Talk:Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico)

Delineation of sacramento / capitan by Rio Tula Rosa & Rio Ruidoso

Most maps use the northern tributaries of the Rio Hondo as the delineation of the Capitans and Sacramentos, which is followed by US 380, not US 70. This division is also in accordance with an easily visible distinction between the ranges. I cannot speak to the 'official' cited in the current article, but as a life-long resident of the Sacramento Mountains, where my wife was born and 4 generations of my family live, I can say unequivocally that Sierra Blanca is not, has never been, and likely will never be considered by any local resident to be a part of the Capitan range, and is, has always been (relatively speaking), and will always be clearly a part of the Sacramentos. I know of no source, document or group which includes the Capitans within the Sacramentos, and none that attributes Sierra Blanca to the Capitans, notwithstanding that cited in the article (which I have yet to look into). If that source does, in fact, make such and attribution, and if it is, in fact, the "official", then the official is wrong, and should be changed, as should this article.Gaedheal (talk) 21:08, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I checked the USGS website, and it does in fact list the Rio Tularosa as the northern bound of the Sacramentos. I have half a dozen maps in my home that disagree, and 30 years of hiking from Carrizo and Jicarillo to McKittrick and Slaughter Canyon that say USGS is wrong. It's not hard to imagine why--we're in a small corner of a remote desert with practically no population. My wife remembers when the postal service was first installing road signs and addresses in Karr Canyon and La Borcita and came to their door to ask what they should call the 'street' they lived on--we're recent enough just showing up on the radar. But even Google Earth shows US380 as the division between the Sacramentos and the Capitans, just as Google maps terrain shows the separation of the two ranges--where they cease to be ranges--along the line connecting Carrizozo, Capitan, and Roswell--that has to say something.Gaedheal (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. However, let me clarify what the article says and does not say (currently). It says that the Sierra Blanca is not part of the (narrowly defined) Sacramento Mountains, but it does not say that the Sierra Blanca is part of the Capitan Range. According to the official naming (the US Board of Geographic Names), these are three separate ranges. (A related note: while geology is not always the determining factor in geographic naming, it is instructive to look at a geologic map of the area, which does make clear the three distinct geologic formations involved.) The article also notes that there is a broader usage of the term "Sacramento Mountains" which includes the Sierra Blanca (and sometimes even more to the north); this is clearly the usage you prefer, and I know that it is common on maps as well as in terms of local colloquial usage.

If you want to make the broader usage more prominent in the article (rather than just in a footnote), then I would suggest the following: gather multiple reliable sources (independent of each other) which make clear that the broader usage is much more common than the narrow usage, and cite those sources in a paragraph explaining the two usages in the main body of the article. However, I would not suggest using Google Earth/Google Maps as a source, since they are not very reliable on such details. -- Spireguy (talk) 21:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)