When we decided to move here six years ago, we fell in love with this beautiful mountain village. It was winter, and a good year for snow. I, being a desert rat, was concerned about the snow, but I was assured that it never lasted more than a few days. It never occurred to us to ask about the wind, and no one ever mentioned it. It wasn’t until I was searching for property in the spring that I first felt the extreme winds. When looking at one property northeast of Ruidoso, it was an exceptionally windy day. I asked of it always blew like this, and was assured that it was only a couple of months a year that the wind blew so. Silly me I believed them.
The first year here we had 65 mph winds (those have not been the worst), and it didn’t last for only a couple of months. I swear it blew all winter, and spring. The air above Albuquerque is truly unique which is why the balloon fest has become a worldwide event for balloon enthusiasts. If the conditions are just right, you can rise, fly around the city, and descend back where you started. It is a unique phenomenon of the thermals above the city. You go up, and across, rise, and catch thermals going in the opposite direction.
The White Sands are known for Holloman AFB, but no one talks about the wind effect. Nature created a truly remarkable place there. White Sands is not far from here, a few hours drive between the San Andres, and the Sacramento mountain ranges in the Tularosa basin. Long before you get there you can see the sands as a bank of white at the base of the mountain range. It’s not really sand at all, but a large Gypsum dune field, in fact the largest in the world. These are the marine deposits of a shallow sea, which were finally deposited in the Tularosa Basin. It is the freezing, and thawing, wetting and drying of the selenite crystals that creates the white Gypsum sand. On days like those this week when the wind howls, it carries the white sand aloft causing the Sacramento’s to seemingly disappear in a light fog. The wind breaks down the crystals until they are scratched and broken into beautiful white sand. Without the wind, there would be no White Sands, NM
The weather here is greatly influenced by the effects of La Nina, and El Nino. They determine whether we will have a mild winter or heavy snows, a dry year or a monsoon year of great flooding. When the jet stream dips down, and kisses the warm air of the south, there is needless to say turbulence. We have had up to 75mph winds, tearing branches off the trees, and sometimes toppling the trees themselves. I can understand why here in the south, the prevailing trees are Pinion, and Juniper. They can bend with the wind loosing at most a branch or two. We have lost branches but never a tree, and we have 41 acres of heavily wooded Pinion, and Juniper. We have one tree, that I swear is at least 200 years old, it is so big. That is how long it takes for a Pinion to mature. I hope when we finally leave that whoever gets this land will leave that one majestic tree to stand.
This year has been for the most part (discounting the two artic blasts so far) a mild, dry winter. The winds come up late morning, and generally are gusty as opposed to sustained winds. It makes cleaning stalls a pain, but riding is not out of the question. Before our artic blasts, and all the below 0 temps, I was able to ride quite a few days a week. The rest of this week is supposed to be the same. I rode Ibn before the windstorm, and again today. He wasn’t as good at the jumps today because I raised them, but he will rest tomorrow, and I’ll ride Marina. That should be interesting. I haven’t decided, but I may try jumping her. She knows what its all about and loves it. She gets so excited that if you don’t watch it you can get unseated as she does little cow hops after you jump. While both are perfect on the ground, Ibn is the exact opposite of Marina. He’s all laid back, and lazy, and she is all get up, and go. I get all tuckered out riding Marina from having to hold her back. With Ibn you can get all tuckered out trying to get him to move. Even though he was timid about the jumps today because he wasn’t sure he could jump them, he was all excited before the jumps. That’s just a matter of building his confidence. That I can do, it’s making him believe he likes something that is impossible. He likes jumping he’s just not sure he can do it. Lets just hope that there are enough nice days so I can get both him and Marina in shape for the Ride in July.
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