Red Canyon is purple on a rainy day. Or is it pink?

It’s raining on us.

It’s been two years since we got rained on during a hike, and that one wasn’t even in New Mexico. This is momentous.

It’s a light, steady rain, stirring the smells of fir and pine from the forest floor.

And it pisses me off.

Where the hell is Red Canyon, anyway? It’s been at least a mile since the junction and everything looks just like it did before.

And no overlook on the last part of the Crest Trail? After climbing 2000 feet, I want a damn 50-mile view.

I want to cry. I want to chuck my hiking poles into the canyon below us.

It’s not about the hike, of course. It’s this godforsaken year that just keeps knocking me on my ass and there’s nowhere to hide from your feelings in the damn Manzanos and –

Suddenly the rock under my feet, soaring above me is purple. Or is it pink?

I had remembered this stretch of the Manzanos as one of the most beautiful places I’d ever hiked. But I didn’t know why it was called Red Canyon. I remembered the grottolike stone as a deep, rich gray, and my old photos back me up.

But the sun peeking in and out from layers of clouds, the moisture in the air, show the rock’s true colors – for the moment, at least.

The scale of the rock towering above can’t be conveyed. I even brought a real camera, albeit small. I lie down, cool stone under me, and aim skyward. What I capture looks tiny.

We slowly make our way down the trail, a steep chute of pink rock. A cornucopia of things grow in the rock – moss, ferns, many kinds of wildflowers; it’s the Hanging Gardens of Babylon up there. Sometimes the rocks stack neatly, cubes on cubes, sometimes jagged fingertips jut into the sky.

 

Before we reached the rock, there was only forest. Bright spruce and aspen commingled, sunlight pouring through. Ponderosa so thick on the north side of a ridge the temperature dropped 10 degrees and it began to look like dusk. Deadfall, giant trunks to climb over and under and around. Mushrooms making homes among the living and dead. And, as we emerged at the top of Spruce Spring Trail, a grove of ferns as tall as my shoulder.

And yes, truth be told, there were views. Through trees and of trees. The Estancia Basin’s salt lakes glimmering in the distance. The pyramid of Mosca Peak. Ridges saturated with multiple shades of green.

The Manzanos demand commitment. You want to summit by noon starting from Albuquerque, you will get up very early. You will drive winding roads, many of them unpaved. You will hike a long way; trailheads are few and far apart. You will be self-sufficient, as you rarely pass other hikers on the trail.

And when the experience gets emotional, you will be grateful for it, even if you didn’t start out that way.

Hike: Spruce Spring-Red Canyon loop, Manzano Mountains

Length: 7 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: none

Wildlife spotted/heard: nuthatches, finches, mountain bluebird, butterflies, black-capped chickadees