I.
For the first time, on a quiet morning at Sabino Canyon, I can see it. Maybe it’s the sun’s angle, the snow’s consistency. Several inches blanket the ground.
An interpretive sign informs me that I stand on the Manzano Mountains’ northern plateau. I would have told you I was in the Manzanita Mountains, but I accept the serendipity of my first winter visit to my favorite mountain range.
The trail passes the ruins of an old fur farm. Spotted towhees flit where foxes and minks once were caged.
An icicle in a corner of a farm building makes me shiver. Something about the corner’s green patina from age and lack of use.
Still, I feel safe alone out here.
An enormous hawk swoops toward me. I think it’s an owl before I register its raptor-face staring into mine. It banks twice. Striped wings glow in sun.
I consider hiking the whole loop again, but I couldn’t improve on it.
Hike length: 2 miles
Difficulty: easy
Trail traffic: none
Creatures seen/heard: dark-eyed juncos, spotted towhees, crows, hawk, woodpecker
II.
I can no longer deny that I’m not on a trail.
I’ve denied it for a very long, cold half-mile since the last junction. Followed footprints into deeper snow, steeper terrain. Postholed. Slid on the occasional sunny slope of pure mud.
But the footsteps I followed have ended.
I retrace the steps, this time uphill, sweat through my fleece.
I knew the score as soon as I looked at the map of San Antonito Open Space.
The city owns several more open spaces like it in the East Mountains. Places where mountain vistas and overlooks of the plains butt up against big houses and bigger yards. Places with many ways in and out. With unsigned trails, and a lot of them.
These open spaces are compact enough that I’ve never been close to getting truly lost, but my reality often has not matched the maps.
That’s why I’d passed up a perfectly good trail that would take me back south, the general direction of my car. I sought a different trail on the map that would take me directly back to my car.
But that trail was somewhere under snow on a north-facing slope. And I’d left my poles in the trunk because this would just be a short outing.
I reach the perfectly good trail again and take it. At the bottom, little trails cherry-stem out to the road.
None of the first little trails I try are the right one. But I’m close. I hear the dog that barked its head off when I got out of the car.
After at least six wrong turns, I reach my vehicle.
I drive away, and a worry that’s chewed at me for a week pokes its head up. Then I realize: this worry surfaced earlier, during Sabino Canyon bliss.
But I didn’t spare it a single thought as I slipped, slid, postholed and backtracked across one of those confounding East Mountain open spaces.
Hike length: 2.5 miles
Difficulty: moderate, without the detour
Trail traffic: almost none
Creatures spotted/heard: crows, Northern flickers, woodpeckers, dark-eyed juncos
Woman Seeks Elevation 