May 2017 – Woman Seeks Elevation

May 30, 2017May 30, 2017

Looking for flow? Try the Middle Fork of the Gila River

“Hey guys, we just saw a rattlesnake at the wilderness boundary, about a mile north. Be careful.”

So began our visit to the Middle Fork of the Gila River.

I worry a lot. Hikes are no exception. In fact, they are the ultimate fodder for worry. (RATTLESNAKES!)

I was worried about plenty before we even got on the trail.

The heat. Despite our best efforts to leave early, we’d arrived at the Middle Fork at high noon on Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.

The drive back. The breathtaking hairpin drive in made me so dizzy in the passenger seat the only way I could keep my bearings was to drive. So I knew when we finally washed up at the trailhead again, I’d have another two-hour white-knuckled experience behind the wheel ahead of me.

But I was here, at one of my bucket list hikes, nearly a full day’s drive from Albuquerque. It wasn’t something I could try again next weekend. We were going for it.

The air temperature dropped by a good seven degrees as soon as we got down to the river, and another five once our feet were in the water. Which they were for probably 40 percent of this hike.

The Gila flows for hundreds of miles, much of it free-flowing. We were hiking into a spectacular canyon of cliffs, caves, spires, towering evergreens and swaying foliage.

I hike in the desert, so I’d forded a tiny trickle a grand total of once. Wading in knee-deep, climbing over river rocks and feeling stones slip beneath my feet as I crossed was a completely new experience. That meant there were moments when I wasn’t preoccupied with anything, I was only a person trying to keep my footing on the slippery stones as the water flowed over my ankles.

A breeze tossed the leaves and cattails along the bank, and the sun poured through them. Butterflies skittered everywhere. Frogs croaked. People sunbathed in natural hot spring pools along the banks of the river. (We passed those by – the only time I’ve ever passed up a hot spring, but it was plenty hot enough out there.)

We passed a mileage sign that told us we’d come 1.5 miles from the trailhead. I was floored. I would have guessed we’d gone at least a mile more at that point. The exertion of climbing over rock and walking through flowing water made distance hard to gauge. I’d dreamed of getting seven miles roundtrip on this trail, but I’d also made a deal with myself that I’d be satisfied with however far we got.

Our final stop was a shady, still bend in the river under a gargantuan cliff. It took a while to figure out how to get to it and longer to reach it – it was the deepest spot we forded, a little past my knees. It felt far away from everything and everyone – despite the holiday weekend, we hadn’t seen a soul in nearly a mile. But when we reluctantly got up to leave, we were back on the trail again in under five minutes.

I’ll remember most the colors of this hike – the black and beige of the canyon walls, the deep brown of the river always below, the brilliant green of the sun pouring through leaves. And I’ll remember the feeling of the water flowing around my feet. It took literally getting into a river to find a few moments of the elusive state known as flow – where you are fully absorbed in the task at hand and there’s no room for the constant internal chatter that takes up most of the space in our heads.

On the way out, we took a different, less twisty forest road through a valley. As we neared the highway back to Silver City, I saw a single, tiny wisp of cloud. Even in New Mexico, with over 300 days of sunshine a year and killer blue skies, I had never before spent an entire day in the wilderness without seeing a cloud.

Oh yeah: we never saw the rattlesnake.

Hike length: The trail’s 40 miles; we went about 4.5 roundtrip

Difficulty: Moderate

Trail traffic: Plenty of people, but tons of room for all of them

Wildlife spotted: turkey vultures, ravens, butterflies, frogs (seen but not heard), lizards, cicadas

TIPS! 1) Bring dry shoes and socks for the drive back. I brought hiking shoes and water shoes, but both were soaked by the time for the two-hour return drive. 2) If you are even a little prone to motion sickness, even if it’s not usually a problem, I recommend you be the one behind the wheel if you are taking spectacular NM 15 all the way from Silver City to the Gila River. Or, take NM 35, also lovely, to meet 15 for a less dizzying drive.

Cicada enjoying the foliage. We heard them the whole time.

Another cave. The Middle Fork is next to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Native people of the region once built upon caves like this to make their dwellings.

My husband is way more into bouldering than I am, but even I wanted to climb up on that ledge. It looks simple, but even he couldn’t find a safe way up.

