What Is It Like Living Rural / New Mexico / Cloudcroft 

Thank you, Brendan. Since your dream is to move to a rural mountainous place, please make your dream come true. Life's short.

Hi Mary, I don't know if Cloudcroft year round people smoke a lot of marijuana or not. I don't live in the village. I was told by a woman who had a vacation cabin in the village, however, that a local gal alcoholic walked over to her cabin with booze in hand to tell her about the AA meeting she just attended, named off everyone who was there, and the cabin woman said it was "half the town." She was appalled. There's a problem I often hear of workmen failing to return business phone calls, failing to arrive to a job, or do a shoddy job. Perhaps they're high or drunk or hung over. Just avoid those time wasters if you move up here. There are good, decent people as well. Enjoy them. Mary, NM legalized pot sales recently. I bet a lot of the pot shops will be out of business in the next few yrs. You don't see a lot of liquor stores so I bet the same will happen with these new stores. As for what kind of alternative lifestyles up here - probably the most common one is parents who don't send their kids to school. There aren't any private schools. They're keeping them at home to teach them themselves. That's alternative. Speaking of kids, there aren't many up here anyway. Last census showed some miniscule nmbr of households with kids. So if your grandkids live with you, the tiny nmbr of kids up here is something to consider. No kid households are the norm here. That's alternative. Especially compared to El Paso. There's something called 'domestic partnerships'. Never heard of that in Texas. But not uncommon in New Mexico. First time I saw that phrase was a very nice divorced fellow announcing he and his lady friend were now in a domestic partnership. Not marriage. Unfamiliar with that, I then noticed a nmbr of people who live up here year round say they too are in a 'domestic partnership'. Must be a New Mexico thing. Not marriage. That's alternative. There are also what one sees in cities, marriages of divorced and remarried that Christ calls living in adultery, and living together as couples with no legal status households. Both alternative lifestyles. There used to be, may still be up here, some radical Aryan nation or whatever they are, living hate filled lives. That's alternative. Though maybe they're gone after some were arrested for plotting to kill a former sheriff deputy who murdered one of their own in anger after just discovering murdered woman and murdered sheriff partner, with a screaming toddler in the murderers' house. Didn't know such people lived up here year round until that crime. Good news is that most year round dwellers supported the deputy sheriff, not the hate filled lifestyle man and his group.

@@DesertRatGardener OMG, almost sorry I asked. When did those murders happen? OMG. Our grandkids don't live with us but visit a lot. We don't want them around dope heads. They got a dope shop on the main street in Cloudcroft and two more we saw. Everywhere in Alamogordo, it's ridiculous. What do you know about Timberon? We kind of like that area.

