Saturday 29th May we enjoyed the amazing drive along the Billy The Kid National Scenic Byway (see previous post) and arrived at Elephant Butte State Park. Or, as we called it, Elephant's butt.
https://sierracountynewmexico.info/attractions/elephant-butte-lake-map/
Elephant Butte Reservoir is a reservoir on the southern part of the Rio Grande in the U.S. state of New Mexico, 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Truth or Consequences. The reservoir is the 84th largest man-made lake in the United States and the largest in New Mexico by total surface area and peak volume. It is impounded by Elephant Butte Dam and is part of the largest state park in New Mexico, Elephant Butte Lake State Park.
The reservoir is part of the Rio Grande Project to provide power and irrigation to south-central New Mexico and western Texas. It began to be filled in 1915 and 1916 and at the time was the largest man-made lake in the world
We stayed in the South Monticello loop that was at the north end of the reservoir. I made a boob when booking as we were quite a drive from the town and the only water access at this point was via a boat ramp into the reservoir, that at this point was very fast flowing and very brown
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| A very very steep boat ramp! |
I do not always have a lot of options when I book stops as people block our access to full two weeks on one pitch as they reserve weekends so far in advance. This stop also included our first warm weather holiday - Memorial Day so I was lucky to get a full two weeks anywhere. The town of Elephant Butte was described to us by the camp host as "one big storage facility" and he was right, the road through town was full of boat and rv storage areas, People from New Mexico and Texas store their gear there and pull it out of storage for the holiday weekend or their vacation then return it to the storage places, saves hauling it. The only other place there of interest was a small laundry within a very tiny rv park which I made use of as I am lucky to get laundry done every two weeks.
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| Now that's a view! Taken from the RV door. |
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| Huge pull through pitch with a metal roofed picnic table |
South Monticello campground was a loop of fifty pitches and a big bath house. It was very well looked after much better than Bottomless Lakes. Though the place was fully booked for the holiday weekend and we saw a lot of people with boats and pontoons on the whole the weekend was nice and quiet.
There was a fourteen mile hike that began at the edge of the campground. We only walked 3 miles of it as it was not very interesting and as it went through the desert we didn't have any shade and there was not a lot of views,
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| The trail was bordered with rocks - took a lot of work to make it. |
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| Fun mile marker |
Despite the land seeming at first glance to be devoid of life, we saw a lot of wildlife. Some proved to be camera shy! John spotted the funniest birds running around the brush. They were Gambel's Quail but sorry I could not get a photo, they were quick and shy so here's a web picture.
We also saw huge hares or in America they are called Jack Rabbits. Also some rabbits and lots of humming birds as the camp host had a lot of feeders for them.
There was a warning posted about an animal called a Javelina and how dangerous they could be and they would enter the campsites despite people and dogs. They look like a wild boar but are from a different species, peccaries. Here is a link to read about them and a web picture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary
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| Not sure what this spikey dude is called |
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| Every direction there were mountains |
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| Tiny accommodations |
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