block from the city plaza, and as it turns out, very nearby to the spot I stopped for dinner on my 2015 trip, but that place no longer exists, since there was a new business in its place. The New Mexico History Museum was fairly hidden, camouflaged with the tan stucco to look like nearly every other building downtown, but we had about an hour left to tour through before their 5pm closing time.
The main themes of New Mexico history featured here were the railroad construction and industry, battles between native and Spanish/Mexican populations over this region, as well as nuclear science development. New Mexico is notable for the Trinity test in July 1945, the world's first nuclear explosion that was part of the Manhattan Project. We had actually passed fairly nearby to the monument of this testing site, which is a ways north of White Sands NP, in the White Sands Missile Range. (Presumably one would need special permission to visit.)
I had to convince Yilin that we weren't supposed to go sit inside this wagon display
An extremely thin rabbit server
A rectangle piano?
Look at the shadows of each colored square
We found a room dedicated to the enormous Zozobra, a traditional growling marionette half-ghost half-monster that is meant to represent our darkest, most resentful thoughts, and is then burned each year to free people from those negative feelings. Since 1924, there has been an annual Zozobra burning, the first one being 6 feet tall, with the modern iteration growing to 50 feet, made of wood, wire, cotton cloth, and stuffed with tons of shredded paper, which, according to the website consists traditionally of obsolete police reports, paid-off mortgages, and sometimes divorce papers. Now the burning occurs around Labor Day each year, and is quite the spectacle for all to experience. If you're in Santa Fe on August 29th this year, you can experience the burning ceremony yourself! (You won't be burned, that's not what I'm saying...)
The infamous Zozobra
After our tour of the museum, we walked to the city plaza and saw someone's RC car driving along the road in between people and actual cars alike, but this car was cool since it could bounce off the ground!
Some beautiful cats for sale in the back of a hidden shop
A short walk further brought us to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Fransis of Assisi (above). As it was approaching dinnertime, we debated whether to eat somewhere in Santa Fe or to wait until we were back at the AirBnB and eat some of the food we had with us. We went with the latter choice since we still hadn't gotten up to the mountain lookout by the ski area north of town, and headed out on NM-475 up to 10,000'. The air was noticeably thinner (for us as well as Apollo) but the view was great, considering I had never seen it in daylight before.
The view from 10k, looking over the valley
Our last venture for the day was a stop at a local Goodwill store to look for a couple items I needed: firstly, a medium sized water bottle that can fit into the car door pocket...the plastic cap on my old one had broken and no longer sealed closed, and also another cooler for our cold storage in the car, the one I brought wasn't quite large enough. The surprise find here was a bright turquoise drawing lap tray with side pockets that would work perfectly as a mobile watercolor station for Yilin to do any artwork in the car or tent. It even had a round pocket for holding a water cup to dip brushes in. So we rearranged the car to fit our new purchases and headed back to Albuquerque to fry up some burgers with ground beef from my own hometown Blackbrook Farm (thanks mom and dad, can you believe we brought it this far?) I also prepared some tortellini with pesto for a picnic lunch to eat the next day while we visited Valles Caldera National Monument!
Day 10 Route map: 171 miles Total mileage: 3300 miles
Six a.m. the next morning came very early for us, and even me, the enthusiastic hiker about to try and summit Texas's tallest peak, didn't want to get out of the tent in the dark. I told myself that it will be worth it and just to start the pack-up process, and I'd feel better. My one regret of leaving camp so early is that we had found such a nice spot with decent amenities, only to not have a chance to use them for dinner or breakfast...such is life sometimes.
The sky had become overcast overnight, with some spots shrouded in a misty haze as the cloud layer was barely off the ground. We packed up quickly and decided to forgo breakfast at this hour since I'd be bringing snacks with me on the hike anyway, and Yilin would be staying at the trailhead and usually likes to wait until a reasonable hour to eat.
Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe National Parks are conveniently right along the same mountain range, only about a 30-35 mile drive away, and with the roads being so deserted and straight, the trip passed quickly as the the light brightened and we made the turn toward Pine Springs campground, where the Guadalupe Peak trail sets off from.
