Ox Canyon Trail: The calm and the storm

Weather rakes me like fever.

Cold wind slaps my face, steals my breath. Aren’t west winds supposed to be warm?

Clouds part and sun beats the burn zone around us. Instantly, I sweat.

Ten minutes in, I nearly call it. But the Manzano Mountains loom, every Crayola of green and blue, lush with life. And aren’t the canyon walls and the tall spruce beyond the burn scar a natural windbreak?

We reach them and the wind howls on, but less sound and force reach the forest floor: tree cathedral, bird planet.

The trail transforms again at an old rockslide. Light pierces the canopy. The Manzano Crest ridge peeks into sight above, parts stripped naked by fire, parts layered in green.

If we keep going, tight switchbacks will lift us high over the plains and the salt lakes of the Estancia Basin, deposit us in a meadow on the crest.

I’ve done that once, five years ago, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

But it won’t happen today. A gray curtain descends above. We need to be back at the car by 11 to miss the thunderstorm.

On the way down we spot stands of new-growth aspen we’d missed, preoccupied with the wind. The trees catch the last strands of sun and shimmer.

Raindrops hit half a mile from the trailhead, then thicken. Before us, in front of the storm, thousands of acres of forest slope down to the valley.

I can’t stop turning to gape at the storm. It touches down on the crest, bruises deepest blue.

The cycle of the Manzanos, the one that will always draw me back here, begins again.

 

Hike length: 4+ miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: none

Wildlife spotted/heard: hawk, yellow warblers, butterflies, nuthatches, bluebirds (on forest road), sparrows, blue jays