Category: Sandia Mountains

Posted on

Outpacing a spring storm on Tres Pistolas Trail

Two dogs cover me with kisses.

I rarely pet other people’s dogs on a trail, but this is a love attack, and all I can do is respond in kind.

“Sorry!” their owner says, laughing. She’s ripped, panting, and quickly refocuses the dogs on slurping some water.

“I try to run as much of Three Gun as I can,” she says of this trail. “But you can’t run it! It’s too steep.”

That’s why I’ve been resting my legs at the junction of Tres Pistolas (Three Gun Spring) and Embudo trails for half an hour.

Someone has written “stick of success” on this post at the trail junction, which is appropriate because whichever way you arrived there, you traversed steepness

At the Tres Pistolas trailhead, I always think: I’ll keep going past Embudo! It’s so beautiful up there!

And at Embudo, I think: I need an airlift.

It’s supposed to rain tonight in the community where the trailhead sits. But 1,500 feet higher, the weather’s moving faster.

“I heard thunder on the way up,” the dogs’ owner says.

I heard only the sizzling of my leg muscles on the way up. But while I sat at the junction, I watched rain on a ridge a few miles away.

I head back down the trail just a couple of minutes behind the superfit dog owner. She’ll outdistance me in no time, and I need to get down the steepest switchbacks before rain makes them any more slippery.

The sky has turned black over the junction where I just sat. Cold wind whips the top of the canyon.

The breeze feels good on this hot, exposed trail, and I’m making decent time. I keep stopping to get pictures of spring light on flowers and canyon walls, one eye on the sky.

I feel a few drops of rain on the way down.

And I pass several people heading up, taking their chances.

Hike length: 5 miles

Difficulty: the last mile before the junction is difficult

Trail traffic: light

Creatures seen/heard: quail, curve-billed thrasher, blue jays, Stellar’s jay, juniper titmouse, robins, hummingbirds, butterflies, beetles, chipmunk, lizards, crows, raven, hawks

Posted on

Juan Tabo Canyon: Spring, but no spring

I visited Juan Tabo Canyon Monday in hopes of seeing its spring in action. Somehow, I thought the weekend dab of snow in the high elevations of the Sandias would be enough.

It wasn’t. But foliage and flowers burst forth all over the lower canyon. Birds hovered in and above the branch tunnels that shape where a stream would be.

That canyon will pull me back like a magnet until I see that stream run, or just forever if I don’t.

Cave in the lower canyon

Hike length: 5 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: very light

Creatures seen/heard: blue jays, juniper titmouse, chipmunk, butterflies, flycatchers, hummingbirds, beetle

Posted on

South Crest Trail: The end of the beginning

The last time I was here was the last time.

The last weekend before the first Covid-19 cases were diagnosed in New Mexico.

People swarmed the mountain. I passed them, they passed me. I sat on a log, ate my sandwich. No hand sanitizer, or thought of it.

Thirteen months later. The only thing here that shows the difference: a discarded surgical mask on the trail.

I stopped hiking. I hiked again. I quit my longtime job.

Almost no humans on the trail early this weekday morning. Juniper titmice all over the mountain engage in conversation that never ends.

Near the trailhead, I step off the trail to let an unmasked man pass.

“I’m fully vaccinated!” he exclaims.

That means *my* droplets can’t kill *you*, not…

Did you see no news or health bulletins for the past year?

I stay silent. Jays squawk for me.

Millions of feet will never walk their favorite paths again.

Soon, I’ll be fully vaccinated, and still fully masked in public.

Soon, I’ll have the privilege to begin to resume the daily activities that I choose.

I can’t undo any choices I made before the pandemic, or during this past year. Some of them haunt me.

New paths beckon now: me, and all the rest of us who reached this point.

We’ll need strong hearts and strong lungs where we’re going.

Hike length: 4.5 miles

Difficulty: moderate (a 1-mile stretch of switchbacks is difficult)

Trail traffic: very light

Creatures seen/heard: nuthatches, squirrel, Abert’s squirrel, chipmunk, crows, jays, juniper titmice, Say’s phoebes, butterflies, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-winged dove

Travertine cave
Mini-waterfall
Posted on

Only: Tecolote Trail

Only a few patches of snow on the trail at 8,500 feet.

Only 10 a.m. and it’s 65 degrees.

Only a hint of moisture on the breeze. Even that’s a mirage – a red flag warning begins soon.

Only a couple weeks into spring, and winter recedes into memory, faster than ever.

Hike: Tecolote Trail + Balsam Glade Nature Trail, 4-5-21

Hike length: 4 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: very light

Creatures seen/heard: chipmunks, vultures, crows, pinyon jays, Stellar’s jay, spotted towhees, dark-eyed junco, butterflies, squirrels

Remaining snow on north-facing slopes near Sandia Peak Ski Area, from Balsam Glade Nature Trail
Madera Canyon overlook, Balsam Glade Nature Trail
Posted on

Spring worship, Barro Canyon

Wind lashes

ponderosa

cathedral. Silver needles

rain down. Blue

peeks through solemn

shadow. Bootpath

down the center aisle, snow

halfway to

your knees. Through

stained glass windows,

a hot, flat land

you wandered 40

sunblazed days, a river

without enough left

to part.