The view as we approached was almost heavenly, with pockets of blue sky peeking through the mist, just to give a glimpse of some sunrise colors over my right shoulder. As I stopped to take a photo of the entrance sign, suddenly the sky was clear, and I got a view of the mountains in front of me, while the valley behind me was still misty.
Good morning to Guadalupe National Park
First light is always such a motivation for me
In the short time it took me to get my gear organized and snacks packed for the longest hiked I've done in awhile, the clouds (or fog I suppose) rolled in once again, blocking the grand view I had mere minutes earlier. I hoped this was just a case of undercast, and I would pop above the clouds at some point later in the day. This hike is about 8.4 miles, with 3000 feet of elevation gain, not unlike many NH 4000-footers I've completed in the past, however since moving to Maryland I think my legs have gotten a bit soft without a lot of good hiking options nearby. Also, I'd be climbing over 8k, and I expected to feel this quite a bit in my lungs since none of my travels had taken me this high on this trip thus far.
I began up the misty trail around 7:45, which had a pleasant cooling effect, and while much of the elevation gain of this trail happens in the first half, the grade was manageable with lots of switchbacks, and mostly gravel and sand underfoot, and a few ledgy patches here and there. I only saw a few hikers, but it was a quiet morning on the mountain, likely due to the cloudy conditions. After about 15-20 minutes, I started to see some sandstone cliff faces appear faintly in front of me, and I knew I'd be out of the cloud tops shortly, which gave me a boost of energy.
I turned the corner with the mountain to my left and the sun behind me to the right, and followed the trail slowly up and around, with the most fluffy sea of clouds you've ever seen filling the valley below. This was certainly fun now! And then behind me I heard the unmistakable sounds of a fast approaching hiker, whom I greeted and exchanged my awe at the beautiful scene we had before us this morning. I was happy to meet Nizar from Lincoln NE, and learn that he and I were on similar national park trips, but traveling in opposite directions. He was headed to Big Bend after this, and had just come from White Sands where I'd be going later this very day. We got some pictures of each other at this vista before I hiked on ahead and he stopped to enjoy some morning tea and breakfast.
Thanks Nizar for this cool shot!
Here's one of Nizar perched on the rock enjoying his tea
From here, I trekked back and forth along the switchbacks, enjoyed any moments in the shade, since the sun was doing a great job baking me even at the early hour. I should have expected as much since clouds in the valley like this occur when there's a temperature inversion, and it gets warmer with elevation rather than cooling down as usual. I was thankful for my new light sun hoodie that I found at REI before leaving on the trip, since I knew I'd be out in the desert sun at least a few times, and I know I'm bad about applying sunscreen.
Looking across the valley toward Hunter Peak
As I passed some forested patches on the mountain, I had to stop and smell the ponderosa pines—their bark smells strongly of butterscotch. Find the largest tree you can, and find a deep crack in the bark, and there you'll find the strongest scent. One of my favorite parts of hiking in the west!
Soon I spotted some lizards flitting around as I approached 8000', and I was certainly noticing the thin air at this point. My symptoms are that I tend to feel very sleepy, and of course my heart rate gets a bit out of control. I just had to give myself enough breaks to continue, and slow my pace a bit near the end.
Desert Spiny Lizard
Because of this, I saw Nizar catching up again, and I guess all the marathons he runs give him the power and speed to get up above 8000 without too much trouble. We hiked together for a bit before he continued up to summit ahead of me, but I was happy to arrive before he left, and we got a chance to chat a bit more. He shared with me some of his photos and recommendations from his visits to Petrified Forest NP and Mesa Verde NP (the latter I was planning to visit in a few days), and I certainly felt the itch to do some more big hikes again after hearing his stories. He is originally from Iraq but came to Nebraska back in 2019, working in immigration law, and luckily has the opportunity to travel and explore many of the great places that we have here in the US. Happy trails and happy hiking, I'll be following along! You can follow his adventures at nizar01011900.blogspot.com.
These clouds blew me away overlooking El Capitan, just below Guadalupe Peak
At the summit with Nizar (and the weird triangle monument) 8,750'
Lucky Duck along for the ride
I enjoyed my lunch for a bit after Nizar sped off down the mountain, taking in the strange but beautiful landscape around me - half blanketed in clouds, and half exposed to the hot desert sun, and hardly a sound besides the light breeze in my face.
