Cañoncito de la Uva- Stallion Wilderness Study Area

This past summer, prompted by pulling out an old map of New Mexico wilderness and wilderness study areas, I began researching the BLM WSAs in southern New Mexico. I came across many areas I'd never even heard of before, such as Blue Creek, Apache Box and the Stallion Wilderness Study Areas. Almost all these places, being desert or chaparral, not forest, and extremely remote, I would guess are on almost no one's list of destinations. As you might guess,  this suits me just me fine.
 The most compelling feature of the Stallion WSA, is the Cañoncito de las Uva's deep horseshoe shaped box canyon on the western escarpment of this range of modest, juniper and piñon brushed hills. I've had my eye on visiting for over six months now. Problem is, it's a bit too far for a sensible day trip. So. . .
 We arrived at Valley of Fires Campground near Carrizozo  on warm and breezy Friday afternoon.  We snagged the same spot we camped at several years ago and then we did the walk on the paved path, which seems to be the only trail through the lava flow now. That night the moon was huge and bright as it rose over Carrizozo Mountain. The wind had died down since sunset and we enjoyed the warmish evening  sitting with our drinks outside.
 The next morning we were off to the west at about 9:00  to find the Cañoncito. We arrived a little after ten with no problems, although I will warn you, driving on the road from the south there is an unlocked gate amidst a cluster of houses, buildings and trailers that gave us the distinct uncomfortable feeling of being  an unwelcome visitor driving through someones front yard. This has happened to me several times before, but certainly not enough to get used to it. Although we apparently have the right of way, I yelled out to a woman on a porch to see if it was okay to pass through. She answered in the affirmative and we were on our way.
 We parked on a ridge above the Cañoncito de la Uva's large valley. I could see the entrance to  and the high cliffs of the box canyon a short ways to the east.

We traveled down through the piñon and juniper on the hillside to the valley floor studded with cholla and then began making our way along and in the creek bed. As the walls closed in we found ourselves walking on sandstone bedrock and scrambling through boulders.

The dry, bare, south facing cliffs  with layers of limestone and sandstone towered above us. The more gently sloping north  faces had sparse piñon and juniper. It certainly was an impressive, but harsh place.We climbed over small waterfalls and pushed through brush on the benches on the south side. Our slow pace masked the fact the box section was short affair indeed.

Around the big bend we came upon a large dry waterfall that, although climbable, I knew my wife would have no interest in climbing. We had our picnic, and afterwards I did climb up and walked around a bit in the now much shallower canyon above. I could see over the narrow dividing ridge to canyon walls that we had just passed by above it.

  My original hiking plan had been to link to the next canyon to the north to make a loop. Instead we walked out and then over, where I explored the box section of that much smaller canyon while my wife and dogs graciously waited. That one was like walking stairs of sandstone, where there were many places where water might hold and more and larger pine and juniper trees as well mountain mahogany.

 I caught sight of of alcove in the cliffs and on my back down went  up the very steep hillside to explore. I found an agate flake, a blackened ceiling in a recess, and what looked like an ancient corn cob.

The wind had not been much of a problem all day, but when we arrived back at Valley of Fires, it had strengthened and now persisted. Sunday morning it really started to blow, so we were off after breakfast and back in Las Cruces before lunch.