OHV 101 - Haystack Mountain OHV Area

 

OHV 101 – Haystack Mountain OHV Area

Our next adventure with OHV’ing was the following day, when we visited a very different environment.

But, before we got to the OHV area, we came across some pronghorn antelope on the road to the OHV area.  This guy was strolling down the middle of the road, but when he heard us, he trotted off the road, and then bounded (ever so gracefully) into the brush and out of sight.

And here’s an example of how different the terrain is at Haystack Mountain vs. the dunes where we were the day before.  This area overlooks the Pecos River, although we never did get to see it this time around.  There are over 1900 acres of trails to ride, although similar to the dunes area the day before, there wasn’t any sort of map to show us the trails that would be appropriate for us. 

As we started out, I had a chance to take photos of the lovely flowers that manage to grow in the rocky terrain.  In a way, it was not a good preview of what we came across.  We did run into a very rocky, steep incline that we went down, and then, in just a few yards, an even more extreme rocky and steep incline.  We decided this trail was beyond our capability and backtracked to find another trail.

As we drove slowly down the next trail, we came to this area, and weren’t sure if we were looking at an overlook or the edge of a steep downward incline the likes of which we’ve never seen!!  Thank goodness it was just a very pretty overlook.  We did see some other trails, but felt that somehow, we needed to get a better idea of what were actually trails and how they were rated.  Again, another lesson learned about what we didn’t know!!  But we’re not going to give up!!

Enjoy!

OHV 100 - Mescalero Sand Dunes

 

OHV 100 – Mescalero Sand Dunes

New Mexico has a number of trails established especially for OHV’s (Off Highway Vehicles).  The area around Bottomless Lakes State Park has two, and the Mescalero Sand Dune area was the first that we visited to start our self-taught lessons on OHV’ing!

The Mescalero Sand Dunes is made up of more than 610 acres of dunes that can reach 90+ feet high.  No, we didn’t see any of those where we chose to start!!  The dunes are made up of quartz particles and are constantly changing, as dunes have a tendency to do!!

Here is Jeff in his Toy.  We started out weaving around various grasses and clumps of sand and vegetation.  Jeff kept going faster and faster, and it was fun, even not knowing exactly what we were doing!!

Jeff got more and more adventurous as we drove closer to the dune grasses and sort of plants that were in that area.  He asked me if I wanted to drive, but I was too busy shooting our adventure!!  The area is supposed to have large cottonwood trees, too, but we didn’t see anywhere we were.  Jeff just kept whipping around the sandy curves until…

…we got stuck in the sand!!  And it was remarkably easy to do that, so if there was a quiz on doing that, I’m sure we would have scored an A!!  After we were already pretty well buried, Jeff asked me to get out of the Toy to hopefully lessen the weight enough to let him get out (I chose not to get into the artful way he expressed that – not!!).  But, as you can see from the photo on the left, we were buried almost up to the door.  In fact, when I got out, I could have just rolled evenly out of the Toy and onto the sand – no drop whatsoever!!  Since we were fairly close to the small road leading through the area (thank goodness!), Jeff went to get the Jeep to help get us out while I stayed with the Toy.  I was originally on the other side of the Toy, in what turned out to be very deep, very soft sand, and I had quite the mini-adventure getting up to the point where I was able to stand and move easily and where I got the second photo.

When Jeff got back, he used the winch on the Toy to hook up to the Jeep, and then used that winch to pull himself out of the grip of the sand!!  You can see all the sand kicking up as he did that!  In all, we were very glad we were so close to the road, as we never saw another person out on the dunes and considered this a lesson well learned!!

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Camping at Bottomless Lakes State Park

 

Camping at Bottomless Lakes State Park

For our first camping trip of the season, Jeff and I decided to visit Bottomless Lakes State Park, here in New Mexico.  We decided on it for a couple of reasons – one is that we haven’t been there in a few years, and secondly, there are Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) Trails not far from there where we could try out Jeff’s new Toy, but more about the second reason in another couple of blog posts.

Here are a couple of views of the campground from the ridge above it.  The second (lower) image has an arrow pointing to our rig in our campsite. The lake is called Lea Lake and is the largest of about 8-9 lakes.  As we drove in, it looked like the other lakes were fairly dry at this point.  The lakes are technically sinkholes, so maybe that’s the reason some seem dried up.  Lea lake always looks very blue, and that is due to the aquatic plants that grow there.  The lakes range from 17 – 90 feet deep.  My assumption is that Lea Lake is not only the largest, but also the deepest.  The state park is open to canoeing, kayaking, fishing, picnicking, swimming, hiking, birding (at the right time of the year) and scuba diving!

Here is a closer view of our campsite – large enough to hold our complete entourage of vehicles – the RV, Jeep and Jeff’s Toy!  The lower photo is the view we had while sitting outside the rig enjoying the warm weather (80s).

Ah, the lake is Max’s favorite!!  He loved it when Jeff would toss just any old stick for him to swim out to retrieve.   And, if Jeff didn’t toss a stick, Max would wade into the water and turn around and look at Jeff as if to say, “Let’s get with the program!”  Sometimes he’d just start swimming off in the wrong direction from where the stick was and would then spend a lot of time swimming around trying to find it, often in vain!

But mostly, he would retrieve the stick and then (eventually) bring it to Jeff to toss again.  I think for Max, some of the fun of retrieving is to not quite completely retrieve it!

Enjoy!!  More to come!