Reinvigorated in the snow on Osha Spring Trail

We stand beneath a towering pine tree, watching a downy woodpecker tap, tap, tap on the branches above us.

My feet are caked with snow and mud, but I’m in short sleeves and sweating, the sun beating down on me.

The snow was a surprise, and the mud with it, pulling my feet back down as I climb.

It had last snowed five days ago. The elevation here is only 6,500 feet at the trailhead, and, for the few who know this trail, it’s known to be sunbaked and rocky. But sometimes your feet are in the shade even when your body’s in the sun. So we were navigating two inches of snow for long stretches of this hike.

That was a challenge on this difficult-rated, steep trail. Factor in the mud, and some muscle went into this hike.

Osha Spring Trail’s defining features are pine, silence, solitude and views. First, the rolling hills of Placitas surround you.

As you rapidly ascend, a chunk of the high Sandias comes into view ahead. The Ortiz Mountains and the plains and arroyos draining them. The snowy Sangres. The rocky Jemez.

As I climbed rock, snow and mud, I had the fleeting thought that getting down would be twice as hard, and pushed it away.

Strangely, though, it wasn’t. I stepped carefully into the footprints we’d made on the way up, and stayed upright. We walked over fossil-laden rocks, raccoon tracks and what my husband was sure was a bobcat hairball (a first for us, though we’re quite familiar with the domestic cat variety.)

It was our first hike in the snow in nearly two years (the last was a New Year’s Day hike on the Winsor Trail in Tesuque).

I hope this winter brings us many more.

Hike length: 7.3 miles

Difficulty: difficult

Wildlife spotted/heard: ravens, downy woodpecker, jays

Trail traffic: none