Beautiful dead butterfly my husband found in the parking lot.

May 22, 2017

What’s better than White Mesa? White Mesa in spring, of course

“What the F is that?” I exclaimed.

A creature the size of a hummingbird was flying near our heads, buzzing, orange wings whirring.

“Tarantula hawk,” said my husband.

This giant wasp is the state insect of New Mexico, so named because it is a predator of tarantulas.

I’d never seen one. Before the hike was over, we’d see two more.

When we saw that first one, we were standing above what looked like the frozen River Styx. Below us, water flowed over reddish-brown ground, and the river appeared to be surrounded by ice. It was actually surrounded by massive salt blooms.

By that time, we’d already traversed a narrow three-mile ridge called the Dragon’s Back, climbed down to view the ruins of an old wood and stone dwelling, and learned we were sharing the space with dozens of college geology students from at least three states.

This is White Mesa.

What brought the geology students out there was the same thing that makes it such an incredible place to hike (or bike – it’s actually a bike trail site and Dragon’s Back is primarily used by mountain bikers.) White Mesa is an anticline, a fold of stratified rock shaped like a ridge in which the stratifications slope down from the crest.

The cliffs beneath the Dragon’s Back slope down to a valley filled with deep red soil, which in places has formed into mounds. On the other side of the valley is a steep ridge much shorter than Dragon’s Back.

I’d only seen White Mesa in winter. It’s a no-shade hike and a temperamental place – the leader of one of the geology groups told us it had snowed the day before, and the day before that, the wind was howling at 50 miles an hour.

But we woke up to one of those brilliant, relatively cool days we’ve had all spring following cold snaps, so White Mesa it was.

The red soil and blue sky I remembered from White Mesa in winter were set off by the deep, rich green of the valley. Yellow bell-shaped wildflowers sprouted from the Dragon’s Back, and plants with vibrant purple flowers grew on the valley floor.

The first time we came out here was the longest hike I’d done at that point, 5.1 miles, and by far the most demanding. The route we took then, from our trusty “60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Albuquerque” guidebook, began with a 400-foot descent down the ridge opposite Dragon’s Back. Patches of the steep trail were icy and muddy. I was terrified. By the time we made it to the valley floor, my legs were trembling, and we had another three miles to hike, part of it a climb. I wasn’t sure I could do it, but I knew I couldn’t climb back up that slippery 400-foot trail, so I went forward.

This experience was similar. After the Dragon’s Back came an insanely steep climb down to the ruins. A spell of nice flat doubletrack led to a climb up a dome in the middle of the valley. And after climbing down that, to get out of the valley and back to our car, I had to climb…the 400-foot trail that I thought might kill me on my first visit here. While the temperature was balmy and there was a gorgeous cool breeze, doing all that in full sun was taxing.

This was my toughest hike in six months, and one of my best hikes ever. The route, and especially the season, made it a completely different experience than our previous hikes here.

That’s when you know you’ve found a great hike – when you do it again and again and it’s truly different every time.

Hike length: About 7.5 miles

Difficulty: On the high side of moderate

Trail traffic: Lots of people, but there’s so much space it didn’t feel crowded.

Wildlife spotted: butterflies, turkey vulture, tarantula hawks, chipmunk, lizard, crow

Looking back from the middle of the Dragon’s Back; Sandia Mountains in background

Cabezon Peak in background. Cabezon looks so close and huge at White Mesa, and so tiny in my camera.

I just hung out here for a while and contemplated how I was going to scramble up this.

How far we’ve come! View from the end of Dragon’s Back

Power lines next to the end of Dragon’s Back

We thought this doubletrack would be an easy way down from Dragon’s Back. Nope. It’s so steep we had to walk down sideways.

The frozen River Styx? Nope, just the salty Rio Salado.

May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

The biggest reward for the smallest amount of hiking

That’s sacrilege, right? I mean, the journey is the destination.

That’s true. And it’s also true that sometimes you find yourself in the City Different on a beautiful day, with a small window of time before you need to be somewhere. And that small window is also your best window to hike all weekend.

When that happened to me Saturday, I was armed.

A while back, I’d seen a gorgeous photo of a hike at Sun Mountain by Twitter user @virtualdavis. When I looked up the hike, I was even more intrigued. That view could be had for just 1.8 miles roundtrip.