Those murders happened around Christmas 2004. Think it was 2007 or so that the plot to kill the deputy sheriff happened by members of that hate lifestyle group. Two of them convicted and imprisoned. One of them was also convicted of making meth. Until those crimes I never knew there were people like that up here. Just ignore those kind of people. Ignore drunks and pot smokers. Focus on the beautiful nature and the wild animals when you're up here, Mary. Heck, a brown bear came by a couple of days ago! Joanna, new family member (cat), was outside. Middle of the day. Suddenly I got the feeling I should check on her. Buddy (dog) went out and barked at a bear, who was just beyond the fence line. Joanna ran inside. I called to Buddy to leave Mr Bear alone. Poor bear was scared of Buddy and had climbed a few feet up the nearest tree. Buddy ignored me, kept barking. Bear let go of that tree and ran to another one a little further away, climbed up that a bit. Finally bear got off that tree and ran away while Buddy barked at him. Now That is what Cloudcroft's all about! Wildlife. Bears. Unusual to see a bear in the middle of the day, but it happens sometimes. You'd asked about the marijuana shops that have sprung up and if the locals are dope heads and what I meant by a lot of alternative lifestyles are up here, so I told you. But please don't let that stop you from enjoying this heaven on earth place. There's a tom turkey in the neighborhood whom I hear every evening lately gobbling as he walks the area. I think he's calling for women turkeys, or maybe he just likes gobbling a lot as he goes on his walk. Then of course, the surprise visit from the bear two days ago. There's also deer. Elk. Rabbit. Raccoons. Skunk. Birds and who knows who else. Something growled at me from a little beyond the tree line not long ago. I guess that was the cougar. Timberon. It's even more remote than Cloudcroft. You'd have to pack in your food, probably go grocery shopping for a month at a time. Good idea to get yourself trained in first aide and cpr, have plenty of first aide supplies. It'd take a long time for medical help to get to you in Timberon. So prepare for that if you choose that. Same for Cloudcroft though medical help is not as far away as in Timberon. No doubt there's lot of wildlife there too. They've got a couple of stocked fishing ponds. One of them in a beautiful setting. Have a golf course. I don't know anything about the people who live there all year round. Can't be that many. Most of your neighbors would be cabin people, coming up to enjoy getting away from it all. Same as most of the people who own Cloudcroft property are good folks coming to their cabins to enjoy the mountains. The only things I've stopped doing after moving up here to live year round is I stopped sitting on Cloudcroft's boardwalk and I choose as carefully as I can the time I go to the Family Dollar store in the village to pick up some food item I forgot to get at the grocery stores in Alamogordo - going when the parking lot is almost empty. This has cut down a whole lot on dealing with either falling down drunks (after hauling up off the ground two different times, middle of the day, drunk locals walking home from that Western Bar, whom I saw fall down flat drunk because I was sitting along the boardwalk, I stopped sitting at any seat along the boardwalk) or dealing with people following me out the store being friendly, but turns out they're also drunks.) Discussing this problem with the cabin owning friend in the village is how I learned what she knew, that there's a serious alcohol problem with too many locals. It kind of frightened me, frankly. I'd never noticed any of these people all these many years before, but then again, I'd always come up here with either my husband, my mother or friends and we spent our time at the cabin and with cabin neighbors. No one followed us out of stores to be friendly and invite us to things and we didn't hang out on the boardwalk to eventually haul drunks up off the ground. I only go into the village since those incidents to get mail, watch CLOC plays, check out the library sometimes, and sometimes church (most of the time I attend church in Alamogordo though.) And doing that, Cloudcroft went back to just friendly people stopping me at the post office sometimes to talk (don't know them from Adam), and fun times at fun events. You asked, Mary, so I answered. But avoiding the wrong sort is so easy to do. Don't take up invitations from local strangers who literally just met you to go anywhere, do anything with them. Doing that before taught me that the bar scene's where those locals really want to be. Why not head out to the forest with binoculars and watch the birds and animals, the sun go down, the moon rise? Nope. Those people want to hole up in a bar. There are more good people than bad. Really are. Move up here and stick with cabin neighbors, church people, library people and the like. I do wish there was a great bookstore with coffee and classical music, as I had down the street in El Paso. That Barnes and Noble at the Fountains was my hangout. Loved it. Met other bookworms. Enjoyable conversations. It's the only thing I miss from El Paso. Cloudcroft needs a great bookstore. The library does not have the same ambience. I'd be in the village a lot more if there were such a bookstore with that sort of ambience. Hope you visit again soon. Summer season's about to kick off.

We're coming back Memorial Day weekend. Will look hard at Timberon. Thanks so much for your honesty. Hard to find people who keep it real. They all are selling a life or a place. Want your business. Hard to trust anyone to tell you the whole story about a place. So thank you for being real. Do you ever get scared by the bears? That'd scare me! Or the mountain lions? Do they try to get your pets? My husband's real handy. Anything needs fixing he does it. So we wouldn't call anybody to come out to fix things. We eat at the cafes in CC. See the arts and craft fairs. That's it. But if we lived in CC it'd be different. Kind of ruled that out last time we were there when we saw the dope store on the main street. And it's not the only one! How did you find your cabin? Any on sale where you are? Any subdivisions you like? Thanks for all your help.

