PART FOUR OF FOUR: Lea Lake
Lea Lake is the crown jewel of the park. It is the largest and one of the two deepest. It has been developed as a tourist destination, with a nice swimming area and camping facilities. It is the large lake to the far right of the chain of lakes in the picture below:
To get to that lake on the far right, we are going to park at that small lake just to the right of the V made by two canyons (Pasture Lake, shown on the previous page), walk up the ridge, and then south to Lea Lake.
This is our first good look at the whole complex:
I was immediately fascinated (sorry) by the signs of active dissolving of rock in the cliff. We will follow this little crack into the larger opening it leads to, and then look at the lake below:
This continuing breaking away of whole slices of cliff is dramatized in the next photo:
But let's scramble down to the water now and take a closer look at this lake (we will do a walkabout):
This is where the water coming in from below gets to leave and run toward the Pecos River:
Kids were playing in the beach area, and parents were watching, as they should be:
A bit later I ran into this couple taking their pup for a spin on the lake (she said for me to take their picture, so I did):
As you can tell, time has passed, what did I do during that time? Walked north to get my car. On that walk I ran into a thick patch of salt cedars, which may be an invasive species, but I love them anyway:
I got back to Lea Lake just in time for a photo with low light from a setting sun:
Then I took the road back up the cliff to catch the actual setting sun with Sierra Blanca just to the north of it finally clearly visible:
Of course I also looked at the lake again:
But there is nothing quite like a sunset, is there?
Good night.
DO YOU WANT TO START OVER AT Bottomless Lakes State Park, Page One?
Return to New Mexico Home Page
Return to ThoughtsandPlaces.Org Home Page