The trip down was mostly uneventful, only slowing down on portions of trail with uneven footing, but the rest of the trail was a pleasant grade to make fast progress. I passed many groups of hikers on their way up, and it was sooner than I expected that I once again entered the valley clouds. They had risen higher than on my ascent, but I welcomed this as I was feeling much too hot from the sun. It's like returning to an underworld.
Some trees have such character
I made it back to the car just after noon, spending about 4.5 hours on the mountain. While I don't consider myself a desert lover, I would have to rate this hike very highly, and especially my experience this day, with the interesting weather, and meeting a fellow hiker who seems to be even more passionate about it than me, which I don't encounter often.
Yilin had spent much of the morning gaining back the missed hours of sleep I robbed us of in the morning, but had enjoyed some brunch featuring leftovers from El Jimador the night before. I relaxed a bit, changed out of my hiking outfit into some comfy traveling clothes, and we stopped into the small park visitor center before planning out the rest of our day in New Mexico.
I wanted to check out a scenic overlook of El Capitan I saw on the map a few miles south of the park entrance, hoping that my clear view from the mountain into the valley would mean a clear view back up from the road. Turns out I was right, and we were treated to a grand and majestic view of El Capitan.
El Capitan, TX
From here, we decided to head up to alien-town, none other than Roswell, NM! Not a planned stop, but it seems like a place with so much UFO and alien lore that we were both curious to see what's going on over there.
Roswell, NM
We whizzed our way back north along US-62 through Carlsbad and then along US-285. Did I mention it's flat around here? Lots of oil, lots of small bushes, a lot of sand, occasional salt beds, but the big surprise was a number of large pistachio farms. Until this day, we didn't know that New Mexico is known for pistachio production, and it took several times passing the unnaturally-green groves of trees before we saw a huge billboard advertising PistachioLand, that we put it all together.
Arriving in Roswell 2 hours later, we were interested in seeing allegedly one of the most unique McDonald's in the world here, apparently UFO themed, as well as the Roswell visitor center, and the International UFO Museum and Research Center. Stepping out of the car, it was so hot, I think I'd be seeing aliens too if I lived here. Even the street lamps have alien eyes on them, a nice touch, or ominous clue, you decide. Also the inflatable tube-alien was the star of this block.
The Roswell visitor center was a bit disappointing (for humans at least), just not much to see except some knickknacks and gift shop items, so we walked over to the UFO Museum, to see what this was about. First step of course was to pin ourselves on the guest map.
The rest of the museum was mostly about alleged military sightings or strange encounters, with some borderline conspiracy films showing in a little theater, and a lot of alien sculptures. I don't know how much I believe, or even how much they believe, but the culture is thick with aliens and UFOs here, for better or worse. The gift shop has every item you can think of related to this topic.
Some extra eyes never hurt anyone...
McDonald's had some visitors outside, but sadly no green Big Mac or even a green milkshake :(
With our stomachs full of alien food, it was time to head to the east toward White Sands National Park. We were not keen on visiting here in the heat of the day, so the time spent in Roswell was actually a blessing, as we'd be arriving in White Sands around sunset time, where we could get a bit of a walk in before it got too dark. The drive over there would take us through the Sacramento Mountains on US-70 toward Tularosa. While crossing the mountains, we had a scenic drive up and around some hills, with higher slopes covered in ponderosas. Yilin even spotted some elk near the road at once point. Eventually we drove through Alamogordo, which it turns out is where PistachioLand is located, we had only seen a far-out sign for it earlier. Only at the last second did we realize we had passed the world's largest pistachio, so we had to turn around to make sure we didn't just hallucinate. But yes indeed, there was a 30-foot pistachio standing proud. Unfortunately our timing was not great as the accompanying shop was closed, but we can offer this sunset view of our friendly pistachio:
World's Largest Pistachio, Alamogordo NM
A few miles down the road and we began to see a strange sight on the horizon - it looked a bit like clouds, then mountains, but we weren't sure. Then I realized we were looking at what looks like huge snowbanks 10-20 feet tall way in the distance, but this was actually gypsum sand in the park ahead. Neither of us expected dunes like this to be above the road, though it does seem logical in retrospect.
