Peloncillos
Monday, March 25th, 2024: Hikes, Peloncillos, Southwest New Mexico.
The high elevations were still blocked by snow, so I remained in search of lower-elevation hikes. Driving back from Arizona last week, I’d again wondered about the interesting-looking but unexplored mountains I was passing. Years ago I’d researched them online and concluded they were surrounded by private land, inaccessible behind ranchers’ locked gates. Also, I was trying to maximize both distance and elevation gain in my Sunday hikes, which could only be achieved in the high mountains protected within national forests. But since then I’d found a couple of trip reports from people who’d actually been able to hike in some of those “unprotected” ranges.
So during the past week, I’d spent some time digging deeper online, and found ways to access nearly all those unexplored mountains, all of which were low enough to be snow-free. I picked the nearest one to experiment with first.
I always check the weather forecast for the entire region the night before, and this time, I concluded there might be a little rain in the higher elevations in early morning. I’ve never been so far off with my expectations!
The temperature was in the mid-30s when I left home at 8 am, but by the time I crossed town sleet was falling, and as soon as I hit the highway south I was in a blizzard of sleet which began piling up on the road. The temperature would continue to drop throughout the day. I pulled over and shifted into high-range 4wd, but whenever I tested for traction I found 45 mph was my safe limit.
These conditions continued through the mountains south of town, and even when I reached the vast valley beyond, dropping from to nearly 4,000 feet elevation, the storm ended but visibility remained limited to about five miles.
My main source of information on these unexplored mountains turned out to be a website for “peakbaggers” – an obsessive and competitive subculture similar to birders, whose goal is to add as many hilltops as possible to their life lists, while mostly ignoring the rocks, habitats, and wildlife they’re passing on the way.
Whereas hikers’ websites focus on developed trails in national parks, forests, and preserves, peakbaggers are used to bushwhacking off-trail, because the vast majority of “baggable” hilltops are not on protected land. They’re accustomed to finding ways around gates and fences, while ostensibly honoring private property.
Like my beloved Mojave Desert, the stateline region near me has few paved roads, and the range I was heading for today is fifteen miles off the highway – you can only see its distant profile, none of the details – and that’s one thing that made it appealing. A sort of final frontier. The drive started with 56 highway miles and ended with 20 miles on dirt ranch roads.
This range belongs to a rare class with only one other member that I know of: long, skinny north-south mountain ranges split in half by an interstate highway. And it’s made rarer still by lying along the state line. The gate I reached at the end of my road, plastered with “No Trespassing” signs, lay right on the border.
I found myself in an interior basin surrounded by low hills and buttes topped by bands of caprock. Directly north loomed the mountain I wanted to explore, a rampart of cliffs deeply dissected by steep canyons. From the road where I parked there was no apparent route up, but the peakbaggers had found a way up the leftmost canyon through narrow gaps in the cliffs.
Their goal is always to reach the peak by the fastest and easiest route, but my goal was to cover as much distance and elevation as possible in a day hike, so I’d planned a route up the rightmost canyon, which I hoped to continue northward from the peak along the crest, maybe even returning by a different route farther west. But without a trail, I had no way of knowing how hard and slow my route would turn out to be. The peakbaggers’ route involved 6 miles out-and-back with 1,800 feet elevation gain, and all 18 of them on record in the past 15 years had followed it slavishly.
Like them, I initially followed the fence north along the state line. The basin had been heavily grazed but I found no recent cowpies on the New Mexico side. On the Arizona side I came in view of an abandoned horse trailer, then a corral and water tank. When I came parallel to it I saw 15 or 20 cattle grazing over there.
I cut northeast toward the mouth of the canyon I wanted, over a broad stony debris field cut by meandering sandy washes – tough and slow walking. I reached another fence and had to crawl under it where it crossed a wash. Eventually I reached an alluvial fan covered with catclaw, mesquite, and prickly pear that rose gently toward a low divide. I was able to follow a wash partway, then at the end, picked my way up a difficult slope lined with sharp volcanic rock and masses of prickly pear.
I’d had my eye open for cattle, and finally saw a herd of a couple dozen off to my right, in an elevated draw beyond the mouth of the canyon. Based on the fencing I’d seen, they could drift across my return path, but I couldn’t tell if there was a bull among them.
Weather had been moving around the landscape all morning. I’d been hiking across open country and wasn’t worried about finding my way back until I reached the steep canyon. Working my way up the first wash I came to, I had to divert up the opposite slope to bypass boulders and big oaks, and discovered the canyon bottom was divided into two parallel washes by a tall debris pile running down the center. The washes were choked with boulders and vegetation, and the debris pile consisted of jumbled boulders that were really slow going.
