7 Best Sights in Southwestern New Mexico, New Mexico

Hundreds of different types of birds, including snow geese, cranes, herons, and eagles, can be spotted from viewing platforms and directly through your car window at the popular Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Besides serving as a rest stop for migrating birds, the Bosque del Apache also shelters mule deer, turkeys, quail, and other wildlife. Photo opportunities abound on the 12-mile auto loop tour; you can also hike through arid shrub land or bike through the refuge or take a van tour. October and November are the months the cottonwoods show their colors. In winter months, the refuge echoes with the haunting cries of whooping cranes flocking for the evening. Snow geese are so thick on lakes at times that shores are white with feathers washed ashore. Whether you're a bird-watcher or not, it is well worth bringing binoculars or a spotting scope to get some idea of how many varieties of birds land here (nearly 400 species have been spotted since 1940). The Festival of the Cranes () in mid-November draws thousands of people.

At Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument the mystery of the Mogollon (muh-gee-yohn) people's short-lived occupation of the deeply recessed caves high above the canyon floor may never be resolved. But the finely detailed stone dwellings they left behind stand in silent testimony to the challenges as well as the beauty of the surrounding Gila Wilderness. Built and inhabited for a span of barely two generations, from 1280 to the early 1300s AD, its 42 rooms are tucked into six natural caves that are reached via a rugged one-mile loop trail that ascends 180 feet from the trail head. Constructed from the same pale volcanic stone as the cliffs themselves, the rooms are all but camouflaged until you are about a half-mile along the trail. You can contemplate, from a rare close-up vantage point, the keyhole doorways that punctuate the dwelling walls and gaze out upon a ponderosa pine- and cottonwood-forested terrain that looks much like the one the Mogollon people inhabited seven centuries ago. The wealth of pottery, yucca sandals, tools, and other artifacts buried here were picked clean by the late 1800s—dispersed to private collectors. But the visitor center has a small museum with books and other materials about the wilderness, its trails, and the Mogollon. It's a 2-mile drive from the visitor center to the Dwellings trail head (and other nearby trails); there are interesting pictographs to be seen on the wheelchair-accessible Trail to the Past.

Allow a good 2 hours from Silver City to the Cliff Dwellings via NM 15 or via NM 35; though longer in mileage, the NM 35 route is an easier ride.

If you can spare the time, spend the night at one of the mountain inns close to the dwellings to maximize your time in the park.

This handsomely designed museum east of town, near the Organ Mountains, documents 3,000 years of agriculture in New Mexico and the Southwest. Visit a re-creation of a 1,200-year-old Mogollon farmhouse, based on styles built by some of the first nonnomadic people to live in what is now New Mexico. Longhorn cattle, Churro sheep, and dairy cows are among the heritage breeds—descendants of animals the Spanish brought from Mexico—raised at the museum. At milking times, you can learn about the history of dairy farming in New Mexico, or take a look in the "beef barn" where six different breeds of beef cattle are housed. A span of the historic Green Bridge, which used to span the Hondo River, has been reassembled over the arroyo on the grounds. Chuck-wagon cooking demonstrations are offered during special events.

One look at the spires here and you'll figure out how the area came by its name. The unusual rock formations were spewed from an ancient volcano and have been eroded over the centuries by wind and rain into the marvelous shapes there today—some more than 40 feet tall. You've got to walk through the city to fully appreciate the place—and it's a great, easy adventure to have with kids (make sure you wear tennis shoes or hiking shoes). The park has a visitor center, and a large developed campground ($10 to $14) with 9 RV sites with water and electric hookups, 41 camping sites, picnic tables, grills, flush toilets, and showers. This is a great spot to camp, with sites nestled amongst the huge rocks. An on-site observatory regularly hosts star parties.

At the distinctively homespun Geronimo Springs Museum, you can visit a room dedicated to Ralph Edwards' career and his very personal connection to the town that renamed itself after his quiz show, and you can view the giant skull of a woolly mammoth that was excavated in the nearby Gila National Forest. There's also a pictorial history of the dental chair, an essential display on cowboy hats and the personalities that wear them, and a pretty darn good collection of early Mimbres, Tularosa, Alma, and Hohokam pottery. Also check out the excellent bookshop with regional titles. The county visitor center is next door.

Inside the historic (1910) Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railway Depot, the Las Cruces Railroad Museum uses photos and ephemera to tell the story of early regional railroad history, and a model-train room and train table entertain kids especially. Temporary shows, such as one built around train travel advertisements from the last century, rotate throughout the year. Outside is a 1918 wooden caboose you can tour. The museum is several blocks west of the Cultural Center, by way of the Alameda Historic District.

If you're heading southwest from Silver City (or west toward Arizona from Las Cruces), this is a fun stop. Portions of this settlement in the heart of a working ranch just outside the sleepy town of Lordsburg have been preserved as they were in the town's heyday as a gold and silver mining town in the late 1800s. Founded in 1856, the ghost town has been designated a National Historic Site, and original structures such as homes, saloons, and stables still stand. You'll find no snack shops or other tourist amenities in Shakespeare, as owner Janaloo Hill (who grew up on the ranch, and died in May 2005) vowed not to compromise the authenticity of this genuine piece of the Old West. Shakespeare is about 50 miles from Silver City via NM 90 through Lordsburg.