My pleasure, Mary. Thankfully, the bears are scared of Buddy. Awhile back there was a mother bear with cubs. I got inside fast. But she left her cubs at my place while she explored other cabins. After she didn't return for awhile, I went outside, told the cubs to leave and shouted for her to come get them, which she did. I don't allow my cats out at night, and never let the dogs stay out at night. Cougars are one reason. Pets need to be inside at night. Mary it was a long time ago when we got our cabin. Different era, internet and cell phones didn't exist. We were kids in our 20s. I was determined to get a cabin, with so many fond memories of staying at my uncle and aunt's Cloudcroft village cabin as a child. So one summer we camped each weekend, and drove around looking at for sale signs. Then have the realtor show us places. All those years ago I decided not to buy inside the village because they'd just stopped horseback riding within it, and previously empty lots had cabins on them. Cabins were then sitting on top of each other back then. Not spacious as in childhood. They'd also just started weekend festivals. Noisemakers. I wanted away from that. No sale signs near me. Last cabin that went up for sale was couple of yrs ago and bought as soon as it went on the market. Fast. Someone's done dirt work on a cabin though. Owner's old and lives far away. No sale signs, but if she's selling a sign will go up, and I'll tell you if that happens. As you search, see if Ponderosa Pines neighborhood has anything. Before they died I sometimes visited with elderly friends who had a place there. Good room between cabins. Roads easy to drive. Lots of wildlife. Ponderosa Pines. When the golf course operated there, the men in the family played there. Sadly the golf course has gone defunct. But I do like Ponderosa Pines. Check out Iron Gate neighborhood too. They're also now deceased but visited with friends at their cabin there when they were alive. There's a place called Elk Springs. Plenty of room between cabins. A fire went thru the south side of it 20 yrs ago. Someone bought that area and now sells lots. Maybe cabins too. Great news is that the overgrown forest on the south side was burned out. At least drive through it to see it.

JF, you'd fit in fine up here. Though I have always been religious, there are those who aren't. A dear lady who was once a Cloudcroft council woman (she's deceased, was my mother's age, former rancher woman), friend of mine, told me her church is Nature, her prayer is walking in the forest. Didn't darken a church door ever. There are a nmbr of folks here like her, in addition to we church goers. Politics up here - some are just like you, apolitical, while others are Democrat (most are that as many El Pasoans own property here, and most are Democrats), while some are Republicans. Interestingly, given the tiny rural population, there are a number of alternative lifestyle folks living here year round and from what I can tell, nobody batts an eye. All kinds of lifestyles, living arrangements and the mountain folks are far more accepting than a lot of city dwellers. Hunting, or just shooting, fishing are done up here. For some, it's how they feed themselves. Much of the reason that Cloudcroft area is not run down like the rural areas you know is because this is an Oasis, mostly second homes, the mountain mostly a playground for vacationers getting out of the desert heat. Also, the adjacent Apache reservation does well with their cattle, forest management and their luxury resort called Inn of the Mountain Gods (website has details). And on the other side of that is the 10 times larger Ruidoso village, which is mountain tourist place and not rural at all. That said, there are some who live up here who are drug users and alcoholics. Shockingly, given this is paradise, some live in their own hells. I want to tell the whole picture. You need that when looking for a place to move. It's easy to avoid those people. Though truth is that they can make the roads dangerous. As you hate crowds, the many neighborhoods outside the village limits don't have crowds. The village of Cloudcroft gets crowded in summer with tourists. I'm several miles outside the village. Other villages in this area are Mayhill, Timberon, Weed, Pinon, High Rolls, Mountain Park. All tiny. No crowds there. How to start. Well nearest town is Alamogordo, in the desert. Tularosa, and La Luz, are very small desert villages at the base of the mountain. Ruidoso is a mtn village, not rural, gets crowded in tourist season. Outside it is a tiny place called Capitan, and tinier Lincoln. I never saw Northern Exposure (didn't live in US then), but you're the third person to refer to that show. There are real estate websites listing places for sale. The village newspaper, Mountain Monthly, comes out once a month. They list real estate too. One can subscribe to that paper and have it mailed. Gives another window into Cloudcroft life, but it never has bad things in it, as tourist businesses advertise in it and bad things might hurt tourism. But still gives a taste of life.

@@DesertRatGardener Thank you so much for your thoughtful, thorough, amazing reply. I appreciate the neighborly help very much, and also appreciate your candor. I have to get out of the rut I am in, and start to actually enjoy life again nearer on my own terms... And as you may agree, time sure seems to be speeding up as one ages, and I want to be once again a good neighbor and friend to others wherever I may land. Again, thank you for your time and I may if you don't mind, ask further questions at some point. Have a great rest of your day, and as my daughter would say, "Ms./Mrs. Gardener is good people".

