I’ll be in northern NM in late May with my siblings to spread the ashes of our mother. Sad story but it’s been 5 months so it’s not quite as sad anymore.
She had a very non-specific request of having the ashes spread in the desert. I’m flying in to Albuquerque from Minneapolis and my siblings are driving from Oklahoma City.
Is there a state park or area close to ABQ that you would consider a proper desert? Or if it’s a drive to find a “proper desert,” how far is it?
I think she meant a dry, cactus-filled environment, not in a mountainous area. Any ideas close to Albuquerque?
Everything around Albuquerque I would call desert. There is a community called Rio Rancho that is vast and sparsely populated, and on more or less flatland desert; you could find a quiet place there to spread ashes with no worries about people calling you on regulations about spreading human ashes, I’m sure.
You can see exactly what the roadside looks like anywhere, just by using Google Streetview. Pick some spots that look not-green on the Google Maps satellite view, and the Streetview the road passing through.
I assume you want a serene location that is unlikely to be disturbed. There is a beautiful place just east of Socorro NM, about 90 minutes south of Abq. It is a shallow lake bed with mounds that were once islands. It is a special place that would give you pleasant memories.
Looks like my sister has an idea. Has anyone been on the Sandia Peak Tram? Wondering if there is room up there, on a crowded day, to find a place to spread ashes.
And if that would ruin the day of people below or nearby.
I used to live in Albuquerque and have spent a lot of time in northern New Mexico. The desert is largely in southern New Mexico.
I’ve ridden the Sandia Tram lots of times, and yeah, you can find someplace up there to spread ashes. Just take off hiking. You’re not confined to just the immediate tram area once you get up there. Hell, you could walk all the way to Santa Fe if you wanted, following trails. It’s a big mountain and part of an extensive range.
She didn’t. We went to Ruidoso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Cloudcroft as kids and that’s all I remember. She wasn’t exactly lucid in her last days, but “desert” was the only criterion.
You could scatter the ashes in the forest near Los Alamos. That city is at a higher elevation, and I always liked looking at its lights at night from Santa Fe. It’s like a city in the sky. You could look up at it at night and know you’re mother is up there.
I’m going to second the idea of driving about an hour south to Socorro, that will properly put you in the Chihuahuan desert. Albuquerque is just a bit to far north.
Depending on what “cactus” means to you or meant to her, there’s not that much of it around Albuquerque. It’s too dry. Instead there’s bare land and occasional scrubby weeds. Plus, as others have said, low-moisture pine forests in the higher mountains such as Sandia Peak.
There are cactus forests around Tucson. Some of which are nature parks with reasonably accessible hiking trails and such.
Per the rules of this website I feel forced to mention that in many (most?) jurisdictions, scattering human cremains is against the law. Whether it ought to be is a separate question. But the owners here are a bit leery of folks advising on good ways or good places to break laws.
With your siblings driving in from OKC, they will pass through a lot of desert land on their drive to ABQ – high desert, not sand dunes and such. Tucumcari is pretty much nowheresville, and desert. OP if you will have a car you may want to drive east on 40. You will see plenty of suitable places that fit your description not far from ABQ, within an hour or two. Then you can call your siblings and they can meet you on their drive in. That’d cut down their drive a little. Socorro and the VLA west of there, White Sands, yeah those are all suitable but if there’s no sentimental value with those spots then why pass so many suitable places by?
I’d hate to see you pick a ‘nice spot’ an hour or two N, S, or W of ABQ (in other words, farther out of the way for the OKC siblings), only to have your siblings think, hell, we passed miles and miles and miles of scenery just like this on our drive in, why’d we have to go so far out of our way to scatter the ashes here? Especially since they just drove the 500+ miles from OKC to ABQ.
I’ve made that drive myself, from OKC to NM to Flagstaff on I40. It is a LOOOOONG drive through Texas.
Do your family a favor and meet them partway at Tucumcari. As has been suggested, north is really the wrong direction and if you meet at Tucumcari, you will save a lot of unnecessary seat time for your family.
You’re just passing through the upper panhandle at that point. You should try driving between West Texas and Houston sometime.