The drainage was blocked ahead by a cliff, and above that loomed the caprock with its narrow gap. At left I could see a steep slope that I hoped to use as a route to the upper gap. I began memorizing features of the landscape I could use to find my way back.
Experts advise “seniors” to work puzzles as a way of exercising and retaining their memory skills as they age. Bushwhacking is one way I do that. On a hike like this, I stop at critical points and look both forwards and backwards, trying to memorize features for my return, and I do that at least a dozen times per hike. Features I’ve only seen once, in a landscape I’m seeing for the first time. If I had GPS or a smart phone I suppose I could record my route, but this is a much healthier way.
The slope I’d scouted turned out to consist of loose rock lined with agave and prickly pear, dissected by narrow, deep gullies – one of the most hazardous hikes I’ve ever done. And shortly after I reached it, dark clouds closed in and sleet began to fall. I was now crossing the state line into Arizona.
By the time I reached the little saddle in the gap at the top, I was in a full-on sleet storm. I huddled in the lee of a boulder to check the topo map I’d printed at home. I knew I had to circle behind the cliffs to reach the summit, and based on the topo map I’d expected some sort of traversible slope, but all I could see from here was boulders and thickets.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I fought my way up through storm, thickets, and boulders, eventually emerging on a more open slope where I could see more sheer caprock above. I had to keep traversing and gaining elevation while staying below that.
I was on the back side of the mountain now, although the storm still obscured the view below me. At the end of the caprock I rounded a bend and overlooked a shallow cove, the head of a backside canyon. The slope was mostly bare of vegetation and boulders, and as I made my way across it the storm intensified. As I approached the saddle at the top of it, the wind howled through, hammering me with sleet. What the hell was I doing here? I’d had no inkling the weather could get this bad.
It was so bad I was in denial. I just wanted to keep going until it either stopped or I reached some kind of shelter. And as I began traversing the opposite slope, the storm suddenly subsided, a patch of blue sky opened, and a view of the northern plain emerged, 2,000 feet below me. I’d been climbing for the last two hours without a drink of water, and it was lunchtime, so I stopped in the temporary sunlight for a drink and a snack.
Due to Raynaud’s syndrome my fingers had gotten chilled in the lightweight glove liners I’d started out with, and I now switched to the lined Goretex gloves. I had to keep flexing them for the next half hour or so to get my fingers warmed up, and after stashing the glove liners in my pocket to warm them up, I would wear both pairs, one inside the other. When the sun wasn’t shining it was damn cold up there!
With storms drifting over the crest, I found the topo map inadequate to orient me. I had no idea how much farther the peak was, or what kind of terrain to expect. The way ahead threatened to be blocked by cliffs or boulders, but I picked my way across it, rounding another corner, where I was relieved to find a gravel-lined rock ledge. I was able to follow this a hundred yards or so, until it ended in a maze of trees, brush, and boulders that choked a steep, narrow defile. In the distance beyond loomed a hunchbacked peak – much too far to be the summit I sought.
I started clambering up through the maze, hoping the summit lay somewhere above me. Another storm was forming. A tiny voice kept saying I should turn back before I got in real trouble, but I seemed to be on autopilot. I literally threw myself into thickets of stiff brush, clambering over them on all fours like some kind of giant beetle. Finally I emerged into the head of the narrow gorge, and thought I saw a way up it to the crest. It turned out to be a rockfall just wide enough for me to climb up, and at its top I emerged onto a gentle slope across the top of which ran a fence.
It was a very recent fence, and as I approached it I saw it crossed a rock pile where I could probably step over it. The wind was howling through here, too, but mercifully carrying no sleet. Once past the fence, I saw the peak rising at my left. It was a steep climb in wind that constantly threatened to topple me on the rocks, but I’d come this far and wouldn’t be stopped. At my right was the edge of the caprock and a dropoff of nearly two thousand feet, but I didn’t even glance at the view until I’d actually reached the top.
The view was spectacular, but what next? I’d originally hoped to continue northwest along the crest, but it’d taken me more than half the day to get here, and it was time to turn back.
Amazingly, all that memorizing paid off – I was able to follow more or less the same route going down as coming up. As usual, I kept surprising myself by encountering features I remembered from the morning.
But the weather had prevented me from hydrating sufficiently on the way up, and that took its toll on the way down – I developed a bad cramp in my left thigh just as I was picking my way across some gnarly rocks between two prickly pear. Perching precariously in place, I somehow managed to take off my pack and mix some electrolyte supplement in my water bottle, and after ten minutes of tense drinking and resting was able to proceed.
