The stories of what I've seen and experienced exploring New Mexico on foot.
Juniper wind. Spring.
Toeteeth row caps
mesa, gray
arroyo yawns
ground.
Sky fills with
Cabezon
and I pace all
that I can
out of mine.
Hike: Continental Divide Trail, Deadman Peaks, 3-20-21
Hike length: 5 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: one other person
Creatures seen/heard: bluebirds, chickadees, dove
clinkrock
white vein
splits rust
bootthump
blue, purple
splotch underfoot
colors pop
from olive
creosote
canyon irrupts,
wallsurge –
beehive in the sky
Hike: Arroyo del Tajo, Quebradas Backcountry Byway, 3-6-21
Length: 5.5 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Creatures seen/heard: ravens, crows, bees, flycatchers, sandhill cranes, lizards, butterflies
shadowline
mesaglow
windmarch
Hike: FS 445 loop, Placitas
Hike length: 6 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: moderate
Creatures seen/heard: ravens, crows, gray vireo, chipmunk
jellylegged
windlashed
I am the only
not-solid thing
on this mountain
to live
here is to learn
to tuck into crevices
grow roots sideways
hug the stone
for millennia
the mountain has supported
those who did this
still I scramble
struggle
unable to believe
anything
can bear my weight
Hike: Little Peak, Manzano Open Space, 1-16-21
Length: 4 miles
Difficulty: moderate (the peak is difficult)
Trail traffic: light
Creatures seen/heard: jay, crows, ravens, mountain bluebird, gray vireo
sherbet
earthbreak
cloudlight
creosote
Hike: Mesa View Trail + Ladrones View Trail, 1-9-2021
Length: 6 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Creatures seen/heard: red-winged blackbirds, crows, Northern harrier, wrens
Moonscape
with Moon Pies
burnt-black rock pillows
on a bed
of rock
think we’re lost
but then earth opens
welcomes us home
sandstone
wombcanyon
beige, shell pink waves
lap us downstream
earthoven baked
most of the canyon’s pools dry
in deep shadow
one oval of ice
This must be it, you say.
The place where no light can get.
Don’t we all have that?
Hike: San Ysidro Trials Area, 12-26-20
Length: 5.5 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Creatures spotted/heard: gray vireos, crows, ravens, millipedes, robin
Rust and purple underfoot, cut with white.
Snow doesn’t last long in the sun-baked hills of Golden Open Space. But north-facing hills haven’t yet cast off their last blanket. A few icy spots in the shade of a juniper’s twist dot the trail.
We climb the mesa on the far side of the Arroyo Seco and keep going out to a point. When we’re in these multicolored sandstone canyons, they’re eye-popping. “Tortured,” my husband calls the rock.
But from up here, hues meld and deepen: watercolor, mostly peach.
We chase the sun, our longest hike of the year on its shortest day.
Hike length: 8 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Creatures seen/heard: blue jays, crows, ravens
Semi truck rattle. Airplane roar.
Beer bottle shards. Discarded masks. Spent shell casings.
Cottonwood. Tamarisk. Smell of water.
Juniper. Jay squawk. Bluebird swoosh.
Manzano diamonds frosted with snow.
Boulder field, cactus forest.
Gray sun ball.
Trucks and logs.
Acorn innards bleached by sun.
Icy rock pools.
There is nothing quite like a City of Albuquerque open space.
Hike length: 5 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Creatures seen/heard: crows, blue jays, bluebirds, northern flickers
If this sounds like fun, here are the only directions I know of to this place.
It’s too hot for this.
Well, it will be. Now, cool east wind brushes canyon walls’ shadow.
The predator sun lurks like the hawks above, the bobcats whose scat dots this arroyo.
The temperature will climb above 80 here, in the hills at 6,000 feet elevation, on October 17.
The wind will shift to the west, whip into a gale. Red flag warning. So dry any spark would kindle and spread instantly.
But we have a few hours before all of that. And we’ll see very few humans here at Cañada de la Cueva. That was the deciding factor, with 812 new cases of the virus in the state yesterday. A record that broke a record that broke a record.
The canyon squeezes and opens. Rock walls emerge: lichen-stitched basalt blocks, pebbles embedded in stone. The Ortiz Mountains prairie-dog above the canyon.
Miles downstream, we see one, then another and another horseback rider descend from the hills to the canyon.
Even this far in, all are masked, as we are. I silently thank them.
“Did you come from the dump?” one rider asks. (Yes, this trailhead is at a dump.)*
We tell him we did.
“That’s a long walk!” he says.
“Yes, and it’ll feel longer going uphill on the way back,” I laugh.
Uphill. In sand. And heat.
The return a two-hour trudge. I knew it would be.
But the big, dark rock walls cover us with coolness as we pass.
The sky glows incandescent blue, a shade that appears only in fall here, that appears even when it feels like summer.
The sky still knows what to do.
Hike length: 7.4 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: very light
Creatures spotted/heard: ravens, hawk, flycatchers, tarantula hawk, butterfly, dragonflies, dark-eyed juncos, flicker
*Where did you hear of a hike that starts at a dump? In “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Albuquerque,” of course!
Haze shades each ridge of the Sandias blue.
Wildfire smoke all the way from the West Coast shapes our view of Juan Tabo Canyon today.
But air quality readings are acceptable.
And just past the trailhead, a couple shakes piñon nuts from tree into basket.
I’ve never seen anyone do that in person. And in all these years of wandering piñon-juniper hills, inhaling pine sap, I’d never spotted a cone bursting with nuts.
But once I do, they’re everywhere.
High desert and forest formed a truce in this canyon. Sandy arroyos underfoot (literally: we’re on the Sandy Arroyo Trail.) Chamisa, cacti. Oak, juniper and cone-heavy piñon line the arroyo.
Almost no humans. Mostly flying things.
A hawk haunts the notch atop the canyon wall, hundreds of feet above. Pinyon jays crisscross the drainages. A flash of yellow, maybe a warbler, in an oak. Tarantula hawk above.
The canyon bottom has water, sometimes. Not today. But a small cottonwood thicket stands strong. Patches of dark soil remember being mud.
Haze persists over the mountain, but the sky right above us is now blue.
The midday uphill trek in sand reminds us it’s still summer. The last ridge back up to the car, still in cool shadow this morning, punishes in full sun.
Now, several piñon-seekers line the path to the trailhead.
It’s still summer in the canyon, but it’s fall in the trees.
Hike length: 6.4 miles
Difficulty: moderate
Trail traffic: light
Wildlife spotted/heard: pinyon jays, doves, hummingbirds, yellow warbler, crows, hawk, nuthatches, tarantula hawk, brave jumper, flightless wasp, velvet ants, lizard, squirrel
Woman Seeks Elevation 