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 |
Narrow Canyon on the Orogrande Railroad Grade - Looks Like We Got Droned! |
Bad Road suitable Only For High Clearance 4 Wheel Drive |
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 |
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!
One good thing, we didn't see a single snake! We did see some gorgeous landscape though!
A Lone Yucca Graces the Orogrande Desert |
Here is a picture of some of our New Mexico Finds
Some of our New Mexico Finds |
For further reading about the Orogrande Mining district, check out the links below:
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