Our Amazing Weekend at the Hatch Chili Festival in Hatch New Mexico.
Every year at the end of summer/beginning of fall we see Hatch chili peppers start showing up in the stores around San Diego CA. and they are always delicious and smell so good while roasting. This year we decided to go to the source for them, the yearly Hatch Chili Festival in Hatch New Mexico, and it was a great weekend.
Our drive East took us straight down I-8 out of San Diego. A stop on the way to stretch our legs just happened to land at the southern end of the Juan Batista de Anza historic trail. We didn’t get to explore this great find as we were on a time schedule but you can bet we made a note about it and will definitely be going back to explore this area in the future. You can almost be assured that there will be many pictures and a post about it in the future.
We made reservations for camping in Rockhound State Park in Deming New Mexico. It turns out that this was a great place to stay because it was far enough from the crowds at the chili festival in Hatch NM. and the view was just great. Although you can see Deming in the distance as we were only 15 miles from town, at night it was dark enough that you could still see the glow of the Milky way across the night sky.
After setting up camp we then headed off to the chili festival to see what was there. As we got close to Hatch NM. [about 60 miles NE of Deming] we were surprised to see the huge amount of traffic that the chili festival brought to the area.
We eventually got a parking space and headed in to the chili festival area. The smell of the roasting chilies could be smelled for about half a mile in all directions. There is nothing quite like the smell of fresh roasted Hatch chilies. If you’ve ever been to New Mexico and had anything with green chilies in it then chances are that you’ve had a Hatch chili pepper. They are totally unique to the area and have a taste and smell that is unmistakable.
While the chili festival is much smaller than we had expected it still seems to draw quite a crowd from far and wide. We saw license plates from Alaska and Tennessee while we were there. There were even RV’s parked there that were camping out in the parking area for the chili festival. As for the booths and vendors them selves the whole festival was only a little bigger than a standard weekend farmers market in San Diego. There were prepared food vendors, craft vendors and fresh chili vendors from local farms to the area that were roasting chilies for customers while they waited. We had samples while we were here and they were definitely some of the best and freshest that we’ve ever had. Right off the trailer to the roaster to a tortilla with some cheese, that’s a snack that you have to experience to appreciate.
The chili festival has an unmistakable small town/home town feel that is a refreshing reminder of our home back in Oklahoma and the mid west in general. Everyone there was friendly and engaging. It’s nice to still see people that will just stop and talk to the person next to them and not think twice about it.
In the middle of the grounds there is a covered pavilion that has a stage where various bands would play live music, a bar for locally brewed beer, a restaurant from in town set up in the kitchen and was serving lunch, there were several vendors around as well as a ristra making demonstration/class that was going on.
One of the most interesting vendors that I noticed was R&W Gifts of New Mexico . They make a few craft items, but the one that caught my eye was their bolt action bullet pens. These are really nifty and I’ve never seen anything like them before.
While here we also got to watch [from afar] the chili eating contest. This wasn’t quite as climactic as you would think, but the winner was done with 10 chilies in just a few seconds.
Out behind the covered pavilion they had a small carnival with rides and the standard carnival games that you will see ay any small town fair. But one of these we found rally interesting and we thought about trying it but didn’t. If we ever own a place with a pool though….
Walking back to the vendor area of the chili festival we saw this little guy hanging out with his people. You can tell he’s been here a while and is still enjoying the walk he’s on although he might be a little thirsty.
Walking back around to the vendor area we got to see even more of the really beautiful ristras that were for sale as well as the 40 pound bags of fresh chilies that you could get right there off the trailer. Or you could get them roasted on site by the workers running the propane roasting drums.
After seeing the chili festival from one end to the other we decided to head into town to look around and to get lunch while we were there. We were told that Sparky’s was the place to go in town for lunch. However after seeing the line we decided to keep walking as we did not want to wait over an hour for a table.