The first thing I noticed when we hit the trailhead at 1:20 p.m.: the bluest sky I had ever seen, which, in New Mexico, is saying something.

The second thing I noticed: the panoramic view over Santa Fe started almost immediately. It was unbroken throughout the hike.

The third thing I noticed: You know how you get a killer view in less than a mile, right? A lot of climbing. 700 feet in 0.9 miles.

We didn’t quite make the summit. We were running out of time, it was wicked hot and I’m a slow hiker (several folks, including a fellow a good 30 years older than me, made the summit and passed us on the return while I was still tackling the climb.)

Taking a breather on a pink granite ledge below the summit, we looked out over the Jemez Mountains, Tetilla Peak and the forested hills surrounding Santa Fe.

It was its own reward. I knew there was no need to burn myself out to make the summit. Still, I was sad all the way down the mountain, even as I soaked up the last of the incredible vistas.

I have a hard time not thinking of any hike that’s less than or different from what I envisioned myself doing as a failure. But in nature, there are plenty of reasons for a trip to be less than or different from what you envisioned – and sometimes no alternatives to it.

So I practice.

So far, even my most disappointing hikes – way more disappointing than a summit near-miss – beat the heck out of not being on the trail.

Hike length: 1.8 miles (or, if you’re in journey-as-destination mode, make it part of a 5-mile loop)

Difficulty: Moderate

Elevation gain: 700 feet

Trail traffic: You won’t be alone, but it’s not mobbed

Wildlife spotted: Rabbit, ravens, blue jay, butterflies, lizard

Tetilla Peak at left, Jemez Mountains at right

May 8, 2017

How green was my desert

If you don’t live in the desert, “green” will probably not be your overwhelming impression of these pictures of Albuquerque’s Piedras Marcadas Canyon, one of the petroglyph sites on the city’s Westside.

But that’s how they looked to me yesterday.

I usually hike at the petroglyphs in the dead of winter, when the sites’ total lack of shade is alluring rather than terrifying, and the landscape’s colors are muted. I’d never the petroglyphs in May, let alone seen them fresh off several recent spring rain and snow storms.

We headed out there because a friend who was visiting from Santa Fe wanted to hike, but had been having some foot issues. We needed a hike that was not too long or strenuous, not too steep and not too far away.

The high in Albuquerque was 89 yesterday, but when we decided to hike the petroglyphs, the morning was still cool, with a nice breeze and some cloud cover.

Had we not made that decision, we would have missed seeing butterflies fluttering around the basalt boulders along with the jackrabbits and lizards that always hop and skitter there. We finished the hike at midday, just as the heat of the direct sun began to become its own entity.

I loved seeing the desert green because it’s beautiful, and because it means the ecosystem’s getting a level of replenishment it hadn’t had for a while.

But selfishly, I really loved seeing the desert green because knowing our land has soaked up that much extra water means we have a pretty good shot at a summer with lots of hiking, instead of a summer with lots of fires and closed forests.

Hike length: 2.5 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Trail traffic: Plenty, from joggers and dog-walkers to geology classes

Wildlife spotted: Butterflies, jackrabbit, lizards, roadrunner

May 8, 2017

If hell is other people, heaven is Herrera Mesa

4/30/2017

I would not normally head out to Herrera Mesa in May. There’s virtually no shade unless you hit it really late in the day.

Today, that was perfect.

We were looking for someplace we could be certain had already dried out from the rain and snow soaking of the past two days. And we knew the temperature wouldn’t get out of the 60s, so we wouldn’t melt.

The Herrera Mesa hike, as found in Stephen Ausherman’s “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Albuquerque,” is on BLM land overlooking an old ranch on the edge of the To’hajiilee reservation. The mesa is a geological wonderland (removing minerals is prohibited). The sloping terrain that rolls away from the mesa is punctuated with angular rock formations and even a little lake.

But the best thing about Herrera Mesa is the solitude. You can see forever, and there’s not much habitation to interrupt the view. The only sounds are the wind, birds and insects (and occasional gunshots, judging from the handgun, shotgun and rifle shells we spotted while hiking in on a dirt road). There were footprints (we found none the first time we hiked here), but they weren’t from today, or yesterday.

