This is the first of two posts about our visit to southern New Mexico in early November 2023.

Getting away

We had a grand itinerary planned for late October: We would fly in Craig’s plane to Furnace Creek (In Death Valley), then continue on to Monument Valley (Utah), Durango (Colorado), and southern New Mexico, before heading home. But alas, the weather was not accommodating — the perennial problem of small-plane trips. Not that we didn’t try: one morning we even drove out to the airport in the wee hours, hoping that the fog would lift in time for us to fly down to Death Valley before it got too hot down there. We even went out to breakfast and loitered over our eggs and hash browns as long as we could, while waiting for the weather to change… but no such luck.

We finally gave up on the grand itinerary — or, at least, deferred it to some later date — and instead settled for a few days in southern New Mexico. So on a propitious morning in early November, we flew off to Las Cruces.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived. We’d had a long flight and were tired and hungry and looking forward to an early dinner. So we checked into the FBO (“fixed base operation,” which provides various services to private pilots flying into the airport), tied down the plane in one of their designated spaces, covered it, and collected our rental Toyota Tacoma, which had been conveniently delivered to the airport (love that!). The FBO attendant recommended a couple of local Mexican restaurants, and we set off.

When we got to our hotel, the manager who checked us in asked me why were in town. When I told him we were on vacation, he gaped. “In Las Cruces?” he asked, disbelieving. I quickly explained that we were only passing through, thus reassuring both him and myself.

Sleeping with the bears

Our first real destination was Silver City, which is adjacent to the Gila National Forest and about a two-hour drive northwest from Las Cruces. We arrived in the late morning and drove through the town to get a general feel, before heading to our accommodations at Bear Mountain Lodge, a wonderful B&B about three miles out of town. Our friends Monica and Dave had spent several nights at the Lodge during the Covid days, and they highly recommended it. We were very glad they did!

The spacious rooms are beautifully appointed and the lodge is filled with original art, most of which is for sale. Ours was the Roadrunner Room in Myra’s Retreat, a secondary building behind the main lodge, and we soon made the acquaintance of the feline in residence, who greeted us at the door and happily nestled into one of our laps for the hour or so we spent relaxing that afternoon.

Bear Mountain Lodge has a well-regarded restaurant, Café Oso Azul, where they serve a substantial breakfast each morning and dinner by reservation each evening. You need to reserve a table and choose your entrée twenty-four hours in advance, if you want to have dinner there. Not having gotten the memo on this, we were out of luck for our first night but made a point of reserving for our second evening.

Dinner among the pines

I consulted my various guides to figure out where else we could eat in the area on that first night. This was a bit of a challenge, because we didn’t want Mexican food again and Mexican restaurants were mostly what was available. Eventually I discovered the Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House in nearby Pinos Altos, so that’s where we headed. We managed to get an early reservation. Later on we would not have been able to book a table, we were informed, because the place is very popular and fills up most nights — especially when there is live music.

ASIDE: Oddly, the restaurant still had many open tables by the time we were leaving. I’m guessing that the limited availability was due to a lack of staff, rather than a lack of space. Several reviews commented that service tended to be slow and that the restaurant seemed understaffed. Everyone liked the food, though!

Pinos Altos (“Tall Pines”) is about a six-mile drive up from Silver City. An historic mining village with a current population of 161, this is a tiny place, and Buckhorn seems to be the main business in town. Its 1865 adobe exterior looks, well, historic and not particularly welcoming — especially at night, when it’s only minimally lit.

If you persevere past its unprepossessing exterior, you will find yourself in a place right out of the Old West (or the movie version of it, at least). Buckhorn boasts a warm and welcoming saloon, a fine-dining restaurant, and a separate opera house (stage, box seats, full bar) which hosts live performance and other events. In the saloon, a few paintings pay homage to the building’s history as a brothel. The food is pricey but very good. (We shared an excellent ribeye steak.) This was a great find!

A hike in the hills

Whenever possible, Craig and I like to find places to hike when we travel. This way we get out into nature and explore some different landscapes — and get some exercise into the bargain. Silver City is nestled against the Gila National Forest, so that made a logical place for our hike on the second day of our stay.

AllTrails helped us find the Pinon and Angel Loop Trails, and after a hearty breakfast at the Lodge we set off in the mid morning to explore. The hike was fairly easy, aside from the 7000+-foot elevation. We missed our turn a couple of times and once had to backtrack up a hill that we had just descended — not our happiest moment. But all in all this was a lovely hike.

A mecca for artists and art lovers

In the afternoon we headed down to explore Silver City. As its name suggests, Silver City was founded as a mining town, and there are still active copper mines in the area. Today, though, the town is better known as a popular place to retire (we saw lots of silver heads as we wandered around — including our own!). It also has a well-deserved reputation as an art mecca, if one judges by the more than forty galleries and studios in the downtown arts district. We visited a few of these, as well as the Silver City Museum.

Our best find, though, was this wonderful mural crafted from handmade tiles. Created between 2018 and 2020 by the innovative Youth Mural Program (YMP), the mural was installed on an exterior wall of the museum.

The YMP website describes the creation of this mural this way:

Patricia Countryman, as lead artist for this multi-year project, facilitated YCC students’ mural design. Before beginning this project, students researched the history of the house and museum. The history of the house is intertwined with the families who lived there — starting with the Ailman family, then the Hobart family, then various fire chiefs and their families, and finally local artist Harry Benjamin. The marigolds, butterflies and skulls were contributed by community members and students throughout Grant County as part of a Comcast Cares Day project. Diana Ingalls Leyba carried on with the project when Patty left town in June of 2019.

Here are a few details from this beautiful mosaic.

White Sands lives up to its name

Leaving Silver City the next morning, we headed out to White Sands National Park to see what there was to see. Arriving in the early afternoon, we began at the visitors center, where we learned that these sands are white because they’re composed of gypsum. Then, armed with bottles of water, baseball caps and sunglasses, we followed the eight-mile Dunes Drive to visit the park, stopping in a few spots to walk out onto the dunes. And that was pretty much it.

Hardier visitors can hike or camp, and you can even rent a saucer at the gift shop and go sledding down the face of the dunes. But we didn’t. For me the park was mildly interesting but not especially memorable. I’m glad to have seen it, but one visit will suffice, I think.

• Bear Mountain Lodge
• New Mexico Magazine: Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House
• Facebook: Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House
• Lauren Walser: The Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House in Pinos Altos, New Mexico (The National Trust for Historic Preservation, 16 June 2016 )
• Photo of the Buckhorn Saloon and Opera House by Tom Blackwell from UK, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
• U.S. Forest Service: Gila National Forest
• AllTrails: Pinon and Angel Loop Trails
• Town of Silver City
• Youth Mural Program, which has recently broken off from the Mimbres Region Arts Council to become its own entity. Read more about the Program and check out the photos of the creation and installation of the Día de los Muertos Ofrenda mural.
• White Sands National Park

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