About 12 miles outside of downtown Roswell, New Mexico is New Mexico’s first state park, Bottomless Lake State Park. The park contains several small lakes that are actually sinkholes ranging in depth from 17 to 90 feet.
The sink holes were formed when underground water dissolved salt and gypsum creating underground caverns that eventually collapsed. Some filled with water from the underground streams others did not.
Our campsite is located at the Lea Lake sink hole.
In the 1800’s the lakes were stopovers for cowboys herding cattle. Local folklore claims that the cowboys tried to determine the depth of the water by tying their lariats together and lowering them into the water, but could not locate the bottoms of the lakes. Hence the name Bottomless Lakes.
What they did not know is that the currents of the underground streams were carrying their ropes horizontally.
There is plenty of wildlife around the area such as pronghorn, road runners, badgers (though we only saw evidence) some lizards and plenty of ducks, geese and other birds.
Here at Lea Lake the sunsets can be very pretty but the real show….
are the rock faces that glow a brilliant orange as the the sun sets.