Jaychoir squawks

at each step.

Gust tosses

one tall trunk.

It squeaks, sways,

tests faith.

Below, cross yourself,

emerge blinking

into sunlight,

the service

melting

before your eyes.

Hike: North Mystery Trail at Barro Canyon, 3-27-21

Hike length: 3+ miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: none

Creatures spotted/heard: jays, crows, chickadees

Posted on

Placitas Environs

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

Posted on

An East Mountain snow day in two acts

I.

Snow is glistening.

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.

The old fur farm’s water tower

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

Posted on

The other Jaral Canyon (the one without people)

Looks like forever’s rolling away from us.

Long exposure of beige hills, crest to mountains, frame. Look right, deep into Juan Tabo Canyon’s gullet, frame.

Cabezon Peak is framed by the notch in Juan Tabo Canyon’s wall.

One human, a trail runner cresting a saddle below.

We can’t see them from the southwest corner of Jaral Canyon, but humans and their structures surround us. Sandia Casino. Subdivisions. The crowded trailhead for this hike, where Tramway meets the forest road.

We bypassed that busy spot. Drove north on the forest road to the quiet Juan Tabo trailhead. Hiked into Jaral Canyon from there. Met only one other person, the trail runner.

The route: doable, but steep and rugged up-and-down, starting with a 45-degree leg-burner.

We did not want to hike down that. And with all the trails that crisscross these canyons, some not on any map, there had to be an easier way back.

Right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiighht.

False starts. Turnarounds.

We get most of the way back on a rough path, but it dumps us into a brush-choked arroyo.

We backtrack to the forest road. My husband huffs up the road half a mile to the car.

I look up at the Shield, Prow and Needle rock formations. Snow clutches north-facing slopes. Jays rustle in the pinons.

We reached our goal: finding a socially distanced route into Jaral Canyon.

And after all the detours, I think I’ve actually satiated my appetite for this canyon for a while.

Hike length: 5 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: light

Wildlife spotted/heard: blue jays, doves, crows, spotted towhees, nuthatch

Posted on

Weathermaker, Osha Spring Trail

11-7-2020

Look out over the valley, the seasons, the centuries.

Cloud blanket, gray light, stillness. Dark slips down into day.

The special weather statement said an unsettled pattern comes.

In my next life, I want to be a special weather statement.

Oak leaves flame out, crisp and ready, like toast.

The valley, the world, you and I must change.

What will we take with us? What will we cast off?

Rocks shift under my boots. My feet scramble for new angles.

I want safe footing.

But there is only footing.

Hike length: 5 miles

Difficulty: difficult

Creatures spotted/heard: ravens, crows, nuthatch, flickers, robins, pinyon jays

Trail traffic: none

Posted on

The crow reveals the sky on Strip Mine Trail

10-30-2020

A soaring crow taps the brakes, plummets, like a plane losing altitude. I’ve never seen that before.

The sky behind the crow comes into new focus, and I see what separates me from the horizon’s familiar landmarks.

A light brown blanket covers Albuquerque, blurs Mount Taylor, White Mesa, Cabezon Peak.

I noticed earlier that something hovered between me and the mountains. But I couldn’t quite make it out. It popped out as I stared at the crow.

Chimney smoke’s likely coating the valley after four cold days.

The air is clear and the sky blue here at 6,500 feet, near the Strip Mine Trail in Placitas.

The peaks above me look misty, too. That’s probably water vapor; I can almost hear the snow melt.

All that I see is real.

I couldn’t accept that a month ago. Hiking in Juan Tabo Canyon, wildfire smoke from the West Coast hung above us. I spent four hours convincing myself that couldn’t be smoke, the day was too bright, the air smelled clean.

But at home, when I downloaded my photos, I could not deny the visible layer of smoke in almost every image.

A layer of smoke or dust has been visible in nearly every photo I’ve taken on a hike since.

Smoke and dust don’t discriminate. But we do, in where we welcome and shut out people or industry. I don’t risk my health when I walk in my neighborhood or hike in Placitas. But in Albuquerque’s South Valley, where the population is mostly Hispanic or Latino, a walk might trigger an asthma attack or worse. In recent months, the South Valley’s air pollution levels have frequently been at least twice as high as those further north in the Albuquerque metro.

Once I might have thought of hiking as an escape from things like that.

But no place, no matter how lovely, exists separate from climate change and environmental racism.

The author Pam Houston walks at least five miles a day, wherever in the world she is, seeing all that persists.

By the end of this century, journalist Laura Paskus writes, Albuquerque’s climate will look more like that of El Paso. The pinon-juniper forest where I sit, inhaling the scents released by snow, will likely be a distant memory.

I leave the overlook after 50 minutes, grateful for its sun and snow.

This place is a blessing, but it’s not an escape – and even if it was, I’d be wrong to take it.

I have ground to cover, and work to do.

Hike length: 5.8 miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: very light

Creatures spotted/heard: pinyon jays, lizard, crows, ravens, hawks, flycatchers, velvet ant, Northern flickers, Townsend’s solitaire

This route – Strip Mine Trail to the prosaically named and unsigned Trail 246 – is from Mike Coltrin’s Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide.