Month: October 2018

Valle de Oro is in such an unusual location for a wildlife refuge.

Miles down Second Street, outside the city limits, past metal recycling and barbed wire and construction. Only the bosque beyond – golden now, rich green in summer – shows you you’re headed in the right direction.

Then, suddenly, a dusty track leads into fields of deep green at the first urban wildlife refuge in the Southwest.

Today, lemon-yellow butterflies flitted up from the fields. A red-tailed hawk spiraled slowly, a smaller hawk nearby.

Brilliant blue sky beckoned three of us – me, my husband and his cousin Matt – from the car. The tops of tall cottonwoods glowed yellow and gold, leaves gliding down one at a time. The instant we entered the trees, the light took on a deep, warm cast. Matt and I dove deeper into the trees to try to capture that light in photos.

We followed meandering jeep roads and trails through the trees, then the underbrush, reaching the bank of the Rio Grande. Rich red-brown runoff swirled past us. A single sandhill crane held a stately perch on a midriver mud flat.

When we emerged from the underbrush further up the bank, a single black duck swam by, then burst upward in flight.

A gaggle of about 30 cranes flew high overhead, burbling their comforting rusty-hinge call. A seemingly helicopter-sized dragonfly buzzed past.

It was blazing hot on the bank, so we sought the cool shadow of the trees again. Grasshoppers skipped by, displaying red-and-black undercarriages. Geese flew low overhead. As we rounded a corner onto an acequia, the Manzanos’ Mosca Peak came into view before us.

This property has had many lives. Today, after days cooped up inside, it breathed life back into us.

Hike length: 4.7 miles

Difficulty: easy

Trail traffic: light

Wildlife spotted: sandhill cranes, geese, ducks, butterflies, grasshoppers, dragonflies, nuthatches, hawks

“Is that water?”

“It might be sap.”

Either was completely plausible.

We were hiking in old-growth forest on the Salmon River Trail in Oregon. Hundred-foot-tall evergreens soared above us.

Ferns. Mushrooms. Tree limbs so coated in moss they looked like troll havens, water droplets shimmering on the moss.

“Graceful, yet drippy,” Teresa pronounced it.

When you hike with a former president of the American Copy Editors Society, you’re going to get a pithy headline out of it.

We detoured to the bank of the rushing river to see if the water was cold (it was).

We passed a man with a basket of foraged mushrooms (he did not want to talk about them.)

We rested at a point where the trail had begun to climb and the cool green forest let in some blue sky. It looked like the viewpoint we’d been aiming for was just around the bend, but we’d both been fooled by that before.

As the trail kept climbing, we entered another ecosystem, the air drier, the smells different.

We were about ready to turn around when we had to step aside to let a large group pass, one by one, on the narrow trail. They assured us a killer view was, this time, right around the bend.

And it was – an open ridge with forested mountains dropping steeply away on all sides. We soaked up the sun there for half an hour.

The walk back down was faster, more high-contrast. In the parts of the woods tucked away from the sun, it was deep and dark, like someone had switched off a light. Then, around a bend, late-afternoon sun spilled through the trees, lighting up the moss and highlighting all the shades of green and brown around us. Soon we heard the river’s rush again.

We saw more, our eyes adjusted to the colors of the forest: a rock squirrel scampering along a log, a two-tone beetle on the rocks underfoot.

Neither of us had anything resembling this water-rich ecosystem at home.

We drank it in.

Hike length: 7 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: moderate

Wildlife spotted: rock squirrel, crow, butterflies, beetles, lazuli bunting (?) (on road)

We got a running start on this hike.

In the parking lot, we ran after first my husband’s hat, then mine, then our parking pass, as a fierce, cold wind tore them away.

I wondered if we should just walk up the forest road behind us, if it would be more sheltered from the wind.

But the blue sky and golden leaves beckoned, and the scent of spruce enticed us. We crossed the highway to the Ellis Trail.

We were last here, briefly, three months ago, when it was 25 degrees hotter.

The rocky old jeep road wound over steep hills at 10,000 feet elevation. Crisp fall sun spilled through aspens and evergreens, ridges stretched away green and yellow. The rock underfoot went from limestone shelves to travertine crumbles and back again.

Sometimes the trees dropped away to reveal the San Pedro Mountains, the Ortiz, the Sangre de Cristos, even the Jemez, looking like it was right in front of us. The air was the clearest I’d ever seen it on the crest after two storms this week cleared out some dust.

The day changed constantly, moving as we did. In the sun, even below 60 degrees with a brisk wind, sweat came quickly. In shade, I gave thanks for my hoodie. Lemon-yellow butterflies danced along the trail, not yet ready to accept the season’s change.

Fall in New Mexico sharpens all the colors to a blade. The sky deepens to a seemingly impossible blue, bringing out the blue cast in the spruce needles. Aspen leaves pulse golden.

The air is clean and clear, perfect against your skin. The sun’s rays, so brutal I avoid hiking in direct sun for half the year, slant and soften. They become something to seek, not hide from.

Ellis Trail in October is an exquisite place to seek them.

Hike length: 7 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: light to moderate

Wildlife spotted: towhee, kingbird, hawk, vulture, caterpillars, butterflies; three mule deer on a ridge on the Sandia Crest Highway