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BY Bob Michael |
LOPING THROUGH SOUTHWESTERN NEW MEXICO
The linear block ranges of southwestern and south-central New Mexico, as we have seen, are similar to mountains of Nevada and eastern California. With the exception of the fairly civilized (tramway, roads, ski area) Sandias which form the backdrop of Albuquerque, they are some of the lonelier tracts of real estate in the West; the visitor to many of them has a good chance of having his own private mountain range for a day.
So, let's put Copland's "Rodeo" and Billy the Kid" on the stereo, and head south from Albuquerque. Handsome block-faulted mountains - the Manzanos, Ladrons, Magdalenas - march south along both sides of the Rio Grande valley, which is an incipient rift in the center of the continent, a small version of the East African rift zone. The Rio Grande is downdropped, and the sides of the rift are uplifted to peaks around 10,000' with creosote and cholla at their feet and spruce and aspen on their heads.
Well north of Las Cruces, the fantastic skyline of the Organ Mountains comes into view. No fragrant pine forest atop these peaks, but rather naked tan granite weathered into fifth class spires. This is the arid Chamonix which makes up perhaps the most spectacular desert mountain skyline in the country.
Although most Organ summits are strictly technical, with some fine routes worked out by climbers from New Mexico State in Las Cruces, the very highest, 9000' Organ Needle, yields by an upper third class route. Organ Needle makes for a stiff day, with over 4000' of-gain and a third class finish atop a lot of steep and brushy second class. The western side of the range'-- the access from Las Cruces - is privately owned (shades of Texas!), but for a fee, payable to the owner at a gate, you are welcome to wander about. A parking area at the mouth of a bouldery canyon gives access to many of the rock routes and the scrambling routes up Organ Needle and 8860' Organ Peak. After a couple miles' hike up the rough canyon, scratchy second class chutes lined with nearly every thorny plant known to nature lead to the exposed third class route on the south side of Organ Needle. South and west, isolated block ranges extend over the rangeland of the high Chihuahuan Desert. Here, even the Continental Divide loses its way, falling off the ridgelines to meander through the flats between the ranges.
Down towards the Bootheel - the southwestern corner of the state formed by the Gadsden Purchase - is a lot of country that time forgot. Here rise the rugged Florida Mountains, (whose 7420' high point is a worthy ascent from Rockhound State Park south of Deming), Baboquivari-like Cook's Peak, and the handsome limestone prow of the Big Hatchet Mountains. Any wanderer in these mountains is almost guaranteed perfect solitude; no weekend warriors on ATV's disturb the vast silence.
The Big Hatchets are especially impressive, dominated by the angular monolith of 8500-foot Big Hatchet Peak. The 4000-foot ascent is made from the east (the west side being forbiddenly perpendicular). From a pinyon-lined canyon one works up white ledges and slopes dotted with blue agaves. The memory of the view far south into Chihuahua, past unknown blue ranges and tan valleys to the edge of the earth, still sends little thrills of pleasure through me as I write this years later.
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