When I reached the gap at the head of the first canyon, recalling all that loose rock and sharp vegetation below, I realized it’s very similar to a perilous descent in my desert mountains, which I’d last revisited in fall of 2022. Every time I do something like this, I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to safely subject my aging body to such abuse and danger. I ended up falling three times on this hike, but each time I landed softly and safely.
I did stab my finger on an agave blade on the way down, and was surprised not to impale myself many times. I’ve never hiked in a place so full of blades and spines.
The cattle had moved off by the time I reached the mouth of the canyon, but as I picked my way down the difficult slope of volcanic rock and prickly pear, I noticed them a half mile away at the base of the alluvial fan, near my route back. To avoid them, I would divert westward across the difficult debris field, toward the state line.
But they noticed me, formed into single file, and began running west to intercept me. As I continued, they stopped and began to mill around in the area where the fences converged. I noticed a bull in their midst, and he stopped and turned around to see what I would do. I had to divert eastward again to avoid aggravating him.
About halfway down the basin toward my vehicle, I noticed an unusual animal off to my right. At first I thought it was a goat, but then realized it was a big black dog with white markings. It saw me and began barking. Great!
I kept going, but the dog kept barking, and another bark joined it, behind me. I ignored them, but their barks kept getting closer. Dogs don’t generally scare me, but here I was alone in the midst of someone’s very remote cattle range, and I had no idea what to expect. I kept going, the barks kept getting closer, and finally I turned to confront the two dogs. They were really worked up, angrily jumping up and down about a dozen feet away across a shallow wash. I talked to them in a friendly voice, calling them good boys, but they wouldn’t calm down.
Finally I just turned around and kept going, picking up a hefty branch along the way, and eventually they lost interest and turned back.
Thus ended my big experiment with off-trail hiking in unprotected ranges. A 71-year-old man, hiking alone far off the beaten path, overtaken on a mountaintop by winter storm and gale-force winds, falling on loose rock surrounded by lethal blades and spines, threatened by bull and dogs. Many people would hesitate to believe my story, and most people would consider me crazy or suicidal.
I was plenty sore, and the cramp returned as I drove out, trying to work the clutch pedal over rocky stretches of road. I had to stop, get out, drink more water, and stagger around for another ten minutes until it began to fade. But I managed to get home before dark – just as another unpredicted sleet storm began.
Sunday, March 9th, 2025: Nature, Peloncillos, Rocks, Southwest New Mexico.
For almost 35 years, I’ve hiked to the plateau above my land in the Mojave Desert, a beautiful oasis with a prehistoric ceremonial site, and considered that the most dangerous hike I do. It requires climbing 400 vertical feet straight up a 67 percent grade on a surface of loose dirt, loose boulders, yucca spines, branching cholla cactus, and big, spreading acacia shrubs covered with thorns. I sometimes step on boulders heavier than me that I expect to be solid, and have them tip over under my feet. In places the easiest route is up ramps of crumbly granite bedrock, where a slip would result, at minimum, in torn flesh and broken bones. And I almost always make that climb alone, in a place with no cell signal.
On the way to one of my favorite hiking areas along the Arizona border, I pass a small mountain range with low granite peaks, cliffs, and boulders that reminds me of my mountains in the Mojave. The peak of the range has always intrigued me, because from the highway it looks unclimbable, a spire of solid rock. And while researching the area online, I was surprised and excited to learn there’s a population of desert bighorn sheep there.
The map shows a dirt road running up a southwest canyon toward the foot of the peak, and I wondered if maybe I could climb from that to the base of the spire and traverse around to the back, to see if it might be climbable on the north side.
We’d had a dusting of snow in town the previous day, and as I drove over there, I was surprised to see quite a bit of new snow on the high mountains peeking over the horizon. The drive includes about 15 straight miles on the interstate, which was a good test of the Sidekick’s recent alignment. And the unmaintained dirt roads to the foot of the peak turned out to be a good test of the bigger tires and suspension lift.
I’m under so much stress that I’m barely sane, and shortly after turning off the highway, I mindlessly took the wrong road toward the peak. It ran up a wash lined with deep, dry sand where I was immediately afraid of getting stuck, so I shifted into low range 4wd. I plowed a mile up that sandy wash, on edge the whole time, not realizing it was the wrong road until I’d reached the very end.
Back on the main road, I tested the Sidekick lift on deeply eroded and rocky stretches, and never bottomed out. It was great not to be stressing over the right line to take all the time. The road I needed, up the canyon to the foot of the peak, hadn’t been driven recently, and turned out to be as bad as the abandoned mine roads in the Mojave. As in the Mojave, the alluvial fan was lined with creosote bush, and there was even a deep dry wash next to the road just like in the desert. The peak loomed higher and more forbidding as the walls of the canyon closed in, but the road kept climbing and climbing, much farther than I’d expected.