Thank you, JF. I'm pleased to help and do ask me any questions you have. I'll give some more information for you, and anyone else who might read this, looking at Cloudcroft as a place to live year round. On the real estate websites, many places will be listed as being located in Cloudcroft, when they are not in the village (the village is just a little over one square mile.) Plug the listing address into Google Maps and it will show you exactly where a listing is. I think these mountains are the best place to get out of a rut. It's beautiful and healing. Over the years I've known of a number of folks who throw in the towel in the city, after something or other life changing happens to them. They've been to Cloudcroft before and state they decided to move here because they knew they needed healing. Something videos can't capture is how good everything smells, how comfortable it is in summer thanks to the lower humidity than expected in a forest, as we're surrounded by the desert below. Between the census of 2010 and 2020, the population increased by 25% (from year round people in the 600s to now in the 800s.) Still tiny. The median age has risen as well, to 53 yrs. That breaks down to median age of men at 41 yrs, with women at 61 yrs. The high school graduating class has about 23 students. That's less than the average classroom size at my high school, with a graduating class size larger than Cloudcroft's population. The year round population stays pretty constant, some decades measured as high as in the 900s, while most of the time in the 6 to 700s. People often retire, get a place here to live year round, and stay for 16 to 18 years, when they either die, or their health deteriorates so much that they must move off the mountain. So there's always a turnover of people for this reason. Their cabins might be purchased by folks who will not live here year round, often absent. Lately though, with people wishing to flee cities for the country, more people buy the cabins to live in year round, which is why the population increased by 25% (but again, still tiny, and will remain tiny, as this area can not grow since we're surrounded by the National Forest.) The population numbers are tiny, but misleading because most property is owned as second homes/cabins by out of State folks. Cloudcroft could not have what it does without the tax base and spending by the majority of property owners, who are not year round residents, but come up to their properties to enjoy them whenever they can. Most of the people one meets are in love with the mountains, come to kick back and relax, escape hectic city life, go back in time to a much simpler lifestyle. They leave when they have to return to their city lives. Obviously, this also means that most of the folks in this area can afford two homes, their main home in the city they live, plus their cabin in the Cloudcroft area. This is another reason why you don't see blight and rural misery in this rural area, for much of it (out of sight from the highway, I have seen one teeny neighborhood of year round people that was run down - I never knew it existed until I went there to pick up a truckload of firewood sold by a resident - and was very surprised to see ancient RVs and wooden shacks and tacked together places hidden away in the woods, extreme poverty in that teeny little neighborhood hidden away from view). There is no bus service nor train to Cloudcroft, no public transportation. One needs their own vehicle to get up here. People who live here year round recognize strange vehicles and who lives in a neighborhood and who does not. In the village you'll see vehicles, but in the neighborhoods outside the village, you might not see another vehicle drive by for a week or two, and will certainly hear it long before you see it. Just that quiet outside of the actual village. Here's a website about the demographics. I forgot to mention the neighborhood of Twin Forks - it's also in the mountains not far from the village. When the population density is listed for Cloudcroft, they mean for the tiny just above one square mile that is the village. Live outside of the village limits, and you may well not see people for days or weeks in the off season. But you'll see wildlife and can hear a pin drop. www.towncharts.com/New-Mexico/Demographics/Cloudcroft-village-NM-Demographics-data.html And for an easier to read demographic site, this is one sums things up nicely - www.point2homes.com/US/Neighborhood/NM/Cloudcroft-Demographics.html

