After hiking up and down Gallinas Peak, I still had a lot of day to get back to Carlsbad. Last night while perusing my atlas I noticed one of the towns I saw a sign for on my drive (Ancho) is a ghost town. Well, I got myself this idea to drive into Ancho and then follow Forest Road 72 over to another ghost town White Oaks. And so after heading out of Cibola National Forest past a few more mines I headed to Ancho.
Ancho was an interesting little town. There was a scattering of old buildings: old adobes mouldering back to the earth,
an old train station,
and an old school that has recently been converted to a church.
I'm not sure if anyone lives in Ancho anymore, but it looks like there might be one or two residents still hanging on.
More information on Ancho can be found here.
From Ancho I headed into Lincoln National Forest on FR72. To my surprise I found an unexpected ghost town. There were a few buildings left including two homes,
some sort of brick structure,
a false-front store,
and a bit further down the road was an old school house.
From my atlas I guessed (correctly it turns out) that this was the town of Jicarilla.
More information on Jicarilla can be found here.
Finally, I moved on to my final ghost town stop: White Oaks.
White Oaks is an interesting old mining town. They mined a lot of gold out of the hills surrounding the town. White Oaks is a bit of a disappointment though in that it is hard to navigate and figure out what is private and what is open to the public. Still, some of the old mansions are impressive, as is the old schoolhouse.
More information on White Oaks can be found here.
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