Woman Seeks Elevation

4/24/17

I didn’t get the hike I wanted this weekend, but I got the hike I needed.

It was Earth Day and I was going to spend it on a hike 140 miles away that’s been on my bucket list for a while. It’s a long trail and I was hellbent on doing 10 miles of it.

Then my husband and I got a stomach bug the day we were supposed to leave. We canceled our trip.

When we felt better, a couple of days later, I looked for a hike that seemed doable, just to get out of the house. We found a two-mile jaunt outside of town, listed as a side trip in our hiking guidebook.

My journey into hiking has been one of constantly pushing myself to go longer distances, to do harder terrain. If I’m not setting new records, or at least keeping up with the ones I’ve set, it doesn’t count. By that measure, this hike was a throwaway.

Of course, if you love being on the trail, there is no such thing.

Carlito Springs is a Bernalillo County Open Space tucked into Tijeras Canyon. It’s home to trickling springs, pools, orchards and crumbling relics of its reported former life as a sanitorium, camp and more.

The sun beat down on the gentle switchbacks leading to the springs, but at the top, a cool breeze swept through the place. It wasn’t just shady; the pools and springs created a cool that seemed to come up from the ground. Carlito Springs is historic and uniquely shaped by water and unlike anywhere else I’ve hiked. It’s the most unusual picnic spot in the Albuquerque area, and it’s so close and so easy to navigate you could do it anytime – an afternoon, an evening.

It also boasts the best view of Tijeras Canyon I’ve seen on dozens of hikes in the area. And even on a hazy day, it has a great view of the Sierra Ladrones range southwest of Albuquerque.

I loved every minute of hiking Carlito Springs. Having done it, even though it didn’t register on my distance or elevation gain log, I couldn’t write it off.

My bucket list hike has been on this earth way longer than I have, and it’ll be there when I get there. Whether I do two miles of it or 10, I’ll be lucky for the experience.

As I was this weekend, at Carlito Springs.

Trail length: 2-mile loop (3 with detours)

Difficulty: Easy (moderate with detours)

Elevation gain: Moderate, significant if you detour up to the top of the property (Carlito Springs ranges from 6,300 to 7,100 feet in elevation)

Trail traffic: Moderate (it’s not overrun with people, but don’t expect to have the place to yourself)

Wildlife spotted: Crows; hummingbirds; more kinds of butterflies than I’ve ever seen anywhere, including my former butterfly record-holder the Manzano Mountains