During the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day weekend of Saturday December 30^th, 2017, through Monday January 1^st 2018, Troop 53 braved the cold weather; we visited Valley of Fires Recreation Area and the Ruidoso Winter Park.

The Valley of Fires recreation area, near Carizozo, NM, is locate in proximity of the Malpais Lava Flow. Approximately 5,000 years ago, Little Black Peak erupted covering 125 square miles of the Tularosa Basin with molten rock up to 160 feet thick. The lava flow is considered to be one of the youngest flows in the U.S. From a distance, Valley of Fires appears as barren rock but when you walk along the nature trail there are many varieties of flowers, cactus, trees and bushes typical of the Chihuahuan desert. Animals include bats, roadrunners, quail, cottontails, mule deer, barberry sheep, and lizards. It’s also a virtual birdwatcher’s paradise with great horned owls, burrowing owls, turkey vultures, hawks, gnat catchers, cactus wrens, sparrows, and golden eagles

On Sunday, we visited the Ruidoso Winter Park , a major treat for Scouts. The area has three tube lanes, of varying difficulties. Scouts spent the best part of Sunday up and down slopes on tubes.

Nobody really know when snow tubing started. It surely must have been after Scottish veterinarian, John Boyd Dunlop, invented the first air-filled tires in 1888. Dunlop wanted better tires to his son’s tricycle, but, it snowballed from there. Pun intended. American Philip Strauss, of the Hardman Tire & Rubber Company, invented the first practical tire fitted with an inner tube. It is not hard to imagine that, at some point, unused tire tubes must have slid down a snow incline, igniting a spark in someone’s mind. Snow tubing became really popular starting in the 1990s when Pocono Mountain ski resorts began turning otherwise unused property into money-making tubing lanes.

Night Temperatures were below 32F / 0C. Mornings were slow due to cold. It did not take anything away from a perfect weekend of fun, camping out, camaraderie, and, most important, snow tubing.