Camping and Hiking at Rockhound State Park, New Mexico

View from the campground

Rockhound State Park in New Mexico is one of, I believe, only two state parks in the country that encourage rock collecting.  If one knows what to look for, there are a lot of geodes and other collectible and semi-precious stones.  They do ask that people limit what they take, but collectors are encouraged to go off-trail since most of the geodes near the trails have already been taken.  It was here that I learned that a rock that I found last year is called a “thunder egg”; it is a round stone that looks like a geode except the inside isn’t hollow.

I also learned that a conical mountain, like Miter Peak near Davis Mountains state park, is likely the remains of a lava plug from a volcano.  The lava rose and hardened and then erosion later cleared away the softer rock from around it.

T-Mobile coverage here was disappointing.  Even though my phone showed I had a strong 5G signal, my transfer speeds weren’t even adequate for email or texting.  I called customer support and found out that I was “local roaming” to an AT&T tower; it seems that T-Mobile still takes credit for offering high speed internet even though it isn’t on their tower, so customers don’t actually get what they think they’re getting. 

That aside, I really liked this spot.  I went on a nice hike along the side of the mountain next to the campground and had the trail to myself and the views were amazing.

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Camping at Pine Springs Campground

“Campsite” at Pine Springs Campground

This campground is really just a paved area in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.  I picked the spot because it was pretty close to Carlsbad Caverns.  After visiting the area, I think I would have been better off boondocking at one of the many nearby boondocking areas. 

The view here is nice, and if I had an extra day for the trip, I would have liked to hike to Devil’s Hall, but my full day was already planned out with  a visit to the caverns.  I did take a short hike through an old riverbed down to the remains of the old Pinery Station.

I learned something about my camper on this trip though… I learned, on the first night, that a single battery is not enough to run the heater and the refrigerator overnight, even though I ran nothing else.  Once the sun came up, the single battery charged fully and the solar panel kept everything running during the day.  On the second night, I didn’t use the heater at all, and the battery  still didn’t make it through the night.  I am glad I learned that before I got to the Grand Canyon as it did influence how I used my generator when I was in the middle of  Kaibab National Forest.

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Visiting Carlsbad Caverns

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Camping at Davis Mountains State Park

Campsite at Davis Mountains State Park

Driving towards Fort Davis from Alpine, there was a mountain that really stood apart from the others because of its shape.  The name of the mountain is Mitre Peak, and it’s really hard to miss because it is nearly a perfect cone.  I later learned that this mountain was formed by lava nearing the surface from below, but never actually erupting as a volcano.  The lave cooled and hardened and the rest of the softer sedimentary rock around it eroded over time leaving this conical formation behind.

I arrived at Davis Mountains about mid afternoon, and didn’t have any special plans for my stay other than to get some laundry done in town and do a little grocery shopping.  The campsite that I stayed at had a tree shading a picnic table, which turned out to be a good spot edit some photos and update my journal.  There was no internet access at the campsite (there is good access at the top of Skyline Drive, so communicating with the outside world is still possible).  There also wasn’t any broadcast TV and there was only one radio station (NPR) in the campground.  This is a perfect spot to really disconnect from everything.

Skyline Drive

The trail to the top of Skyline Drive was closed while I was here, but the drive itself was pretty nice, and the views from the summit are amazing.  It overlooks the Fort Davis National Historical Site that I visited last year, as well as the town of Fort Davis.

Camping at Seminole Canyon SP

Campground Selfie

I was really looking forward to my stay at this campground, mainly for the guided tour of the pictographs in the canyon.  This spot didn’t let me down.  I had a great stay here.  This spot is right next to the Rio Grande, and the nearest town is Comstock, with a population of under 200 people.  I didn’t get any radio reception, and only a few channels on the TV that came in from Mexico.  I did have good internet access though, so that was a pleasant surprise.

After checking in at the visitor center, I drove towards my campsite to get set up for my stay.  Along the way I noticed what looked like an old pizza oven about a hundred feet off the road.  This is actually an old bread oven that was probably used by bakers who sold bread to the railroad workers who put in a section of a railroad that spanned between El Paso and San Antonio.

On the day that I arrived there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  Since it was too late to start one of the longer hikes I had planned for my visit, I went to look at the bird blind set up near the center of the campground.  It’s a nice shaded spot that overlooks a fountain set up to attract birds that might want to cool off from the desert heat.

My first full-day started off with the pictograph tour in the morning, followed by a hike on the Rio Grande trail in the afternoon.  It was another sunny day, and the temperature during the morning tour was great.  The afternoon was nice too, but it got pretty hot. It was still a good time; there’s something about solitude on the trail that just can’t be beat.

On my second day, I hiked the trail to the La Presa Overlook.  This day was a little overcast and it sprinkled a little bit while I was on the trail.  It was just enough to cool things off, so desert heat wasn’t a concern.  The weather conditions during the day, though, foretold a rough evening ahead.

During the evening a storm moved in with winds in the 60 mph range.  Sitting in the trailer, it was honestly a little scary.  I ended up getting ready to make a dash for the bath house if things got any worse.  Luckily the worst of the storm only lasted about a half hour.  I was sitting in the trailer watching the flashing lights of emergency vehicles going back and forth along the highway a few miles away, with the wind blown rain falling sideways. When the storm finally passed, all was well, but I felt bad for the folks who were tent-camping on the other side of the campground.  That had to be even more scary for them.

All in all though, I had a great time here.  If I’m in the area again, I wouldn’t mind spending a few more days  here to explore the rest of the trails and visit some of the other nearby historic sites.

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Birding Trail	Guided Pictograph Hike
Rio Grande Trail	La Presa Overlook Trail