Accidental hike on an empty ski slope, high summer, Sandias

We stand in the middle of the trail and sway.

The motion intrigues the three deer staring at us: two does and a buck with fuzzy four-point antlers.

One deer walks away, then another, but one doe doesn’t budge.

As we watch her, the other two come into focus again behind her. Funny how the longer you look, the more you see.

We stand there till my heels throb. Only her ears move.

It’s her home, she’s waited out far more than us, and she’s probably still standing there.

***

In general, I subscribe to the adage that a bad day hiking beats a good day doing most other things.

But this came close to being the first hike ever that I did not enjoy at all.

We’d come to explore a shaded trail on a hot day, but couldn’t find the promised trailhead from the Sandia Peak Ski Area parking lot. We figured the path winding up the ski slope would soon lead us there, so we took it.

I grew more and more irked as we zigzagged across the meadow. This would be a fun path to blast down on a mountain bike or shush on skis, but climbing it in blasting sun felt like going nowhere. I got so heated up that it took way too long to realize I hadn’t seen a single one of our trail’s blue blazes.

We kept climbing, thinking we’d intersect another trail and could get down using the trail we’d originally planned to hike. Eventually, though, we realized we still had so far to go to the trail that we were likely to run out of steam. We turned around.

After nearly five miles, my frustration finally began to dissipate. I couldn’t deny, on the way down, that hiking an empty ski slope in high summer brings many delights.

Waist-high grass and sunflowers wave in the wind. Green views plunge far into the valley. Pale aspen trunks shoot into the sky.

My husband suggested a shortcut down a mowed slope to avoid the last of the zigzags,  but with the uphill exertion over, being out there felt good.

Two mountain bikers headed uphill paused on a zigzag above us, midday sun blazing down on their climb.

My husband heard one of them say, “I hate this.”

Hike length: 6 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: light

Wildlife spotted/heard: deer, vultures, flycatchers, chipmunk, butterflies, grasshoppers, nuthatch, eagle? (heard only) Abert’s squirrel (in the middle of the Sandia Crest Highway, unconcerned)

Things to know: The ski area is closed and the mountain bike trail we ended up hiking on was unmarked, unpatrolled and unmaintained. It’s in perfectly good condition, but there are some narrow spots where you might have to dive into waist-high grass if a mountain biker came by.