Cloudcroft Train

I got ahold of some great old photos and had to post them.  I love railroads!  This is the Mexican Canyon Trestle.  I met a gentleman last year that was a volunteer at the Malpais and we got to talking about trains.  He told me that he rode this train as a child.  His father was an engineer and they would run logs down to Alamogordo every day.  What a great history.

This is the train depot in Cloudcroft.  I love the attire.  It looks like an outdoor pavillion. 

Another colorized view of the same area.

I have a post of the trestle as it looks today.  It hasn't changed much.

This one is labeled The Toboggan Road.  It seems to be a photo of the back side of the train station.  I am sure you could still find it.  The name sounds familiar to me.

   

Ski Cloudcroft

One more snowman for our collection.

The ski area in Cloudcroft is the Southermost ski area in the United States, and is up and running this year. It has been in existance since 1963, but does not open every year. This year has been good already for the ski areas and the first time it has opened since 2005.

I remember hot chocolate here as a kid when we would come up intertubing.

Mountain prayers

I mentioned the trains looking like prayer flags ant this is what I meant. I took these up in the mountains one day outside of Cloudcroft.

Gotta love the outhouse!

The Lodge in Cloudcroft

You cannot go to Cloudcroft without a visit to The Lodge. The Lodge was built in 1899, burned down in 1909 and was rebuilt in 1911. It is a beautiful place to stay or just go for a meal. They boast many famous people as guests throughout the years and it once was managed by Conrad Hilton. The Lodge has a popular golf course and a few shops. The restaurant is named Rebecca's after the resident ghost. Rebecca is a red-headed ghost of a young woman who was murdered by her jealous boyfriend...
This pavilion down the hill from the main lodge was the initial building. It is still used private parties and dancing.

Cloudcroft Trestle

Any talk of Cloudcroft or the area would not be complete without the Trestle. As we were founded to be a railroad town and Cloudcroft was founded for the timber, we have traces left of the past. The trestle a favorite photo op around the area, and is quite photogenic in all four seasons. There are faint scars of the old rail beds all through the mountains and ghost towns of memory only. This is one of the few visible reminders.
Standing facing East, I snapped the photo of the trestle, turning to face west, this view greets you. From this vantage, you can see across the entire basin and the mountains on the other side in the distance. If you look at the base of the far mountains, it looks like white low clouds. That is White Sands in the distance. From where I took the photo, it is probably 35 miles? The weather was in the low 70's yesterday up in the mountains and the high 90's in Alamo.

Cloudcroft

View of Burro Street in Cloudcroft.

Cloudcroft New Mexico is a quaint village located about 19 miles above Alamogordo in the Sacramento mountains. It began as a place to harvest timber for the expanding railroad from Alamogordo, and it's name means pasture in the clouds. It became a vacation getaway from the heat. Year around residents are less than 1,00o. Alamogordo is at 4,200 feet above sea level, as you climb into the mountains towards Cloudcroft you almost 5,000 feet! Cloudcroft advertises itself as "9,000 feet above stress level." It will take a few posts to get it all in, but it is 20-30 degrees cooler than Alamogordo year around. It gets snow every year, some years enough to ski. Slow paced, you feel very removed from the basin as you explore. It is a must-see for this part of the country and if you live in Alamogordo, it is a mini vacation to spend an afternoon or weekend here. These photos are of some of the businesses in Cloudcroft. Highway 82 is the main road through the town, and then Burro is the shopping street.

One of the Coolest shops around!!!

Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Hwy 82

The sign explains it all :)

Good BBQ!

Cloudcroft mercantile. They have AWESOME homemade cinnamon rolls and fresh loaves of bread, cheddar green chile, cinnamon raisin, wheat, white, etc. Notice the stuffed bear on the front porch. The school mascot is the Bear so you will see them ALL over.