The Sacramento Mountains are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have ari ...

in the south-central part of the U.S. state of

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex , Offi ...

, lying just east of

Alamogordo Alamogordo () is the seat of Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains and to the west by Holloman Air Force Base. The population was ...

in Otero County (small portions of the range lie in Lincoln County and

Chaves County Chaves County is a county in New Mexico, United States. As of the 2019 census, the population was 64,615. Its county seat is Roswell. Chaves County was named for Colonel Jose Francisco Chaves, a military leader there during the Civil War an ...

). From north to south, the Sacramento Mountains extend for , and from east to west they encompass .These figures are derived from the official description of the range by the Board on Geographic Names, see the for the range.

Geography

The Sacramentos can be divided into two sections: a main, northern section, encompassing most of the land area and all of the terrain above , and a smaller southeastern section, contiguous with the Guadalupe Mountains. Neighboring ranges and landforms include the Tularosa Basin, immediately to the west of the main section of the range; Sierra Blanca and the

Capitan Mountains The Capitan Mountains are a mountain range in Lincoln County, in south-central New Mexico in the southwestern United States. The range is about 20 miles (32 km) long from east to west being about 6 miles (10 km) wide and were formed fr ...

to the northwest and northeast; the Border Hills and the western edge of the broad Pecos River valley to the east; the Guadalupe Mountains to the southeast; and Otero Mesa, which lies south of the main section and southwest of the southeastern section. The Rio Tularosa and the Rio Ruidoso (and hence U.S. Route 70) separate the Sacramentos from Sierra Blanca and the Capitan Mountains.Some sources include Sierra Blanca, Carrizo Mountain, and the Jicarilla Mountains under the term "Sacramento Mountains," but this usage is not official. See e.g. ''New Mexico Atlas and Gazetteer'', DeLorme Mapping, 2000. Located at the foothills of the Guadalupe Mountains is

Carlsbad Caverns National Park Carlsbad Caverns National Park is an American national park in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico. The primary attraction of the park is the show cave Carlsbad Cavern. Visitors to the cave can hike in on their own via the natural ...

, a series of caverns scattered throughout rugged terrain. The western edge of the main section of the Sacramento Mountains forms a series of dramatic

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

s leading up to a high ridge, which includes the highest named point in the range, Cathey Peak, 9,645 feet (2,940 m). From this ridge the mountains slope gently down to the east, merging gradually into the Pecos Slope to the west of Artesia. There are actually two unnamed highpoints of the range, both approx 9,695 ft. One is near Sunspot above Corral Canyon and FR 64. The second highpoint is on the crest of Benson Ridge.Benson Ridge
(listed at ) on a list of prominent New Mexico peaks at listsofjohn.com

Geology

The range is a wide east-dipping

fault block Fault blocks are very large blocks of rock, sometimes hundreds of kilometres in extent, created by tectonic and localized stresses in Earth's crust. Large areas of bedrock are broken up into blocks by faults. Blocks are characterized by rel ...

, made up almost entirely of

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

Gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...

deposits washed from the range are a main source of the gypsum sand that makes up the dunes in White Sands National Park. The Sacramento Mountains form the easternmost part of the rift system centered on the rift valley of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

. The rock strata in the Sacramentos were originally contiguous with those of the

San Andres Mountains The San Andres Mountains are a mountain range in the southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico, in the counties of Socorro, Sierra, and Doña Ana. The range extends about 75 miles (120 km) north to south, but are only about 12 miles (19 ...

on the other side of the Tularosa Basin, and have been separated because of down-faulting of the basin. Unlike the Sacramento Mountains, the neighboring Sierra Blanca is an extrusive

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

complex. The mountains contain multiple

perched aquifer The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

s over a deeper regional aquifer. Precipitation (mostly in winter) on the high elevations of the mountains provide most of the

groundwater recharge Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process, where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the primary method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs ...

in the Roswell Artesian Basin.

Land use

Most of the main section of the Sacramento Mountains are part of the Lincoln National Forest, though the northern part of the range is included in the

Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation Mescalero or Mescalero Apache ( apm, Naa'dahéńdé) is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan–speaking Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, located in south-cen ...

. Evidence of Apache presence dates back to the fifteenth century.Butterfield, Mike, and Greene, Peter, ''Mike Butterfield's Guide to the Mountains of New Mexico'', New Mexico Magazine Press, 2006, The range includes the town of Cloudcroft, a popular resort; the town of

Ruidoso Ruidoso is a village in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States, adjacent to the Lincoln National Forest. The population was 8,029 at the 2010 census. The city of Ruidoso Downs and the unincorporated area of Alto are suburbs of Ruidoso, and ...

, also popular for recreation, lies on its northern edge, and Timberon at the southernmost end. The range also includes the National Solar Observatory on

Sacramento Peak Cathey Peak is a peak in the Sacramento Mountains, in the south-central part of the U.S. State of New Mexico. It lies in Otero County, southeast of the community of Alamogordo. Sacramento Peak, at , is a nearby subpeak of Cathey Peak, and is mo ...

, midway down the western ridge, just southwest of Cathey Peak. There are numerous hiking trails in the portion of the range that lies within the Lincoln National Forest, there is officially designated wilderness.

Wildlife

The mountains are the only home of the Sacramento prickly poppy (''Argemone pinnatisecta''), a federally listed

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and in ...

plant species, and the Sacramento Mountains thistle (''Cirsium vinaceum''), a threatened species.''Cirsium vinaceum''.
Center for Plant Conservation.

Image Gallery

File:Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico, United States.jpg, alt=Many mountain ridges recede in the background, growing dinner due to atmosphere. The foreground ridge is covered in evergreens., Looking south from the Sacramento Mountains File:Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico (16075698517).jpg, Aerial View of the Sacramento Mountains. File:Wild Horse (Mustang) in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, United States.jpg, alt=A wild horse, brown, looks at the camera while in a forest., A wild horse in the forest of the Sacramento Mountains File:Sacramento_Mountains_in_New_Mexico.jpg, Fresh Snow on the Sacramento Mountains

References