Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

White Sands from the Second Bench, Dog Canyon Trail, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM, February 2, 2008

White Sands from the Second Bench, Dog Canyon Trail, Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo, New Mexico, February 2, 2008

Walking from the Chihuahuan Desert into a grassland island

As I remember it, the second bench on the trail is in the second of the three distinct climates one walks through while ascending the trail from the trailhead at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park. First is the Chihuahuan Desert, then a grassland in the area of the second bench, and finally a woodland as one climbs farther up and out onto the mountain plateau above the canyon.

It's hard for me to judge distances out here but I'm going to guess this bench to be maybe 20 - 50 acres with Dog Canyon dropping off to the north and west and a steep mountain ridge rising to the south and east. The bench has a comforting, protected, feeling about it with your back to the wall as you gaze out over the Tularosa Basin and the White Sands dunes. What a great spot for an isolated mountain retreat.

Night camp

Site 8 - Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, Alamogordo NM

Verizon cell phone service - good signal
Verizon EVDO service - very good signal and access speed ( I have to qualify this - during my January 2008 visit the signal and access speed was excellent - in January 2009 it was practically non-existent during the day and slow at night with unpredictable short periods of excellent access)
Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park website
Go to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park on my Nightcamps map
Check the weather here

Give it, Give it All, Give it Now

One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

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