The dam of Alamogordo Reservoir blocks the Pecos River and Alamogordo Creek northwest of Fort Sumner. Picnic, camp, and water sports facilities lie along U.S. Highway 84 about sixteen miles northwest of Fort Sumner. Juniper trees dot the low valley walls where the maroon to green shale and sandstone of the Chinle Formation crop out.
Rock Hound State Park
Lying on the west flank of the Little Florida Mountains, Rock Hound State Park, twelve miles southeast of Deming, offers camping and picnicking facilities and many varieties of agate in the volcanic rocks. A few miles to the south tower cliffs of the Florida Mountains, a landmark of southwestern New Mexico and also happy hunting grounds for rock hounds.
Clayton Lake State Park
Serving the northeast corner of New Mexico, Clayton Lake State Park lies twelve miles north of Clayton on State Highway 370, impounded by a dam across Cieneguilla Creek. The stream bed cuts brown Dakota Sandstone, and rolling grassy hills to the south overlie weathered basalt flows.
Morphy Lake State Park
Morphy Lake, backed up from a dam across Rito Morphy, lies three miles west of Ledoux in southwestern Mora County and thirty-one miles north of Las Vegas off State Highway 94. The 15-acre lake provides fine trout fishing and picnicking amid stately ponderosa pines, with the canyon walls formed by tier upon tier of Pennsylvanian limestones.
Angling in the Desert’s Waters
by Fred A. Thompson[5]
Water in the great Southwest, of which the State of New Mexico is a part, has made for a colorful and historical background. Water, perhaps more than anything else, has molded the lives of all inhabitants of the area from the pueblo and lodge of the early Indian to the civilization we know today. The fish and wildlife resources as related to water have played an important part in everyday living and economy.