It took me three attempts to knock off the highpoint of this remote, peculiar county, located along the Pecos River just below the state line with New Mexico. In January 2000, I drove about 10 miles east of Mentone along TX-302 to a "major" dirt road heading north and generally in the direction of the highpoint. I passed an open gate and drove in about 6 miles along a very rutted and poorly maintained dirt road. Numerous new road cuts were in place and not shown on my map. Fearing I may get lost and not impressed with the road conditions, I decided to abort this attempt, still about 15 miles short of my objective. A month later, Andy Martin managed to visit the highpoint after a very circuitous drive directly out of Mentone via the Grice Oil Field roads, which included a bivvy at an oil well and a few miles of hiking in this utterly stark and featureless country (click here for his interesting trip report). Kudos to Andy, but that route didn't look like fun. In March 2000, I gave Loving another go, this time trying from a net of roads north inside New Mexico. These roads were in much better shape until the final 4 miles or so, when they degenerated into soft sand. It was late in the day and I decided to admit defeat again, not really wanting to camp in this bleak scape. But I had gained valuable knowledge about a ways to the highpoint. In March 2001, accompanied by Bob Martin (the king of Texas county highpoints), we tried again, again following the same New Mexico approach I tried a year earlier.

From the town of Jal, in New Mexico's extreme southeast corner, Bob and I grabbed a lunch then started toward the Loving highpoint around 1 p.m. We proceeded west on NM-128 approximately 13 miles to Battle Axe Road on our left (south). This road has numerous ranch signs and was easy to spot from the highway. It's a good, wide, well-packed dirt road. We followed this main road for 12 miles as it headed in a general southwest direction, before coming to a stop sign and some large "No Trespassing" signs. At this point, I got out the map (The 1:100000 "Jal" map is essential, as are the usual 7.5 quads). We made a hard left turn onto a road that was marked with a big "Private Road" sign, even though my map showed it to be on Bureau of Land Management land (Closer inspection showed a tiny, rusted sign facing the other way no more than 100 feet up this road, also marked "No Trespassing". We surmise the little turn we took crossed private land, whereas the "main" roads were public right-of-way. We also know, from experience, that sometimes locals like to post roads as private when in fact they are not.) We followed this road due east 3.3 miles, then turned right (south) at a small set of wells and storage tanks. We followed this road southeasterly about 2 miles to an unlocked gate and passed through it. Up to this point the road quality was decent, but soon we encountered our first patches of sand. We reached the point where I turned back the last time, just before another set of gates.

We passed through the first of two gates, then made a right turn (west) and passed through the second of the two gates. Here the road quality degenerated even further: radical erosion had exposed some of the limestone bedrock, as well as a thick pipeline simply laying on the roadside, exposed to the elements. Also, we found ourselves slowly creeping through this gauntlet in low 4-wheel drive and often with an uncomfortable 15-20% tilt to our left, in order to bypass the various obstacles. This section was short, and followed by two miles of very soft sand. After these two slow miles, we reached the 4th and final gate. We passed it and immediately turned left (south) following a section-line road along the fence for 1 mile before coming to an east-west fence, the Texas-New Mexico state line. About 0.7 miles later along the track paralleling the state line, we parked and started our hike.

The hike itself was easy. This land is all sand, all held together with cat-claw brush, greasewood bushes and the odd mesquite tree. Cactus is everywhere. The brush is about chest level and long expansive views out across the desert are not possible. We just followed the fence for about another 0.7 mile, crossing into Texas where convenient, before surmounting a very slight rise about 500 feet south of the state line. I had entered the lat-long coordinates of our destination into my GPS, and the reading now indicated we were essentially at our destination. All we needed to do now was walk south about 500 feet and generally step on any little bump and dune we could find. We found Andy Martin's wooden lath-cairn knocked over, so I reset it upright. Any of a series of low rises in the immediate area could be the highpoint. After a few photos, Bob and I headed back to our vehicles and began the laborious drive out, eventually arriving back in Jal around 5 p.m.

All in all, this was not an easy highpoint to get. It is so remote, so removed from the main roads, and along such sandy rough roads, that only 4-wheel drive vehicles with good clearance should try it. In fact, bring two... Bob and I felt very comfortable driving in with both our vehicles, in case one of us got stuck. He had some extraction devices, as did I, and I also carried a big shovel. The Loving highpoint is located in a sea of sand- very fine, reddish sand. This is a very unpopulated area and it may be awhile before anyone drives these areas.

What makes Loving county so peculiar? Of all 3,140+ counties in the United States, Loving has the smallest population: 67, according to the 2000 census. It is the only county in the country with a population in the double digits. The county seat, Mentone, is the only town, and it has about 20 people on a good day. It's barely a town, although it does have a two-story courthouse and a cafe... which has been closed on each of the three times I've been through town. The county exists for one reason only: oil. Virtually all of the land, it seems, is leased to oil companies, and the royalties paid to the owners make the county one of the richest per-capita in the nation. There is some cattle ranching as well, although the land is not generally suited for it. It's interesting to note that nearby counties like Reeves, Winkler and Ward have the same type of land as Loving but lots more people. Loving doesn't have a good supply of ground water, however, which is why so little development has ever taken place here. The history of the county is interesting: it is the only county in Texas to have been "repealed" (de-organized is the technical term), after widespread fraud hobbled the county's functioning in the 1890s. It seems the only way to get people to move there, then and now, was to con them into thinking it was some sort of farming/ranching paradise. Many left, but a few stayed on. Oil strikes keep the county viable, to this day, despite its low population.

Two interesting links:

• The Handbook of Texas Online - History of the county.

• National Geographic article - Includes photos and interesting expository on the county.