Southwest New Mexico
Monday, October 9th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Ring, Southwest New Mexico.
I’d come up with a theory that the pain in the outside of my foot was due to a combination of weak toes and a long-term shift of weight from the ball of my foot to the outside. Both were habits adopted to protect the ball of my foot from chronic inflammation – along with wearing stiff-soled hiking boots. So for this Sunday’s hike I wanted a fairly easy trail to practice correcting my gait.
All the trails on the fringes of our wilderness are either in bad shape or involve steep climbs, so I decided to drive up to the heart of the mountains and take a ridge trail that runs westward 14 miles, ultimately connecting with the major west-side creek I hiked eastward to a couple weeks ago. Below this east-west ridge lies a narrow canyon in which a creek drains eastward, and the map shows a connector trail from the ridge down to the creek, that I could use to make a loop hike of about 14 miles round-trip.
I knew from a previous partial hike on this trail that the grades are gentle, and the ridge is only 400 feet above the canyon, so it shouldn’t be too hard on my foot. Even better, the trail had been reported cleared last year, and I didn’t remember it being very rocky.
The morning was chilly, but the sky only showed a few distant filaments of cloud and the high was forecast to be in the low 70s. Trails in this area are popular with tourists, and there were couple of horse trailers, a pickup, and a school bus from Colorado parked around the trailhead. I found it fairly easy to concentrate on my gait, and the climb to the ridgetop warmed me up. It’s 3-1/2 miles to the first junction, where I’d turned south on my past visit. This ridge offers long views to the north and east, but nothing particularly spectacular. It’s just nice being on a ridge, having views to both sides, and despite the “mindful walking”, I made good time.
Past the junction I entered unfamiliar ground. Despite being an easy trail, it maintained interest by crossing a series of knife-edge saddles with yawning views, then traversing mostly bare slopes consisting of white conglomerate terraces. Most of the canyons in this area are lined with bluffs of white conglomerate, sometimes containing caves where prehistoric people built modest cliff dwellings.
The habitat alternated between scrub, pinyon-juniper-oak woodland, and open ponderosa pine forest. But the ridgetop trail was mostly exposed, and the air was mostly still. Solar radiation made it feel like the 80s.
I was still moving at a good pace, and based on the time it took me to reach the first junction, I started watching for the connector trail that drops into the canyon on my left. But I kept going, half hour by half hour segment, and never saw any sign of another trail.
From the lower part of the ridge, the view to the northeast had been the main attraction. But now, a series of peaks to the southwest formed my horizon, getting closer and closer across the canyon of the creek below. Whereas most of the ridgetop is burn scar, the canyon and slopes on my left were darkly forested with ponderosa pine.
Trudging onward, focusing relentlessly on my gait, I began to realize I’d somehow missed the connector trail. No problem – I’d just turn back when half my time was gone. But my foot was getting tired and I wanted to stop somewhere where there was a nice shady spot to rest. Those were few and far between on this exposed ridgetop.
Eventually I came to a small clearing with a spreading juniper, took off my boots and relaxed for a while in the shade. I figured I’d gone between 7 and 8 miles.
On the way back, I looked more closely for the connector trail, and never saw the slightest sign of it. In fact, it doesn’t exist on Forest Service maps – it probably ended up on my mapping platform because some dude bushwhacked down there once, capturing his route on GPS.
Cumulus clouds had been building on the northwest horizon, forming a dark mass that gradually loomed over me. Thunder was booming almost continuously up in the clouds, but I couldn’t see any lightning yet. I wasn’t looking forward to hiking this exposed ridge in a storm.
First I felt a few drops, and then it began to fall in earnest, so I pulled on my poncho and speeded up. Both feet were hurting, and I had a cramp in my left hip that was making my whole leg numb.
I walked in rain for a half hour, thunder rolling overhead, as the storm spread to cover the entire visible landscape. When the rain moved off, I could see lightning far in the east, but thunder still boomed overhead. The trail becomes even more exposed at the east end of the ridge, where I began to feel really vulnerable. I couldn’t remember ever hurting this much at the end of a hike. But my theory had worked – there was no more pain on the outside of my foot. And on the final descent to the trailhead, the sun came out and the colors were glorious.
