Category: Water

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Haunting a river’s ghost at Valle de Oro

I could cross the Rio Grande here and not get wet.

I stand on the riverbank at Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge. The river’s all but dry in this spot. One small channel of water courses through it.

Water flows further south, but in places it’s only an inch deep.

And still, constant bird music.

A great blue heron stands on a sandbar, then lifts off.

Ducks spring from the bank, honking.

Sandhill cranes coast above, creaking like a rusty hinge in the wind.

Creatures upon creatures trace the river’s drying veins, find nourishment.

We have made this hot, dry world with our thirsty vehicles, our plastic packaging.

Yet we can make space for these creatures, too.

The refuge, carved out of an industrial area, ever changing. This summer they closed the refuge’s dirt roads to vehicles so the old pastures can revert to wetlands. To reach the bosque now requires a shadeless 2-mile walk from the refuge’s entrance.

The refuge’s visitor center, under construction.

Here in Albuquerque’s South Valley, air quality can reach unhealthy levels. Dust and dirt from the area’s industrial operations often hang in the air, while my neighbors and I breathe freely further north.

But a river refuge, even a drying one, gives all of us creatures a space to breathe.

Hike length: 5.6 miles

Difficulty: easy

Trail traffic: very light

Wildlife spotted/heard: great blue herons, sandhill cranes, geese, ducks, butterflies, grasshoppers, coyote, American dipper, swallows

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Paliza Canyon: Dusty goblins and a mighty little creek

Deep in the ponderosa dark, color blazes.

Morning sun crawls over the canyon wall, lights a creekside tangle of leaves red and yellow.

A child could step across Vallecito Creek, the trickle of water that powers this ecosystem.

Fall falls right in front of us, breeze gliding red Virginia creeper leaves to the ground.

The creek bed runs dry before we reach our destination: Paliza Canyon Goblin Colony, a canyon wall’s worth of hoodoos and tent rocks, thumbs and OK signs and bawdier shapes.

The goblins bake. Do they remember water? Two inches of dust and sand coat our boots.

My husband climbs steep ridges while I peer over hills and mesas through towers of tuff. A thumb-sized horned lizard enjoys shadow.

We walk a steep mesa road. The burn scar we found two years ago is mostly healed. But bark peels brittle from the trees, their sap crusty and dry. And the dust – every step stirs it.

The creekside forest, brighter now, cools us as we descend.

On our drive out of the canyon, a red-tailed hawk swoops over the road, a small snake in her mouth.

A braid of golden cottonwoods winds through the valley. At the place where the braid crosses the road, a dry wash, and a sign: Vallecito Creek.

This hardworking little stream, stretched thin as it is, nourishes the whole valley.

Hike length: 5.5+ miles

Difficulty: moderate

Trail traffic: light

Wildlife spotted/heard: Stellar’s jays, ravens, chipmunk, horned lizard, butterflies, flickers, flycatchers, red-tailed hawk, snake, Abert’s squirrel, mockingbirds, canyon towhees

This wonderful hike is from David Ausherman and Stephen Ryan’s “60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Albuquerque.”