Goat Hill Trail

Our original intention was to take a walk on the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park's little trail. But we came upon 2 locked gates. It was closed.While I was pondering why a park that is supposed to be operating for the public's enjoyment and education would be closed on 50% of the days that public would be most likely to use it, and why they wouldn't put a sign with the park's hours a few miles back on the road,say, where there was sign that said Nature Park - 4 Miles, I drove over to nearby Goat Hill,an isolated little prominence on the northeast side of Las Cruces. We parked at a little turn around on the southeast side of the hill,and quickly found a horse and bike trail that led us around first in northerly and then northwesterly direction. There were views to to Dona Ana Mountains and the Dona Ana arroyo was directly below us. I don't believe I'd ever seen it before and was surprised at how large it was on this side of highway.The trail looped and curved around the "arms" extending out from the mountain until it dead ended between a couple of steep gullies. It's probably only a little over a mile long. At one point it crossed a gravel road that goes steeply halfway up the hill, which could be used to climb to the top. Of course there is the road on the south side that does go to the communications towers on the top, but that didn't seem too appealing to use.