While the line for Sparky’s may not look all that long here, when you crossed the street to the north and looked at the front of the building you really got to see that the line was all the way down the block.
Not too far down the road we stopped in the local hardware store in Hatch NM. as we needed a couple of things for the camp site. I was pleasantly surprised to see a small town hardware store and not a large nationwide chain store. When we went in to Hometown Hardware it was like I stepped back in time to what hardware stores were like when I was a little kid. It was great, not only did they have all the usual stuff you’d expect to see at a hardware store, hammers, screwdrivers, nuts/bolts, but they also had the toys I loved as a child, meaning they had the good old stand by of a Daisy BB gun. I remember that when I was a child this was standard issue for just about every boy that I knew.
After chatting with a couple of locals for a while and the girl that was minding the store that day we moved on. After meandering around the town for a while we decided on a place to stop for lunch.
Finally we decided to head back to Deming NM. so that we could pick out a spot to watch the sunset over the desert. Sharon and I both love the desert, there’s a serene calm that is just comforting. Along with the sounds and smells, there is also the way that the air feels, the dry desert air is so refreshing the early morning or evening as it’s still cool while carrying the smells of the desert flowers.
We got a pretty good time lapse video of the sun setting that evening while we ate peanuts sitting in the desert.
A camping trip to a state park just isn’t complete without the amazing workmanship of government workers, and the indigenous inhabitants of the desert…
The next morning we decided to head out to see the City of Rocks. But first we had breakfast and went on a short hike in the Rockhound campground where we stayed for the chili festival. The sunrise over the desert is always a great sight to see as you watch the sky turn from black to red, then the red giving way to the blue.
After a standard camping breakfast of oatmeal and protein powder I showed Sharon how to pick, clean and prep a prickly pear cactus bulb for desert.
After cleaning up breakfast we went on a short 1 mile hike that just encircled the campground we stayed at. WE didn’t head to the geode grounds that was a spur off of the trail but instead we just came back to the campground and got ready to head to the City of Rocks to see what was around there.
As we started getting close to the City of Rocks it was obvious that you really couldn’t miss the place as it definitely stuck out like a sore thumb on the open plains of the New Mexico desert.
The rocks that are visible here have been made into a campground with several sites that are nestled in between the towering rock formations. The rocks provide some isolation from the other camp sites but there are hundreds of small trails or walkways in between them that are easily traversed.
The rock formations are about a mile from North to South and you can easily walk through them all the way from one end to the other. There are many that you can get on top of to have a look around as well. Which made for a few good photo spheres.
We then headed to the St. Clair Winery that is in Deming NM. This is a 4th generation winery run by a family from Germany. They actually had several wines that I liked, and myself not being a wine drinker that is saying something.
With a few wine samples enjoyed and a couple of bottles purchased to take home we headed for Spring Canyon park for an evening hike and to watch the sunset.
We decided on the Lovers Leap trail that lead up to the crest between 2 peaks. The camping/day use area was closed so we parked and walked up to the trailhead in the camping/day use area.
So we started up the trail and noticed that it’s not very well maintained at all. The trail was hard to follow in some areas as it did occasionally follow/cross the wash between the 2 peaks on either side. We were only about .2 miles into the hike when we ran across this little guy, that was sitting on the side of the trail. I passed him and didn’t even notice him until he rattled and let me know he was there. After a minute or 2 we coaxed him to head back into his burrough so that Sharon could pass safely and we continued our hike up the mountain.
So after that little encounter we slowed down considerably and took much more notice of our trailside surroundings. The rest of the trail was uneventful aside from the terrain being rough and steep in places. But the view at the top was truly amazing. It was also nice to finally have some time at a place where it was just us and no one else around. During our stay there were a higher than usual number of people in the area which made it a little difficult to get time with no one else around. But the top of Lovers Loop trail was well worth the hike up and back.
Our trip to Hatch NM. for the Hatch chili festival was a really great trip and we hope to go back again next year.
