Skyline to Box Canyon 2.5

This Jeep trail circles much of the area that once hosted The Chili Challenge.  There are many, many, many trails in the area and this is but one way to look over the region.  See rating update lower on page.

The Chili Challenge (offroad rally for Jeeps and Buggies) was kicked out of the area because some of the trails were inside the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument.  

The Prehistoric Trackways National Monument site includes a major deposit of Paleozoic Era fossilized footprints in fossil mega-trackways of land animals, sea creatures, and insects. These are known as trace fossils or ichnofossils. There are also fossilized plants and petrified wood present. Much of the fossilized material originated during the Permian Period and is around 280 million years old.

Trackways can be difficult for the general public to find at the monument and few facilities have yet been developed. Many of the slabs pulled out by Jerry MacDonald are housed at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, although they are not on display at this time.  Two other continuous trackways are held in the Carnegie Museum and Smithsonian.  These fossils occur in Abo red sandstone.

There is a GPS - gpx track at the bottom of the page.

Abo sandstone

The northern part of this tail is "Skyline", a trail that climbs high to a peak in the Roblado Mountains.  This track stops at a fairly difficult obstacle short of the actual peak.  I have driven to the top in the past, but did not do so when making this track.

Trail up to Skyline Peak

View from Skyline Peak

Backtrack a short distance then head south toward Box Canyon.  

A portion of the canyon is narrow with boulders and high walls.  There is an old dam above this narrow part where the canyon is wider.

Box Canyon

Box Canyon dam

Updated 2015.

​UPDATE:  I received the following email in May, 2019.

​1A Skyline to Box Canyon 2.5 Las Cruces N.M.: we did this trail (just barely) in Wrangler Sport with 3" lift. We think this trail's difficulty should be to at least 3.5 to warn others. Trail was barely passable with our setup. It was totally washed out near Spring Canyon, requiring a detour along two washes. Having the GPX map was critical, for which we thank you. Please consider raising the rating. 

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1a_skyline_to_box_canyon_2.5.gpx
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File Type:	gpx

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