08/25/2026
The Capitans run the wrong direction, and a bear cub came out of them in 1950
Nearly every range in the Southwest runs north-south. Basin, range, basin, range — you can read it off a map with your eyes shut. Then you get to Lincoln County and the Capitans lie down sideways across the country, running east to west for about twenty miles.
That sideways orientation is why the range does something unusual for its size: it climbs roughly 4,500 feet, from Chihuahuan desert scrub at the bottom to spruce-fir forest on the crest, and its two long flanks get completely different sun and moisture. One mountain, two climates, stacked. And in May 1950 fire came through it — the Capitan Gap fire, human-caused, about 17,000 acres — and crews working it found a black bear cub that had gone up a tree and survived. They called him Hotfoot Teddy at first. You know the name he ended up with. He's buried at Capitan, in the village at the foot of the range he came out of.
Twenty miles of mountain lying the wrong way, and the most recognized bear in the country came off it.
Have you driven US 380 past them? Did you notice they were sideways?