It’s a long, difficult drive home through the mountains, where I faced sporadic rain and switched into 4wd to keep from sliding off a precipice. Town was dry, but within a block of home the heavens opened up and we got a brief but heavy downpour.
Monday, October 16th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Sapillo, Southwest New Mexico.
The medical scare and trip to Tucson had screwed up this week’s schedule. I probably should’ve skipped my Sunday hike, but it felt like the only thing I could salvage to feel good about the week.
But I got up late, so I would have to find a shorter trail close to town. The one I picked is almost 12 miles out-and-back, starting from a long dirt road and descending over 2,000 feet into the canyon of one of our biggest creeks, just before the mouth where it joins the river. I prefer to start out climbing and finish by descending, but I figured it was “only 2,000 feet” – I’m used to twice that in my Sunday hikes.
The dirt road begins 18 miles north of town, about a 40 minute drive on the highway. I’d never explored it before, and was mildly surprised to find it pretty damn rugged, with a lot of exposed bedrock and steep, winding grades, so that it took me another 40 minutes to go another 7 miles. The long 8,600 foot high ridge that I’ve hiked many times loomed above on my left – this road skirts its steep north slope – and I got a new view of the burn scars from the 2020 wildfire.
Rounding a rocky bend into a side gully, I surprised a small hawk which had just caught a squirrel. Struggling to take off with its heavy prey, it literally dragged the squirrel through the dirt until it reached the dropoff on the other side and could soar across the gully into the lower forest.
I didn’t meet any humans on the road, but there was a pickup with extended ramp, and a detached flatbed trailer, parked at the trailhead. There was also a corral and lots of cowshit, all more than a week old.
The trail starts in ponderosa forest, down a shallow canyon next to a barbed-wire fence. I saw only one human footprint, going down; the other recent visitors had been on horseback, weeks or months ago.
The fence soon veered off, and although the creek was dry, lush vegetation and rocky bluffs made the canyon pretty. I hadn’t studied the map in detail and was surprised when, after a mile and a half, the trail began climbing away on the west slope. And I was really disappointed to meet my nemesis, the dreaded volcanic cobbles. My feet were not looking forward to this.
All I could think of, picking my way carefully over those rocks, was that I was adding to the elevation I’d have to regain on the way back. But as usual, I kept going, and was finally surprised to reach a dirt forest road that didn’t show up on my map. The trail apparently continued on the road.
And the road ran, fairly level, for a mile and a quarter, out a finger of ridge in a stark corridor that had been logged, partly as a firebreak and partly by woodcutters. Near the end, I heard chopping, and encountered a guy swinging an axe, splitting logs that had been cut into short sections by the Feds. “Free wood!” he enthused. His truck was nowhere to be seen so I assumed he was expecting a ride later.
On the positive side, I got occasional glimpses of the big canyons ahead. And finally the road ended at the wilderness boundary, and I faced the descent.
The trail into the big canyon started steep and even rockier than before. I immediately realized I should give up and turn back. But then I saw somebody coming up, in bright colors. It was a young through-hiker, finishing the national trail in reverse.
I’d read somewhere, recently, that the latest fad in the through-hiking subculture is to compete for the most outlandish outfit, but this was the first time I’d seen it in person. Forget the sleek, expensive space-age creations from REI – this kid could’ve just stepped out of a flea-market circus, his broad floppy hat ringed with big rainbow-colored fake flowers, and below that a garish striped shirt and mismatched paisley pants. Imagine tramping alone through thousands of miles of federal wilderness and national forest, camping along remote streams and rivers, just waiting for that moment when you can impress another young hiker – hopefully the opposite sex – with your bizarre costume!
I asked how far he’d come today, and he said about twelve miles – and he’d hated to leave the river, with little or no water between here and town. I realized the mountain biker I’d met cutting logs on the real national trail, earlier this year, had been right. No through hiker uses the official trail anymore, when they can follow the river instead.
We talked awhile, but if I was going to do this I needed to get going. He said “Enjoy the views!” which I did find encouraging. I wondered how much water he was carrying, and how far he would get tonight. We were 17 miles from the highway, on the other side of the high ridge, with another 12 miles from there to town.
