Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

National Monument Managed By The Bureau Of Land Management, Designated 2014; 496,330 Acres In Four Separate Units Around Las Cruces The Organ Mountains, The Desert Peaks, The Potrillo Mountains And The Dona Ana Mountains · Las Cruces, New Mexico

The Organ Mountains rise nearly 5,000 feet straight off the desert east of Las Cruces in a wall of granite needles that gave the range its name, and in 2014 they and three other desert blocks around the city became a national monument of 496,330 acres. It is four separate units rather than one place: the Organs themselves, the Robledo and Dona Ana Mountains, the Sierra de las Uvas in the Desert Peaks unit, and the Potrillo volcanic field out toward the Mexican border, which holds Kilbourne Hole, a maar crater a mile and a half across that NASA used to train Apollo crews. There are Jornada Mogollon petroglyphs, Apache campsites, a Billy the Kid-era stage route, an abandoned tuberculosis resort at Dripping Springs and the remains of a 1930s recreation camp. Almost none of it is developed, which is the appeal and also the difficulty: away from Dripping Springs and Aguirre Spring there are no facilities.

Dripping Springs Road, Las Cruces, Las Cruces, New Mexico, 88011, United States

The monument is open all year, day and night, with no entrance station on most of it. The Dripping Springs Natural Area east of Las Cruces has a visitor centre with daytime hours, a day-use fee and a gate that closes in the evening, so do not be inside it at dusk. Aguirre Spring campground on the east side of the Organs has its own gate hours. The Potrillo and Dona Ana units have no facilities and no hours at all.

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