Mountain village
A small, walkable village core on Burro Avenue and James Canyon Highway. Independent shops, family-run restaurants, a brewery, a winery tasting room, and a handful of lodges and cabins.
About · 2026
A mountain village at 8,676 feet.
Cloudcroft, New Mexico — founded 1899, 750 year-round residents, surrounded by the Lincoln National Forest.
The village
Where the railroad ends and the forest begins
Cloudcroft was founded in 1899 as a retreat from the Tularosa Basin heat. The Alamogordo & Sacramento Mountain Railway brought visitors up the canyon from the desert, and the village has been catching its breath at altitude ever since. The trains stopped running decades ago. The reasons people come up have not.
At 8,676 feet, Cloudcroft sits in the heart of the Lincoln National Forest, in the Sacramento Mountains of southern New Mexico. Four real seasons, dark skies, ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir, and a small village core walkable in about ten minutes end to end.
About 750 people live here year-round. The village fills out on weekends and holidays with day-trippers from Alamogordo and El Paso, summer cabin owners, and visitors who came up once and started looking at long-stay options. White Sands National Park is 35 miles down the mountain.
1899Founded
8,676 ftElevation
~750Residents
35 miTo White Sands
Three things define it
Mountain, forest, sky
Lincoln National Forest
The 1.1-million-acre forest wraps the village on all sides. Trailheads start a few minutes from town. Hiking, mountain biking, cross-country skiing, snow play, and the kind of quiet that's hard to find at lower elevations.
Dark-sky country
Low light pollution and high elevation make the Milky Way visible most clear nights. The mountain ridge holds some of the darkest skies in the Southwest.
This site
What DiscoverCloudcroft.com is for
DiscoverCloudcroft.com is an editorial visitor guide to the village. We write up specific lodges, restaurants, shops, trails, and events — with addresses, hours, phones, and the kind of "skip if" notes that save a trip. No paid placement. No fluff. If we can't verify something, we say so.
The site is in active build through 2026. Pages get updated as we confirm new facts on the ground. If you spot something that's wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
For the Chamber of Commerce member directory and event calendar, see coolcloudcroft.com.
Plan your trip
Start with the section you came for, or jump in at the top of the village.