The views did get better, but the upper part of the trail was a nightmare of rocks. My masochistic side took over – I’d come this far, I had to get somewhere nice before turning back. Down and down I went into the big canyon, and much of the trail was exposed, on a still day with solar heating.
I knew exactly where I was headed, because I’d hiked to the mouth of this canyon last year, along the opposite slope. That had been a much more spectacular hike because the opposite slope mostly consists of grassy meadows tended prehistorically by Native Americans, yielding views both long and deep, into the narrow, sycamore-lined canyon.
Still, it’s always exciting to hike deep into backcountry and encounter a site you’ve reached before, on an equally long trek through completely different terrain.
This is the driest time I’ve ever experienced in this region, and the creek was much lower, but still running. I was already in a lot of pain from the descent – I tried sitting on a log for a while, but knew I needed to get going. When planning the day, I’d ignored how much longer it would take to ascend than to descend. I would probably end the hike in the dark, starving and barely able to walk.
On the ascent, I discovered that walking too fast on the descent had given me shin splints and a sore knee. But I had to keep going, and I knew the hardest part was waiting near the top. I just shut down my mind and kept trudging, slipping and stubbing and stumbling among the rocks.
I made it up, and the hot sun was getting mercifully low as I paced out that interminable woodcutter road. The outlandish through-hiker’s footprints disappeared – he’d apparently bummed a ride with the woodcutter!
The trail down into the side canyon was even harder than I’d remembered, and the sun was setting by the time I reached the bottom. My entire lower body was on fire, but I knew the climb up this canyon to the trailhead would be easier. Dusk was beginning when I reached the vehicle – and the pickup and trailer were gone, probably belonging to the woodcutter and a partner.
I drove the 40 minutes back out the dirt road in the dusk. About halfway, I suddenly noticed a big bull elk standing on the bank just above the road, like a ghost.
Monday, November 27th, 2023: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
My problem foot had turned out okay after last Sunday’s hike – probably because I was wearing the stiffer winter boots – but I still wanted to work my way gradually up to longer and steeper walks. So this Sunday I was looking for something more than 12 miles but with less than 2,500 feet of elevation gain, and no prolonged steep grades. That’s a big ask around here – all the level ground within an hour of town is private land, hence all the nearby trails climb mountains.
There was really only one option – the boring north-south segment of the national trail I’d done twice before. I was still hoping to link it with the segment I hike from the opposite direction, but wasn’t optimistic – it would involve more than 20 miles out and back. No way would I accomplish that today.
Especially when I discovered my driver’s side door lock had frozen overnight. I had to let myself in the passenger side, then clamber over the center console and shift lever in my big winter boots, start the vehicle and run the heater for 20 minutes before the lock would operate. And while waiting, clamber back out and scrape frost off the windows.
Then on the drive, I had so much on my mind that I passed the turnoff and drove up into the eastern mountains for another 10 miles until I realized my mistake. After turning around, I finally reached the trailhead 45 minutes later than usual.
The climb to the ridgetop was scenic as usual. The sky was mostly clear, with bands of clouds hanging over the horizon, and although the temperature was in the 20s, the climb generated a lot of heat and I kept shedding layers.
Once you reach the ridgetop, it’s just a trudge through forest, with occasional boring views, about 7 miles to a little-used forest road. Birds were active, but I only recognized jays, flickers, quail, and juncos. I did find smallish bear tracks in snow that had fallen the day before.
I was giving myself 8 hours, and I reached the forest road with an hour to spare. And my foot seemed to be doing okay, so I would continue and see how close I could get to linking the two segments of trail.
Past the road, the trail began climbing steadily. I knew from the topo map that it was approaching a ridge that curved around the watershed of a creek – the other side being the segment I’d hiked from the opposite direction. Eventually I reached the ridgetop, and was rewarded with an unexpected 180 degree view, from the 9,000 foot high point of the range I was in, to 9,300 foot Black Mountain, 55 miles north, and the 10,200 foot crest of the eastern range, 35 miles east. My time was up, but despite not closing the chain, I’d reached a worthy destination. I figured I’d gone more than 8 miles, and felt pretty damn good.
