January 2020 – Woman Seeks Elevation

January 21, 2020

Colorful Strip Mine Trail turned my boots into a work of art

I stand on purple rock.

I look out at a rust-red hill, streaked with more purple.

I’ve already seen one pinyon jay, then a flock of 20 or more, dart across the trail.

And I’ve questioned my decision to hike alone without bear spray, thanks to two big piles of bear scat. (I thought they were hibernating…)

I’m hiking Strip Mine Trail in the Sandia Mountain foothills in Placitas. Another surprise: even this sunny, exposed trail has a good bit of snow and mud today. The snow probably totals two inches, but it’s enough to make the climb of about 1,000 feet a deliberate clomp.

Hills recede. The Jemez and Sangre de Cristo ranges, covered in snow, appear on the horizon. Watercolor Placitas below, mesas topped in green.

I take a wrong turn, end up on a path local residents take from home to wilderness (lucky them.) I retrace my steps, climb again. At last, a giant cairn, a lunch spot clear of snow.

I sat down to my sandwich wiped out, but fortified by peanut butter and honey, I want to go farther. I follow a few footsteps, then deer tracks, then nothing. A smooth curve of snow wraps around the side of the mountain. The ultimate temptation. But unsafe without spikes.

Another side path beckons as I head down. It’s sunny and relatively dry, but insanely steep.

Instead I return through the mud and snow only slightly faster than I went up. I sit on a rock in the winter sun until cloud takes over.

When I arrive at the trailhead, my boots are as purple, red and white as a Jackson Pollock painting.

Hike length: 6 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: almost none

Wildlife spotted: pinyon jays, crows, hawks

January 5, 2020

One hill yields many desert landscapes at El Cerro de Los Lunas

This climb appears to end in the blazing blue sky.

That’s OK with me, as long as it ends.

We began in the “sherbet bowl” at El Cerro de Los Lunas preserve. The trail there weaves drunkenly through stripes of peach, cream and pink sand, changing course to avoid erosion.

Inside the sherbet bowl; overlook shade structure on horizon

The trail meanders up some hills, then forces your body to downshift for what feels like an endless section of 45-degree slope. On sand.

Finally, solid rock appears underfoot, the grade lessens and the climb ends in the sky. At the preserve’s northern summit, a jaw of volcanic basalt, a view straight down into a chunk o’subdivision. From here, four separate mountain ranges look like one unbroken chain: SandiaManzanitaManzanoLosPinos.

From the northern summit; Mount Taylor on horizon

The trail plunges into a valley inside El Cerro’s volcanic cone. This means – you got it – another climb out.

Trail we just descended from the northern summit is in the middle of this photo.

Climbing out of the valley with a view of the Manzanos

The landscape’s changes take my mind off my thigh muscles. Creosote waves break all the way down to the ribbon of I-25.

We crest and descend again. More basalt teeth, undulating gray hills, freight train whistles from the BNSF switching station in Belen.

Sierra Ladrones on horizon, Magdalena Mountains behind them

We make a long loop around the far edge of the sherbet bowl, hear laughter from inside it. Two women on horseback navigate the bowl’s curves.

The steep descent goes quickly, helped by wooden steps pressed into the sand.

My husband dawdles on the long hike out of the preserve, volcanic rocks constantly catching his eye.

I keep looking back up at the northern summit and thinking, “I was up there.”

Hike length: 7.7 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: moderate, light on upper slopes

Wildlife spotted: jackrabbit, flicker, crows

TIPS: One of the first things you see when you enter the preserve is a sign warning you to stay on the trail because of rattlesnakes. And it’s not labeled on the trail itself, but the steep connector we took to the northern summit is called Rattlesnake Trail. This hike is best in the cold months when rattlers aren’t out. Unless it is actively snowing, it will be hot.

January 2, 2020

Bond Volcano: Gateway to the underworld

My husband feels warm air puff through the cave, sees condensation form on the barnacled green ceiling. He thinks it all stems from a volcanic vent.

I’m standing outside the cave. I don’t feel anything.

I’m standing outside the cave because I fear caves.

Its stacked black basalt entrance looks plenty dramatic enough for me.

But I’ve come all the way out here, and I’ve always wanted to experience a volcanic vent … oh, for God’s sake, I should just step inside the cave.

I do. Barely.

Warm air brushes my face. I move, and cool dampness drifts from the ceiling. My husband points out an opening, gaping red, that goes further back than we can see.

It’s a natural wonder to marvel at. But I’m way too creeped out to marvel.

I step back into the world, where sun, rock and air do the things I associate with sun, rock and air.

We’ve encountered the cave at Bond Volcano at Petroglyph National Monument. If you go to the Volcanoes Day Use Area, hit all the dormant volcanoes everyone else goes to and keep going, Bond stands about three miles from the entrance gate.

We tried to hike out here last year, but took the wrong dirt track. Today, we knew we’d found the right path.

We did not know it would put us on a collision course with the underworld.

“That’s one of the coolest caves I’ve ever seen,” my husband says. He’s always found hiking at the volcanoes boring, until today.

I have always found everything I needed here on bright winter days: warmth, sun-bleached grass, rock and views.

This cave encounter, though, has me so confused.

Is this an omen? Will my 2020 be marked by dark, scary things?

Will it be a year full of marvels my own mind couldn’t have conjured up?

Nature created this place with no thought of me, yet here I am, scrambling to locate myself in relationship to it.

Hike length: 6.5 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: moderate to Vulcan Volcano, very light thereafter

Wildlife spotted: crow, loggerhead shrike, sparrows, lizard scrambling into a burrow