A Bark In The Park: The 45 Best Places to Hike with Your Dog in the El Paso/Las Cruces Region

by J.L. Powers

A Bark In The The 45 Best Places To Hike With Your Dog In The El Paso/Las Cruces Region ranks the 45 top places to hike with your dog in the El Paso/Las Cruces area - all with your best friend in mind. Are there any places to take your dog swimming? Where are the best parks to walk the dog for more than one hour? Where can I find an off-leash "doggie social hour?" Where are the best parks to walk the dog and push the baby stroller? While walking her dog, author Jessica Powers also brings along generous helpings of local history, botany, geology, architecture and more.

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

About the author

The daughter of a geologist and a journalist, J.L. Powers spent much of her childhood camping and searching for fossils in the American West, and considers herself a true “desert rat.” She grew up on the U.S.-Mexico Border in El Paso, Texas.

She’s taught African history and freshman composition, research and argument, creative writing, and literature at the University of Texas at El Paso, Stanford University, and Skyline College. Jessica is semi-proficient in three languages–Spanish, Portuguese, and Zulu–and now sometimes answers in Zulu when spoken to in Spanish. Though she now lives in California, where she just finished a Master’s Degree in African History at Stanford University, she will always consider El Paso, Texas “home.”


She is the author of one picture book (Colors of the Wind: The Story of Blind Artist and Champion Runner George Mendoza); 3 novels for young adults (Amina; This Thing Called the Future; and The Confessional); editor of two collections of essays (That Mad Game: Growing Up in a Warzone; and Labor Pains and Birth Stories: Essays on Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Becoming a Parent); and author of one non-fiction hiking guide (A Bark in the Park: The 52 Best Places to Hike with Your Dog in the El Paso/Las Cruces region).