First-day road log: From Inn of the Mountain Gods to Bent Dome, Tularosa, Alamogordo, Cloudcroft and return to Inn of the Mountain Gods
— Colpitts, Robert M., Jr., George S. Austin, James M. Barker, Paul W. Bauer, W. Richard Hahman, John W. Hawley, and Richard P. Lozinsky

On Day I, the trip departs from the front of the Inn of the Mountain Gods and travels west across the crest of the northern Sacramento Mountains. Passing across Apache Summit we will see evidence of solution collapse and complex karst geology. Stop I will be at Bent to examine ore deposits at the Virginia mine and discuss the geology of the Bent dome , a structure with a core of Proterozoic(?) rock flanked by Cambro-Ordovician and Permian strata.

As we descend into the Tularosa Valley we will see eastdipping Permian strata of the San Andres, Yeso and Laborcita Formations. Stop 2 will be at Scorpion Mound, northeast of Tularosa, to examine the connection between Permian sedimentation ·and tectonics. We then proceed to Alamogordo, home of the Space Museum Hall of Fame, which is the location of Stop 3. There will be an opportunity to visit the museum, the show in the nearby Clyde W. Tombaugh Theater, or investigate Pennsylvanian-age strata along the west side of the Sacramento Mountains. We will also discuss the modern reactivation of the Alamogordo fault zone, which we cross several times during this trip.

After lunch, we proceed up US-82 and Dry Canyon to Cloudcroft. At Stop 4, we examine Pennsylvanian algal bioherms and associated facies in the Holder Formation. We then proceed east toward the only highway tunnel in New Mexico. We will cross the Fresnal fault, a Pennsylvanian-Permian structure that was reactivated during late Cenozoic uplift of the Sacramento Mountains. At Stop 5, in the Tunnel Vista parking lot, we will discuss Paleozoic tectonic activity and the archeology of caves in Fresnal Canyon. We then proceed to Cloudcroft and traverse the crest of the Sacramento Mountains through the beautifully forested Mescalero Apache Reservation. After re-crossing Apache Summit, we will examine a roadcut quarry in a debris-filled sinkhole at Stop 6. The First-Day Road Log ends at our point of origin, the Inn of the Mountain Gods.