Rerouted: A tale from the west face of the Sandias

We were not lost.

To be lost implies that you have been where you needed to be, and strayed from that place.

We had yet to be anywhere.

We were trying to access Movie Trail in the Sandias from the Piedra Lisa trailhead.

Signs at the parking lot proclaimed that Piedra Lisa Trail had been rerouted, and the new route was across the road from the old trailhead. But when we walked up the road to the old trailhead, it was blocked, but there was no alternative across from it. We walked further, inspected a path into the woods, but it dead-ended.

Finally we walked back to the parking lot to start over, thinking we must have misread the signs.

There we saw the new route, well marked, right across from the parking lot. We’d walked right past it.

I was annoyed with myself as we began to climb. Piedra Lisa is steep, rocky and brilliant on a clear blue fall day like today. It has killer views of three of the main features of the western face of the Sandias: the Shield, the Prow and the Needle. We were headed up to the base of the Prow.

Or so we thought.

We made the turn we believed our trusty guidebook was telling us to make, but we found ourselves in an arroyo. A sign informed us we were in Upper Juan Tabo Canyon, and we deduced from our guidebook that we were on Fletcher Trail, an unmaintained route that follows an arroyo to the base of a rock formation called UNM Spire. It’s only accessible six months of the year; the rest of the time it’s closed to protect bird habitat.

Since we’d already burned an unnecessary mile of walking on the road and we were on an identifiable trail, we stuck with it, even though it wasn’t the one we intended to hike.

I’ve done a lot of arroyo hikes. But until today, I’d never done one that climbed 1,000 feet. Spoiler alert: It’s hard.

The sandy surface made climbing slow going. Brush taller than my husband choked the trail in some spots. At times we were climbing on rocks, ducking under tree branches and pushing aside brush all at the same time. All the Sandia butterfly greatest hits darted through and above the brush, from the orange, black and white ones to small ones in yellow, lavender and white. In spots where the brush was thick, flies swarmed us too.

It was clear pretty quickly we weren’t going to get to UNM Spire. Just under a mile into the arroyo, we encountered a thick tangle of tree branches. Rather than pushing through it, we sat down under it. In the shade, the breeze felt crisp and cool.

The hike back was much easier, and not just because it was downhill. You could see further; twists in the path that we could barely see on the way up were discernible on the way down. The falling autumn sun waved through the leaves and brush, lighting up thistles.

We walked through big stands of oak, a rare sight in the Sandias, where the tree is usually of the Gambel oak scrub variety.

Despite the double rerouting, I’d gotten my wish for the day: to explore a trail I’d never seen.

But for now, UNM Spire remains a mystery.

Hike length: 4.3 miles (including unintended 1-mile detour)

Difficulty: moderate

Wildlife spotted: bluejays, butterflies, dragonflies

Trail traffic: moderate on Piedra Lisa, none on Fletcher Trail