国产吃瓜黑料

GET MORE WITH OUTSIDE+

Enjoy 35% off GOES, your essential outdoor guide

UPGRADE TODAY

While millions of visitors flood into national parks each year, some of the most gorgeous state parks are overlooked. Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, located near White Sands in Southern New Mexico, is such a park.
While millions of visitors flood into national parks each year, some of the most gorgeous state parks are overlooked. Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, located near White Sands in Southern New Mexico, is such a park.

The Case for Visiting State Parks

Ever hear of Dog Canyon? I hadn't either until a spur-of-the-moment trip brought me there and made me realize that state parks are some of the most underrated public lands you might never have used.

Published: 
While millions of visitors flood into national parks each year, some of the most gorgeous state parks are overlooked. Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, located near White Sands in Southern New Mexico, is one such park.

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! .

In January, my wife, Jen, and I聽pulled Artemis the Airstream聽south to visit , but we聽ended up staying at .

That re-route will shape all our future travel.

Detour to Oliver Lee Memorial State Park

When we arrived late on a mid-winter afternoon at White Sands to find that travel trailers aren鈥檛 permitted in the park, we had to scramble for a Plan B. Normally, National Forest and BLM lands are our first choice for their easy access, but the few sites we found quickly were close to the road, shabby, and overused. That鈥檚 when Jen noticed a state park, Oliver Lee, 30 minutes to the east. There was no answer when we rang to see if they were booked, so we headed there anyway, not hopeful.

We stayed for almost two weeks.

Oliver Lee Memorial is a peculiar state park.聽It was once part of White Sands National Monument, an odd聽association as the chalky gypsum dunes of the monument, nearly 30 miles away,聽bear no physical resemblance to the scrappy, thorny, barren, high-desert recluse at the base of the dry Sacramento Mountains. The place was significant first as a stronghold dating back to the 1400s, then as a late 19th century homestead.聽And though the place was transferred to the National Park Service in 1939, it didn’t come聽into the New Mexico state park system鈥攑robably for lack of funding鈥攗ntil聽1983.

That we could roll into Oliver Lee at 4:30 p.m. on a weekend and get an electric hook-up campsite a few days after the New Year speaks to the advantages of the state park system. Reservations in national parks are often made months, if not years, in advance, and the prices are double or more than the $14 we shelled out for a New Mexico state park site with hookups. If the national parks are the polished crown jewels of the U.S.聽public land system, our state parks are the geodes that litter the American West: they may not look like much at first, but crack them open, and they鈥檙e far more ubiquitous鈥攁nd nearly as dazzling.

Less crowded and bursting with authentic, quirky culture, New Mexico's state parks are the perfect outdoor getaway.
Less crowded and bursting with authentic, quirky culture, New Mexico's state parks are the perfect outdoor getaway. (JJAG Media)

This is not an attack on the national parks system. The country鈥檚 public lands must be counted as some of our finest and most important monuments. Go see them, support them, stay there. However, they are limited commodities, and, based on our experience, they often overshadow excellent鈥攁nd otherwise overlooked鈥state parks.

State Parks Aren’t Just Smaller National Parks

In the , we have exactly one national park, , which is an outrageous place that I鈥檝e visited numerous times. (Yeah, that doesn鈥檛 account for New Mexico鈥檚 awesome national monuments鈥14 of the country鈥檚 129鈥攐r historic parks鈥攖hree of聽of 51鈥攐r聽national preserves鈥攐ne聽of 20.) Everyone should visit White Sands. Coast to coast, only 27 states have national parks. Meanwhile, , of which I鈥檝e seen only two. There are only 59 national parks compared to 10,234 state parks nationwide.

If the national parks are the polished crown jewels of the U.S.聽public land system, our state parks are the geodes that litter the American West.

Though I鈥檝e often judged state parks as inferior to the national variety, based on Oliver Lee, these places are no less compelling. At the eastern flank of the park, where the mountains surge from the thorny flatlands, the (#106) wends irresistibly into the hills. I鈥檓 generally not much of a hiker and had planned on a mountain bike ride on a nearby trail I鈥檇 heard about following our backcountry overnights in White Sands. But seeing that Dog Canyon path burned like a well-used game trail into the mountainside, I couldn鈥檛 resist.

We left at 2 p.m. after I鈥檇 finished work, and though Jen was slightly anxious about carrying on, we pushed deeper into the parched mountains. We saw no one, save a couple likely in their 50s huffing up the initial slope. Then it was only century plants, rocky cliffs scraping our shoulders, and silence. We hiked five miles and over 3,000 vertical feet into the arid Sacramento Mountains, ogling homestead sites from over a century ago and land that felt like we were the first hikers in weeks. We bumped a few sturdy elk at our high point, walked through a herd of deer on the way down, heard a barbary sheep clatter rocks in the dusky eve, and finished long, long after dark. Dog Canyon was鈥攐utside of my ascent up Half Dome in Yosemite National Park and a backcountry push to Machu Picchu years ago鈥攖he best hike I鈥檝e done in two decades. And I had no idea it was sitting, waiting for me in a remote, unappealing part of off-the-map New Mexico.

Artemis was waiting for us in a 44-site campground that had only eight or ten visitors. We heated up cheese quesadillas and elk green chile from our hunt earlier in the year. And with weary legs and creaking knees, we plotted how we could visit every park in the state before the year was out.

Popular on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online