The important thing to remember on our BLM trail system is to bring plenty of water and a hat. Plan ahead and prepare for your outing and dress according to the weather, which is pretty accurate these days. If it's sunny or snowing in Ruidoso, it's the same on the NCA. Always follow the Leave No Trace principles (LNT.org) while on public land - BLM, Forest or other.
This is one of our last trails to be transformed from a mundane cow trail, which at this writing still is, to a scenic and sustainable trail - we're going to re-route it up onto the ridge left of the trail as you're headed for the cache. On limestone outcrops along the way, keep your eye out for Permian aged brachiopods, crinoids and horn and fan coral. If you see them embedded in rock, look around on the ground for loose fossils, which you are allowed to keep. Take care however, to leave any cultural artifacts in place. If you find such, please GPS the location and let me know. Have fun.
The Trail Snails is a very active hiking group, It was founded in 1982 by Cree Mason as a Monday hiking group, because the Alto golf course was closed Mondays and the retirees needed something to do. So for years, until 2002, they hiked each Monday, mostly up on the Forest trails near Ruidoso. From 2002 until now, under Jim Edwards' leadership, there are hikes each Monday and Wednesday. They vary in length and location - sometimes up on the Lincoln National Forest as mentioned, and also now on our 73-mile trail system - on the 25,000-acre Fort Stanton National Conservation Area (NCA). BTW, I coordinate NCA trail maintenance and re-locations with partners EcoServants (Stephen Carter), AmeriCorps (these two groups are the efficient, hardworking trails crews), American Endurance Ride Conference and Backcountry Horsemen of America (BCHA). AERC and BCHA help with ongoing tail assessments. Of course, they're on their horses, which makes the volunteer work all that more fun. Area mountainbike riders, like Cody Thurston, also help in trail assessment. You may have guessed that I like to place geocaches on our trail system. Yep - stay tuned, as each trail will have one and we're also going to be following, on the surface with caches, the Fort Stanton Cave passages, especially the 12-mile-long Snowy River Passage.