But as usual, the descent of that long ridge seemed endless, and before the halfway point my entire lower body was aching. About three miles from the trailhead I encountered a couple about my age, with a dog, just starting up the trail. The sun was setting, and they were only carrying day packs, so I asked how far they planned to go. “We’ll turn around soon,” the man said. “We’re just trying to work off that Thanksgiving dinner.”
I was able to reach the vehicle before full dark without using my headlamp, but I worried about them. The lower half mile of the trail is like a maze. A full moon was rising but only sporadically penetrated the tall ponderosa pines.
Monday, December 4th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Nabours, Southwest New Mexico.
For the past three months, foot trouble had prevented me from doing the high-elevation-gain hikes I crave. But after last Sunday’s successful test, I felt I was ready to up my game. I scanned my eight-page list of hikes but couldn’t find anything exciting within an hour of town – until it struck me that the brutal trail that’d defeated me during our summer heat wave might’ve been cleared during this fall’s season of trail work.
Back then, I’d only been able to hike about three miles of the five-and-a-half miles to a high saddle and major junction. This is a fairly obscure hike I’ve been craving since I recently discovered it on the map, but it’d been a low priority for trail crews, and twelve years of post-fire erosion and regrowth had mostly blocked it and obliterated the old tread, especially in the upper part that traverses steep slopes.
It took me a while to track down reports of recent trail work, but I finally learned that an additional two miles of the trail had been cleared in October. Now the only potential obstacle was runoff – we’d had two storms in the past two weeks, and the high-clearance forest road to the trailhead crosses a creek draining the biggest and highest watershed on the west side of the range. Even if I could cross it early in the morning, by late afternoon it might be a raging flood.
I decided not to take the chance, but rather to turn off the highway earlier for a closer, much less interesting hike I’d done many times before and wasn’t excited about today. But on the drive up, I saw that all the smaller creeks crossed by the highway were dry. So I just kept driving, and when I got to the big creek crossing, it was bone dry – it normally flows underground at this point, and not even the highest afternoon temperatures on previous days had melted enough snow to flood it. Yay!
The first snowfall in these mountains had been two weeks ago, during my road trip to Arizona. And the second had been during the past few days. The temperature in town was just below freezing when I left home, the sky was blue to the horizon in all directions, and as I drove north I could see the snow line on the mountains lay at about 8,000 feet.
But the climb to the top of the long ridge is steep enough that I shed my storm shell, knit cap, and lined gloves on the way. And as I remembered, the climb up the ridge toward the foot of the mountains, mostly exposed through sparse scrub and open pinyon-juniper-oak woodland, is one of the steepest sustained climbs in our region. But I was motivated to see the newly cleared trail ahead. What attracted me to this trail on the map is that it doesn’t mess around – it climbs directly from the lowest to the highest elevations of this most dramatic western side of the range, crossing watersheds at the end, promising spectacular views both west and east.
In the dirt of the ridgetop trail, I found the hoofprints of the equestrian trail crew, two or three bootprints, and tracks I at first thought were from cattle, but soon realized were a bull elk and one or more cows. Like I’ve found elsewhere, they’d used this man-made trail as a quick and easy path to the crest.
The moment of truth came when the previously cleared ridgetop trail entered a maze of deadfall and regrowth near the foot of a steep, rocky upper slope. This is where I’d wasted the better part of an hour unsuccessfully trying to find a route last summer. And sure enough, deadfall logs had been cut, a wide swath of brush had been cleared, and a path lined with loose rock led up the mountain.
Trail workers had cleared a winding path across a couple of steep drainages that had been filled with post-fire debris flows and dense brush, and I knew that path would be washed out again in the next heavy rain. But for now, it led me almost a half mile north across the western slope of the rocky peak above, which temporarily hid the higher peaks from sight. It wasn’t until later, looking up from below, that I discovered the canyon below the long ridge is blocked on the other side of this peak by a sheer rock wall that extends from side to side like a high dam, with only a narrow slot for the creek to drain through. This, and the rock bluffs surrounding the lower peak, is why the trail had to be routed far to the north.
But eventually, the trail took me around a corner into a drainage that would lead, via many switchbacks, back toward the crest. This drainage is in shadow all winter, so the snow from both storms still covered the trail. I’d already climbed 2,500 vertical feet and had amazing views west, across the valley of the San Francisco River, to the rim of the alpine plateau I’d visited on my Arizona trip, and even to the now-snow-covered range ninety miles to the southwest that I’d last climbed in mid-September. This is what excites me about these crest hikes, climbing through a view that encompasses a vast landscape I’ve explored on foot and gotten to know up close as well as from far away.
