February 16, 2024

Our 41 Day

When we arrived in Carlsbad, NM two weeks back and tried to do a load of laundry, the washing machine quit working. So it is to the campground laundry room. Not the worst place but a bit inconvenient. Then to add to that the water pump stopped working. I ordered a new one from Amazon which came this week. Only took an hour to install but I had to drop down the panel in the wet bay to to get at.  They don't make it easy, should have been a 15 minute job if not for the panel. Anyhow, got it in and it is working. 

 We went for a drive to check out the Brantley Lake State park and campground. The park was nice but only one pull thru site and not big enough for our rig. We saw a sign for Jumping Rock and decided to take the dirt road and check it out. It was on the Pasco River. The trail was rocky with some tricky spots but we made it to the Jump Rock. This is an area where the locals must party, there was glass everywhere.




The "Rock". You need to cross the river, climb the rock and Jump. Someone had to put graffiti on the rock.

At this point as we were out in the back country,  we decided to see where the trail would take us. We spent another 45 minutes climbing over rocks and ending up on the power company road under the power lines for about 6 miles. 
 

We headed to the Buffalo Gap Falls on Tuesday, took Buddy along, and hiked to the falls. It was a short easy walk and the falls was nice, (we have seen better), but on the way back another couple pointed out a group of Long Horn Sheep on the side of the mountain. They were difficult to spot as they blended into the mountain side. 

Water falls was a bit over 100 feet.


 
The water below the falls was crystal clear and cold.


We did manage to get some pictures and counted 12 sheep in all including two calves. At one point two adults butted heads, one pushing the other, cool to see. We watched them navigate the side of the mountain for about 1/2 hour. Up and down they went with ease. I have a hard time walking on flat ground :). 



                                                   

After we left the falls area and headed home we came across a dirt road leading to the top of the mountain. You can guess where this is going:). The trail was very rocky and had many ledges to climb over, some 12 to 14 inches high. At one plateau there was a pickup truck with a tent on the bed racks.  It was very windy and the camper was sitting in his cab on the phone. He did have the Starlink  internet dish set up next to truck. Always connected.

At the top of the mountain the road continued down the other side which looked a little bit rougher than where we just came. But we had to try. At the end of the trail was the sheer side of the mountain with the road just circulating around and back up where we had just come from. 



 






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