The Jornada del Muerto was the most feared stretch of the Camino Real: nearly 100 kilometres of barren desert with no water. A traveler in the 1850s who crossed it after leaving the valley wrote of making about eighty miles on the Jornada and sleeping on the cold, hard earth, calling it “the Journey of Death”.
Glossary · History
Jornada del Muerto
The waterless desert crossing north of Las Cruces that travelers called the Journey of Death.