The trail climbed steeply up this first drainage and reached a broad saddle where there had been a big blowdown – dozens of mature ponderosa pines snapped off at the base or uprooted, all toppling eastward. But the trail snaked its way through them, logs cut by the trail crew where necessary.
Past the blowdown saddle at 8,000 feet, the snow cover became continuous – at first an inch deep, then two. The trail switchbacked up into another steep, north-trending drainage, even darker than before, where snow had accumulated from four to five inches deep, and I was daunted to see the continuation of my trail towering above, cutting clearly through burn scar and talus slope. I’d forgotten to bring my storm pants and gaiters, and snow was soaking into the cuffs of my canvas pants.
It was here, in the deeper snow, that I discovered one previous hiker, a bigger man, had hiked this far in the past two weeks, between snowfalls, because his tracks had been filled in by last week’s storm but were still faintly visible. But his tracks ended at the last talus slope, which I had to cross very carefully because the snow hid the deep cracks between rocks. And past that, in an eroded gully, the rebuilt tread ended.
This is a situation I’ve learned from several different mountain ranges and national forests – initially, trail crews scout far ahead, flagging a route, and even doing cursory clearing of brush and cutting of smaller logs. Then during a formal work party, they return with more people and gear to clear everything and rebuild tread, but only up to a shorter distance. A hiker can continue beyond the rebuilt trail, as long as you can find the pink ribbons, which can be far apart and hard to see.
Beyond that gully, the route switchbacked and traversed a sunny, snow-free slope up a shallower drainage, then, on a short stretch of surviving, snow-covered tread partly blocked by deadfall logs, ascended what appeared to be the last slope to the crest. At this point I was beside myself with anticipation of a never-before-seen view.
Pink ribbons led me into a thicket on the crest, where I found myself with a view across the head of the canyon I’d started out in today, nearly five miles and 4,000 vertical feet below. I could see the peak whose shoulder I’ve climbed many times on one of my other favorite hikes, but I couldn’t seen the interior summit crest of the range, which is what I’d been hoping for.
East of the thicket I stood in lay a steep, rocky, trackless slope covered with stubby scrub oak and deadfall. I could see another pink ribbon in the distance, and it appeared that by traversing that slope for a few hundred yards, I might round another corner and get a view toward the heart of the range.
There was no trail left, but I found the fresh prints of the elk, so I just followed them from ribbon to ribbon. They led to a rock outcrop which was almost too good to be true: it was like a viewing platform for the highest peaks of the range, laid out before me in their fire-scoured, snow-blanketed majesty.
About three hundred feet below I glimpsed another red ribbon, in the saddle which led to the trail junction. And at my feet were piles of elk scat, which was so fresh – still moist – they had to have been there earlier today. Due to the steep grade and the snow, it had taken me more than four hours to go five miles. But this was already one of my favorite hikes.
In fact, with a nearly fifteen percent average grade, this is the steepest major trail in any of the mountain ranges in my region. That became painfully clear on the descent, when I struggled to walk slow enough to protect my foot and knees.
But in stretches where the grade decreased, I was able to study the view to the west, trying to identify peaks I’d climbed or driven past. The landscape was all laid out for me, but much of it remained a puzzle until later, when I could study a large-scale topo map.
The final traverse of the newly cleared trail took place in the full light of the setting sun, and I had to stop to take off my sweater and thermal bottoms. In the process of taking off my snow-soaked pants, I got my socks wet and had to change into the spare pair I always carry. I’d developed a sharp pain in my right knee and wondered how bad it would get – I still had over 2,000 vertical feet to descend.
The answer is, pretty bad. Halfway down the long ridge I strapped on the knee brace – my heavy pack is permanently loaded with first aid and other emergency gear for situations like this. That ridge always seems to go on forever, but with the brace, I was able to reach the vehicle about fifteen minutes after the sun sank behind the western horizon of the river valley. Ending hikes in pain is a fact of life now, but in this case, I guess it was worth it.
