As I said in an earlier post, we were in New Mexico for a family reunion and couldn't pass up the chance to check out some old mining areas. one of my favorite stops was Orogrande near Alamogordo NM and also near White Sands Missle Range.

Unfortunately the timing of our visit coincided with the hottest time of the year in NM - June. We tried to reach the area early enough in the day, but it just didn't happen. Oh well, it was still a wonderful stop anyway. The desert is truly beautiful anytime and very nice seen from an air conditioned car!

In searching out this area, we made a wrong turn and ended up on a very nice road that took us right to some giant satellite arrays, just like in the alien contact movies. We decided we were getting too close to White Sands, so we turned around and tried a different approach. Our second road was much more on target, but not quite as nice.

When we drove into the area, we stopped at a major washout near the road and checked things out. Everyone knows metals settle in the lowest spots. We were rewarded with piles of pyrite, copper and galena filled rocks. We also picked up a few nice samples of wanna-be turquoise. Orogrande is the site of one of the more famous New Mexico mines, the De Meules Turquoise mine.

This Photo Does Not Do the Colored Rocks Justice - They Were Very Colorful

The road we drove in on, was a recently graded road that is being highly contested by the BLM with a local mining company trying to rework some tailings from one of the Iron mines in the area. After we turned off of this road, we began following an old railroad grade that was extremely rough. We came into the mining area from North of Orogrande and unfortunately the road became so bad and washed out we only got close to the Garnet mine. The railroad grade from the South may be the best bet for getting closer to the main mining area.

Narrow Canyon on the Orogrande Railroad Grade - Looks Like We Got Droned!

Bad Road suitable Only For High Clearance 4 Wheel Drive

We were driving a rental, so we opted not to try navigating any further, and got out and walked. All around the area there are marked active mining claims. We avoided these. We noticed that "Eddie the Hitman DeLuca" has been extremely busy claiming lots of spots! :-)

We did manage to walk fairly close to the Garnet Mine. There were lots of beautiful specimens laying on and near the road everywhere!

Garnet Mine and Tailings from Destroyed Road

Gorgeous Colors! The One on the Right is Chalcopyrite - Not sure What the Green one is yet

We picked up some nice specimens until the heat overcame us. This is definitely a place where you could spend days exploring and not see everything. There are mines everywhere! From the South, you pass through the old townsite of Brice where there are supposed to be a couple of buildings still standing. From the North we passed through the townsite of Ohaysi, but didn't see anything.
This really is an amazing area. We need to put it on our to do list for our next NM visit on our fall chile collecting run. There are hundreds of tailings to check out!