White Sands National Park, NM
We arrived to the gatehouse just before 8pm, with the sun still sitting slightly above the horizon, lighting up the adjacent cloudscape brightly with pinks, oranges, yellows, and reds. I'm not sure if White Sands allows nighttime visitors, but if not, we we early enough to get in an evening stroll through the dunes, so we drove a ways in and stopped at the Dune Life Nature Trailhead. The trail from here forms a short 1-mile loop marked by plastic markers and occasional signposts featuring different animals that live in or around the dunes. I could see how easy it would be to get lost here without those markers or a GPS, so I was happy to have AllTrails loaded with our chosen trail and tracking us just in case.
8pm and still 88°, but we had a perfect breeze!
Due to the abundant sand here, and also its extremely fine nature, we chose crocs for footwear, since anything with socks seemed like we'd be finding sand in everything for days, if not weeks.
Just a side note on the sand here - it's gypsum crystals, which is quite rare in the world of sand. As I understand, much of the desert southwest was once an inland sea, and the area was uplifted millions of years ago through tectonic activity. The surrounding mountains are composed of gypsum from prior deposition during the time of the inland sea, and since gypsum dissolves in water, any rain or snowmelt washes these minerals downhill into the Tularosa basin, which has no natural outlet, so the water evaporates instead, causing the gypsum to recrystallize to form selenite crystals. Selenite is the crystalline form of gypsum, known to be fragile and brittle. We didn't see any examples, but the NPS website says there are some examples of extremely large selenite crystals as large as bicycle tires! It is the fragile nature of these crystals that cause it to erode into such a fine grained sand. Check out the website for more info if you're interested.
After walking on the sand for a few minutes, we discovered it's much easier (and very comfortable) to walk barefoot instead, so we carried our shoes instead, and let the cool sand filter between our toes. It was amazing how white it was, even being directly on it, you'd be fooled into thinking the trail is going over snow drifts, except for when you see some bushes and trees growing sporadically around you.
Sunset stroll
A tree made for sitting
Alamogordo lights in the distance
Trying to stay upright sliding down the last dune back to the parking lot
We did not see much wildlife during our short visit to White Sands, however I'd be wrong to exclude our dear friend, the stinkbug:
Look at the cute footprints!
We couldn't have asked for a better time to visit White Sands, I really think evening is the only safe time to visit some of these desert locations, otherwise you get fried. I would love to come back another time and explore a bit deeper into the park. I read there are monthly moonlight hikes led by a ranger, which seems like it would be a unique experience I'd like to try sometime.
This day has been very long already, but we still had a ways to go before our finally stop for the night. We were itching to get some rest in a building after camping out for a few days, and the general plan was to snake our way north toward Santa Fe, a city I have once visited but we were eager to check out again on this trip. It's known for being the highest elevation capital city in the US, and of course its stucco Pueblo Revival architecture style featuring stucco exteriors, rounded edges, vigas—protruding roof beams—which is highly unique compared to the vast majority of American cities. New Mexico also has a deep native American history, that we would explore in some museums soon. Due to the exorbitant price of AirBnBs in Santa Fe however, we decided to book a place in Albuquerque instead, and we'd make Santa Fe a day trip between our two nights in ABQ.
Yilin helped out with the driving this evening, which I was grateful after a long day including a substantial hike in the morning. Now completely in the dark, which I hate to do on a road trip through a beautiful state, we zoomed north on US-54, running parallel with a freight train for many miles, then passing through Carrizozo where we saw a fox trotting across one of the residential streets. We switched drivers again and headed toward I-25, and after too many hours found ourselves in the vicinity of our AirBnB around 12:30am. This was a gated and pass-coded community that was fairly complicated to navigate since it was all within one address, so my phone directed me to the wrong building 3 times before we realized the host had included a powerpoint document explaining which building to go to and all the entry/parking details that we failed to read. (Sorry to any residents we tried the wrong entry code, thinking it would be our home for the next two nights!)
By 1am we were in the door with our stuff and extremely ready for a good night's sleep, but we needed showers first, at least I did after my extremely sweaty hike up Guadalupe Peak. Stay tuned for my next post with all things Santa Fe!