Monday, December 18th, 2023: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Rain, Southwest New Mexico.
Trying to regain the capacity to do long, deep wilderness hikes with massive elevation gain, I thought I was ready for one of my favorites, on the west side of our local mountains. It involves steep grades that are brutal on the feet, so I’d avoided it for the past seven months, but I hoped I was ready now.
The sky was clear and the temperature in town was expected to reach the mid-60s. The hike involves crossings of two major creeks, but the drainages are on the south side of the mountains, we hadn’t had any precip in weeks, and I figured flows would be low.
I was surprised to find a new restroom installed at the remote trailhead. As I’d learned on my last visit, there’s a dirt airstrip a short walk away. It serves no purpose other than as a destination for aviation hobbyists, who like to fly into remote strips like this simply so, like birders, they can check them off their life lists. Fly in, fly out.
Anyway, they’d built a pristine new restroom at this trailhead that doesn’t need one, for their private convenience.
The traverse down into the first canyon gets full sun, so I was shedding layers all the way, until I reached the shade of the bottom, where the temperature immediately dropped 30 degrees. It was so cold down there my nose and face were in pain – probably another symptom of Raynaud’s syndrome – so I stepped up my pace.
The climb up the switchbacks on the opposite side soon warmed me up. I’d seen one footprint on the descent, but like most visitors here, other recent hikers had stuck to the canyon bottom, and the trail out of the first canyon had only been used by animals since the last work party, probably last spring.
My energy and wind seemed pretty good, but it still took me two hours to climb the two miles and 1,400 vertical feet to the west end of the rolling plateau, at a 13 percent average grade. It struck me that my old familiar trails are harder now, after months of foot trouble, than they were last spring. And last spring, they were harder than they were a year earlier, before my near-fatal illness. It seems that my loss of capacity is permanent.
After that sobering realization, the “walk in the park” north-eastward across the rolling plateau, toward the dramatic talus-draped wall of Lookout Mountain, cheered me up, and I covered that mile-and-a-half, including another steep climb in loose rock, in only 45 minutes.
The 1,200 foot descent from the saddle at the east end of the plateau, to the creek at the bottom, takes place mostly in shade and involves a steady 19 percent grade, in loose rock, for a little over a mile. Whereas most people find going downhill on loose rock more daunting than ascending, I’ve been downclimbing on this kind of surface for years and it doesn’t trigger my foot condition like going uphill.
Lunchtime had arrived, and I was holding an open bag of homemade trail mix at one point while hiking downhill and trying to do something with my other hand. A dozen or so nuts and sesame sticks tumbled out on the ground, but I still had plenty left, so I kept walking for half a dozen steps before catching myself. You’re deep in the wilderness, dude – waste not, want not. So I turned back and carefully picked every single nut and stick out from among the rocks.
It’s always a relief to reach the parklike ponderosa forest on the lower slope, where the surface immediately changes from loose rock to packed dirt and pine needles.
Sometimes I cross the big creek and traverse the opposite slope toward a third canyon. But my research had suggested that two miles of the upstream trail had been cleared since my last visits, so I wanted to try that today. But it’d taken me 3-1/2 hours to reach the creek, and I only had a total of 8 hours to finish the hike by sunset. Two miles upstream would take me at least another hour, getting me back to the vehicle in the dark. But carrying a headlamp, I wasn’t worried, and I really needed to check out the newly cleared trail, which could take me that much deeper into wilderness.
The upstream trail is another slow stretch, traversing a steep slope between ten and fifty feet above the creek, up and down and in and out of side drainages, around tree trunks and boulders, the forest blocking most of your view. I crossed the creek a few times, scrambled over some blowdown, passed the beautiful bedrock soaking pools I’d discovered a couple of years ago, and finally reached the debris flow where the trail had ended before.
Sure enough, there was now tread leading down the vertical bank and up the debris flow. I knew this was unsustainable – it’d be completely obliterated in the next big flood – but this is the future of trails in the new fire regime.
I had entered a stretch of canyon that had been devastated by the 2012 wildfire and subsequent flooding and erosion. The trail crew had done a huge amount of work here, but unlike trail work I’d seen in other more popular national forests, this was quick and dirty. Tread had been hacked up banks of loose dirt that would wash out in a heavy storm, and brush had been cleared across floodplains that would fill with debris in a wet monsoon. Still, it was new trail so I kept going.