@@DesertRatGardener Again thank you so much for this invaluable, real information told from a real mountain person. Lived in UT many years ago and I sure do miss the dry air, the extreme quiet, and some of my favorite memories were camping and hunting way up in the mountains near Richfield. Gotta say once you experience clear western skies, especially at night it never leaves you. Only negative that seems to be on the increase are fires, and the resulting smoke/risk of losing your home. I'm currently in the rust-belt and need a change of scenery and focus on what I really want and need... What you have shown me and discussed seems absolutely wonderful. Thanks again for taking your time to help myself and others. Even though I am not religious, it seems very fitting to say you are blessed and I'm sure you would agree. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thank you, JF. Life's short. Make that change you need happen. As you search for where to move, you're right about wildfires. That's a risk. Thankfully Cloudcroft gets more rain than just about anywhere else in New Mexico and being so high altitude, does not get as hot as many other forests throughout the west. But we still have wildfire risk. In 2006 a couple of neighbors and myself did what is called Wild Land Urban Interface Defensible Space, where grants paid 60% of the cost of removing trees and clearing the forest floor of debris. The State Forester came out, marked property lines with his survey equipment as he was also a surveyor, marked all of the trees that had to go. We then hired our own tree cutters to do the job, which included raking the ground down to the duff. Then he returned to inspect and cut a check to each of us for 60% of the cost. Then in 2019 I had the rest of the trees, which were just a few, as well as hazard trees on the National Forest behind me, removed (with written permission of the Forest Service, with requirement that all debris be taken off the forest and the land be raked down to the duff.) I did that due to windstorms breaking trees. Should you decide to move to this forest or another one, seek out grants from the State to help with the cost of creating a defensible space around your home. Something many home owners don't realize is that local fire departments will not risk their lives to save a home/cabin that has done nothing to create a defensible space around their home. It's just too dangerous for fire fighters to try to save home with burning tall trees all around them, without driveways wide enough and situated so that the fire fighters can make a quick entrance and exit. Rather, such hard to defend homes are Red X'd. They'll burn to the ground since the home owners failed to create defensible spaces around their homes in high fire areas. Another thing to consider as you search for a cabin or home, or build your own, is construction material. Concrete, cement, magnesium board, cement board, metal roof and fire resistant insulation are very resistant to fire. Be careful of homes that are stucco, when the material beneath the thin layer of stucco is wood frame. I have a playlist here about Firewise Building and Insulating for Homes and Cabins. If you're on a laptop, just go to my channel and look at the Playlists at the top banner, and it's there. Lots of very good videos from others about how to make your home much more fire safe, even if it is built with the wrong material (as many are), and a lot of great information on non flammable insulation and construction materials, as well as ways to landscape to send fire away from your home. (Just found a link to the Firewise playlist - ru-vid.com/group/PL9nHajiyIyHfCZbhxl1eRWj2vlAkxfZm_ I hope your day is good too, JF. Make your dream come true. Life's short.

Hi Durango 88 Cloudcroft is marvelous in my opinion. Right now there's high heat down in the desert, air pollution, ozone high level health warnings. But up here the hottest it got today was 82 degrees in the shade at my cabin, with 30% humidity. So, it felt, and feels, great. Plus the clean, fresh, forested air that smells so good is a balm. I hired tree cutters, did not chainsaw those into blocks myself. But I am splitting them. I've owned property up here for several decades. Some years never came up, while other years came up often.

@@DesertRatGardener Ohhhhhhhh ok, well lots of people are jealous because it’s such a beautiful area. I had no idea it was even there. I saw it firsthand and said..I’m moving there as soon as I can. I always stop at the pie place on the way, I forgot the name but it has great pies and lots of stuff and souvenirs that I didn’t need. I always tell my friends I found a beautiful place up in the mountains that not many people know about.

Bryan the pie place on route... could that be The Old Apple Barn along highway 82? It's still there. Since this is your heaven on earth, then I hope you can move soon. Life's too short to live anywhere than where you love to be.

I've heard that some raccoons carry rabies. Surely feral cats might too. Yep, some folks do wear guns when they're out in the boonies up here. A former neighbor began wearing a gun. A bear startled him one morning. Bear did not attack him, was just walking by. About four months after that, the man watched the neighborhood cougar walk down the lane, then leap past our cabins into the forest. He was too frightened by the wild animals, so sold his cabin. I don't wear a gun on me, even when I'm hiking in the forest. But I talk out loud, have a bell on the dog. Banging pots and pans together shoos away the bear or cougar. Never had a problem with humans up here, but if I did, the gun's for them.

@@DesertRatGardener Read about the puma attacks on the trails north of you, not to mention bear. Can not beat a .357 magnum, or a 44.

@@edwardhenry7119 I just did a search and see nothing about cougar attacks on trails north of me, nor about bear attacks.

@@DesertRatGardener I meant a few states up.

@@DesertRatGardener You need a real log spliter.