I finally sensed the end was near, and backed off into a small clearing to scan the slopes ahead. They looked far too rugged to climb, and that deep wash, lined with big prickly pears, separated me from them anyway.
But farther up the canyon it looked like there might be a more gentle slope I could traverse left toward the sheer base of the peak – the direction I was hoping to explore.
I set off up what was left of the road. It soon ended – without space to turn the Sidekick around, so I was glad I’d stopped early. Here, floods had left a wall of rocks above the wash, but I could see some kind of narrow, overgrown corridor leading up to the right of the rock wall. I tried to follow what looked like an old mule trail, but in many places it was choked with cactus.
In the meantime I was scanning that slope across the wash that I’d hoped to climb. No dice – the lower part was too steep, and the wash was blocked by spreading prickly pears.
Above, I could see a little pile of mine tailings, and suddenly I emerged into a clearing that featured the rusted steel frame of a bench seat from a pickup truck. The path continued, and soon I saw a gap where I might be able to cross the wash between prickly pears, and hopefully climb to the mine tailings. It looked like I might be able to use that to bypass the slope I’d originally hoped to climb.
I immediately discovered this was dangerous terrain to climb – as dangerous as that plateau hike I make in the Mojave, with the same features. The slopes here were loose dirt and loose rock alternating with steep ramps of rough bedrock, and the way was blocked again and again by shrubs with inch-long thorns, prickly pear, and big agaves that would impale you if you happened to slip on a loose rock.
But atop the tailings pile was a flat ledge and the mouth of a mine.
It was a shallow mine, and fairly recent, with oxidized plastic containers and a rusty old can of insect spray – maybe from the 60s or 70s. Like most mines, it had some interesting rocks piled outside the opening – surprisingly similar to rocks in the Mojave.
The mine was on a slope opposite the one I’d hoped to climb, across a deep, narrow gully choked with boulders and cacti. As I picked my way from the mine toward the gully, I could see that this slope was much rockier, and got rockier still higher up. And the rock looked exactly like the rare metamorphic rock in the canyon on my Mojave land, which I’d never seen anywhere else.
If I wanted to continue this hike, I was going to have to climb this steep, thorny slope. The metamorphic rock has a rough, sharp texture which can be good for climbing, but at this level it was too steep, so I had to climb the loose rock – exactly what the bighorn sheep had been doing. Sometimes I was able to follow their route, but the higher I climbed, the more dangerous it got.
I was hoping to climb above the gully and traverse left onto the easier slope, but above the gully my way was blocked by a broad ramp of bedrock at about 40 degrees. It was just too dangerous to traverse.
So I turned right, where across a rockfall of sharp boulders, I could see a long, steep bedrock ramp leading up to the horizon, where there appeared to be a juniper beckoning me. I picked my way carefully over the boulders, and stepped out onto the ramp. The surface was like a really coarse carpenter’s rasp – a fall would tear your skin off down to the bone, and sand your bone down to bone meal. Traction was really good for climbing up, but how would I get back down? I blocked out the thought.
The ramp only took me part way – the rest of the climb was in loose dirt and loose rocks, winding my way between thorny shrubs, cacti, and agaves. I was more and more convinced this was a terrible idea and I’d end up badly injured or dead, but I was on autopilot and couldn’t give up.
I finally passed the little juniper, and emerged on a small ledge with a killer view. There was still a higher slope leading up to the sheer base of the peak, but I wasn’t going any farther today. I had little hope that I’d be able to get down from here intact.
It was lunchtime, and I snacked on homemade trail mix. I’d hoped to reach the cafe in the Arizona mountains across the big basin, but I was half convinced my life would end below this peak.
I’ve never been so cautious on a descent. I inched down that long ramp on my butt. I never want to tackle a climb like that alone again – but taking a slightly different route, somehow I got down without slipping or falling once.
The Sidekick did really well on the drive out. It makes a hell of a noise, but I wore my noise-cancelling headphones and drove faster as a result.
It was after 2 pm when I reached the cafe. Starved for protein after working out during the week, I ordered the steak instead of my usual burrito. My knee was killing me, so I took a pain pill.
This was not the kind of hike I’m supposed to be doing, to recover from the knee injury. Like I said, I’m barely sane. It’s like I’m on autopilot, blindly doing the same dangerous things I did at half my age – but now my family depends on my survival.
A half moon was rising in front of me as I drove home in late afternoon. I’d only hiked four fifths of a mile out and back, with 566 feet of elevation gain. An incredibly dangerous place, but incredibly beautiful.