Speaking of the wind: It was fierce and cold. We felt it off and on throughout our hike, anytime we weren’t sheltered by a section of the mesa. But the equation of the brilliant sun and the cool wind added up perfectly.

The mesa looked totally different than it had on our first hike here, in January 2016. This week’s precipitation had greened the hills that roll down from the mesa, and Indian paintbrush and other wildflowers blasted their way out of the rock and scrub.

On our way back, my husband spotted a pair of shed elk (or maybe deer) antlers on a slope below the trail. He scrambled down the slope like a gazelle for a closer look.

It was hard to imagine a giant elk navigating the narrow trail at the edge of the mesa. But between the scat, the antlers and the elk skull we saw on the way up, I’d bet elk outnumber humans on Herrera Mesa any day.

Hike length: 4-mile roundtrip

Difficulty: Moderate

Odds of running into another human: very low

Wildlife spotted: Crows, ravens, butterflies, lizards

Tip: You can drive up the road that leads to the gate where the hike starts. I don’t recommend it. On a previous visit here, we spent an hour stuck in what appeared to be the world’s tiniest ditch on that road. It’s not. If you park on the side of that road right where it turns off from the road that brings you to the mesa, it’s an easy half-mile hike to the gate (and the ditch that was impassible for our truck is small enough to step over on foot.)

Shed elk (or deer) antlers at Herrera Mesa

The lovely and lonely road heading north from Herrera Mesa

Angular mesas in foreground, two volcanic plugs in background. I think the one on the right is Cabezon Peak. Am I correct?

If you do this hike, I recommend parking here and walking up the dirt road behind the truck to the mesa on foot.

Nature’s perfect sitting rock.

Elk (or deer?) skull

The trail is in the foreground.

May 7, 2017May 9, 2017

When you can’t be with the hike you love, honey, love the hike you’re with

4/24/17

I didn’t get the hike I wanted this weekend, but I got the hike I needed.

It was Earth Day and I was going to spend it on a hike 140 miles away that’s been on my bucket list for a while. It’s a long trail and I was hellbent on doing 10 miles of it.

Then my husband and I got a stomach bug the day we were supposed to leave. We canceled our trip.

When we felt better, a couple of days later, I looked for a hike that seemed doable, just to get out of the house. We found a two-mile jaunt outside of town, listed as a side trip in our hiking guidebook.

My journey into hiking has been one of constantly pushing myself to go longer distances, to do harder terrain. If I’m not setting new records, or at least keeping up with the ones I’ve set, it doesn’t count. By that measure, this hike was a throwaway.

Of course, if you love being on the trail, there is no such thing.

Carlito Springs is a Bernalillo County Open Space tucked into Tijeras Canyon. It’s home to trickling springs, pools, orchards and crumbling relics of its reported former life as a sanitorium, camp and more.

The sun beat down on the gentle switchbacks leading to the springs, but at the top, a cool breeze swept through the place. It wasn’t just shady; the pools and springs created a cool that seemed to come up from the ground. Carlito Springs is historic and uniquely shaped by water and unlike anywhere else I’ve hiked. It’s the most unusual picnic spot in the Albuquerque area, and it’s so close and so easy to navigate you could do it anytime – an afternoon, an evening.

It also boasts the best view of Tijeras Canyon I’ve seen on dozens of hikes in the area. And even on a hazy day, it has a great view of the Sierra Ladrones range southwest of Albuquerque.

I loved every minute of hiking Carlito Springs. Having done it, even though it didn’t register on my distance or elevation gain log, I couldn’t write it off.

My bucket list hike has been on this earth way longer than I have, and it’ll be there when I get there. Whether I do two miles of it or 10, I’ll be lucky for the experience.

As I was this weekend, at Carlito Springs.

Trail length: 2-mile loop (3 with detours)

Difficulty: Easy (moderate with detours)

Elevation gain: Moderate, significant if you detour up to the top of the property (Carlito Springs ranges from 6,300 to 7,100 feet in elevation)

Trail traffic: Moderate (it’s not overrun with people, but don’t expect to have the place to yourself)

Wildlife spotted: Crows; hummingbirds; more kinds of butterflies than I’ve ever seen anywhere, including my former butterfly record-holder the Manzano Mountains