After passing a huge pool, I finally reached a place where the creek ran wide over flat bedrock for 150 feet. I’d used up another hour and a half and really needed to turn back. But I saw a pink ribbon upstream, so I picked my way across, and saw that the trail continued on the other side.
It’d taken me five hours to get this far, and it would take me almost that much time to return. I’d never stayed out this long since I started doing these wilderness explorations, and I knew I’d end up hiking over an hour in the dark – but it’d be on familiar trail, with a headlamp.
On the way back down the canyon, while scrambling over all that flood debris, I managed to fall and slam the ball of my left foot against the point of a sharp rock – which is something I can never allow myself to do, because that’s where the inflammation is always latent. There I was, seven miles back in the wilderness, facing a 1,200 foot climb on loose rock at a 19 percent grade, and I might’ve set my recovery back six years, to when the condition first became acute.
But all I could do was keep going. I could still take short steps, thanks to my stiff winter boots. And when I reached the bottom of that killer grade, I forced myself to climb super-slow, with little mincing steps to minimize the flexing of my foot and the pressure on the ball. I’d never tried that before, and it worked – despite the grade, I could climb continuously, indefinitely, without stopping for breath – something I’d never been able to do before.
It took me an hour and a half to climb a little over a mile up that brutal grade.
The sun was still peeking over the plateau in the west, but I had a mile and a half of plateau to cross, followed by two miles of steep descent on loose rock, and the final climb of more than a mile out of the first canyon. I was trying to avoid rushing, trying to take short steps to protect my foot, but the sun was setting, I was running out of water, and I still had many difficult miles to cover.
The sun set as I descended from the plateau. My night vision is pretty good and I was able to see well enough to reach the steep switchbacks into the first canyon, but less than halfway down I was stumbling too much and strapped on my headlamp.
It’d been full dark for a half hour by the time I reached the first creek. I was still stumbling a lot, because with a headlamp there’s no shadows or contrast and you still have a hard time seeing the rocks in the trail. But I was still forcing myself to go slow, and that helped keep my spirits from sinking. That and the moon and the stars.
I’d seen the crescent moon overhead while back in the second canyon, and now it was setting toward the western wall of this first canyon. A bright red star hung high over the opposite wall, and as I climbed out of the canyon, I could see Orion rising in the east.
When I reach the trailhead, the Milky Way arched over the northern sky, Cassiopeia glittering at the crest. I’d gone fifteen miles and climbed a total of 4,100 feet, it’d taken me almost ten hours, and I didn’t think my body was up for this any more.
I’d brought my new noise-cancelling headphones to try them out – they’d worked amazingly well on the drive up. And now, wearing them again on the long, bumpy dirt road down the mesa, I had a revelation.
I heard every detail of music I’d been missing over professional studio speakers at home. But more than that, I was happy! A drive on a bad road after dark that has always been nerve-wracking was now peaceful. I was suddenly aware of the aural abuse I’d been subjecting myself to for years. I’d always believed that the rough ride was one of the major drawbacks of this vehicle – I needed to either find a solution for it, or find a different vehicle. But now I knew – it isn’t the rough ride, it’s the noise! From highway to 4wd road, the interior of this vehicle fills with an increasing cacophony of engine noise, road noise, wind noise, squeaks, rattles, and bangs.
And I now knew that I’m hypersensitive to noise. Noise makes me tense, anxious, and ultimately angry. It’s a disorder recognized medically as misophonia, and I’ve been suffering from it for years. It began with my neighbor’s barking dog. After two years of that, I went on a road trip in my new vehicle, accompanying a friend, and ended up having unexplained fits of anger so bad that we had to split up, and I sought therapy afterward. There, it was the dog followed by the vehicle noise that did me in. And since that was followed by two years of landscaping ordered by my new absentee neighbor – operating heavy machinery and gas-powered equipment a few feet from my office – I guess it’s no wonder I ended up a nervous wreck.
Now that I’m facing regular air travel, the noise of airports and airplanes is yet another trigger. But finally, I have a solution. And that night, driving home in the dark, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
