Dripping Springs Natural Area — Attraction in New Mexico

I have heard about the Dripping Springs Natural Area in the mountains of Las Cruces the first month I arrived in New Mexico. A colleague told me that a 6-mile trail will lead you to interesting historical structures and dripping waters at the mountain top. As I have seen many beautiful waterfalls and relics in my other travels, and the fact that a long hiking trail on a hot summer day does not excite me, I forgo the idea of paying it a visit.

Until one Saturday.

The 6-mile trail is actually composed of four trails — the Dripping Springs, Crawford, La Cueva, and Fillmore trails. Among the four, the Dripping Springs seems to be the most popular. It is about 1.5 miles long (or 3 miles round trip).

On the way, I saw the first historical wooden structures said to have been built in the late 1800s. These buildings served as a livery, mercantile and chicken coop for the Van Patten’s Mountain Camp Resort and Hotel.

A couple of hundred meters away, I reached the dripping springs. Look closely on the photos below, you see people climbing up the rocks to get closer to the water drippings. The water is unfit for drinking, though. The reservoir behind the rocks used to supply water to the nearby Dripping Springs Hotel.

Few steps away is the Boyd’s Sanatorium, which was constructed in 1910 by Dr. Nathan Boyd. The buildings were operated as a tuberculosis sanatorium.

If you want to escape the city and see some amazing landscapes, visit the Dripping Springs Natural Area, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. One last thing, driving up you will come to a point where the pavement ends....

Dripping Springs is just a smidge outside of Las Cruces, NM and is a gorgeous place to explore. There are hidden areas, TONS of history and lore, and plenty of cool natural features to enjoy.

The great thing about the hike is how comfortably secluded it is. Even the Visitor Center at the Springs looked like it had not been touched since the late 1960's. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your personal tastes. For us, we care more about the outdoors, not the indoors.

Walking the entire trail system will take you about 4-5 hours. We started out with the Dripping Springs Trail, came back down and took the Crawford Trail, up the Fillmore Trail, back down around La Cueva Rocks and finally took La Cueva back to the Visitor Center.

My favorite piece of history at Dripping Springs is about 'The Hermit of la Cueva'. There's a certain cave in the park where thousands of archeological artifacts dating to 5000 BC have been found. I won't ruin the rest of the story for you - you'll definitely need to check this place out!

My only reason for giving 4 stars instead of 5 is the lack of restrooms. For a park such as this, it would be prudent to include even primitive bathrooms at the historic sites. Other than this, the park...

My first time visiting was a blast! Went with my family (about 10 people total). We hiked La Cueva trail. The maps provided us were easy to understand. You can choose to start hiking from visitor center or take a small ride to another parking lot where other trail heads are located. La Cueva trail leads to a small cave (not that impressive for adults, but kids loved it. Still, it's a cave, so that's cool.) After the short hike to the cave we proceeded to go off the trail to hike up the rock formation. My dad remembered seeing some other hikers do this, so we gave it a try. It's a technical hike. We had a couple young ones and some older people in our group, and it was a bit strenuous for everyone. So, proceed with caution. We did see 3 rattlesnakes, but managed to stay far enough away. Even though it's technically off the trail there was a clearly formed path where I guess other hikers have through enough times to blaze a trail. There were a couple of opportunities to climb up the rock formation to get some good views of the park and good photo ops. All in all, I believe we hiked 1.5 miles in about an hour. We then enjoyed a nice snack in of the several available covered lunch tables. Can't wait to visit again and try...