Pinos Altos Range
Monday, January 3rd, 2022: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
I have to start this Dispatch with several caveats.
First off, this was one of the most punishing and least rewarding hikes I’ve ever done.
Second, the pictures don’t really show what made it miserable. I had a friend – a young coder in the tech industry – who once told me that for his generation, if I didn’t get any pictures, whatever I was talking about simply didn’t happen. Most of my friends are urban professionals who would be really annoyed by much of what I experienced on this hike. Hence they’ve arranged their lives so they never encounter these kinds of people and their lifestyle, and may have a hard time imagining it.
Third, the title of this Dispatch was inspired by a song by my long-lost lover, bandmate, and loftmate, Francesca. She was my original partner in the Terra Incognita loft in San Francisco. Whereas we were temporarily together when we moved in, her “true love” was a classmate at CalArts, just north of Los Angeles. A few months after we moved in and recruited other artists and musicians, I met and fell in love with a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. At the same time, Francesca’s long-distance boyfriend dumped her, and her father cut off her allowance. Since the wheel of fortune seemed to be favoring me and punishing her, she started lashing out at me in various ways, and wrote “Someone Else’s Pocket” to express her feelings of helplessness in an environment where I was the authority figure. Ironically, she had to rely on me to put her lyrics to music.
We’d had a couple inches of snow in town yesterday, which partly melted in the afternoon. Since there would’ve been much more in the mountains, and snow always significantly limits my winter hiking choices, I’d made a short list of possible lower-elevation hikes. Sunday was forecast to be the coldest day we’ve had in many years, and I wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to be hiking in such conditions. When I got up, it was 15 degrees outside and perfectly still under a crystal clear sky.
At the top of my short list was an unfamiliar trail in the heart of the wilderness due north of town. That trail stays below 8,000′, so I was hoping the snow there would be manageable. The trailhead can normally be accessed from town in about an hour’s drive, by two different paved highways. The longer route tops out at 6,500′, but the shorter, more direct route reaches 7,500′.
But after packing for the hike, I discovered that the door locks on both sides of my vehicle were frozen. We’d had high winds all day yesterday, and the snow had been preceded by rain – apparently water had blown into the locks and frozen. I didn’t have a blow drier, a torch, or anything I could use to warm the locks from the outside.
I was able to unlock and open the rear hatch, so I crawled through the vehicle, and found the inner door locks wouldn’t move, either. But since the two back seat doors have no external lock, I was able to unlock and open them from the inside. Should I simply crawl over the front seats and drive it anyway, accepting that the front doors wouldn’t work and I’d have to crawl in and out through the back? What if I had an accident on the icy/snowy roads, and ended up in a ditch? I’d have to hope I could crawl over the seats and get out that way. I hated to take the risk, but I equally hated to give up and stay at home.
For some reason, as I was driving across town, I decided to take the shorter, higher route. I suppose I wanted to test the abilities of my 4WD Sidekick and its expensive all-terrain tires. The snow got progressively deeper as the highway climbed to its first 7,000′ crest, and it had been plowed just wide enough for two vehicles to pass. I drove slowly and switched to 4WD when I saw the first patch of ice on the road.
There was literally no one else traveling until I reached the twistiest part through the dark forested mountains and suddenly saw a sheriff’s vehicle approaching me from around a blind turn. I lightly tapped the brakes and immediately began to slide sideways, narrowly missing the big SUV. That showed me how little grip I was going to have, so I slowed down even more and stopped using the brakes, using the accelerator and gear shift instead to control my speed.
I was encouraged to find clear stretches of asphalt where the road dipped below 7,000′ in the dark, narrow canyon, but at the end, where the road began winding and climbing steeply again, it was still plowed wide enough for two vehicles, but the pavement was entirely covered with frozen snow and ice. I kept going slowly and carefully for about a mile, but before reaching the highest point of the road, the plowed surface suddenly ended, with only a single pair of tire ruts continuing. The snow here was over a foot deep. If I encountered another vehicle I’d have to drive off into the deep snow, and my vehicle only has about 9 inches of ground clearance. I had to back up to the nearest bend, where there was just barely enough room to turn around.
When I reached the sharp turn at the canyon bottom, where a dirt forest road branches off, leading to the fire lookout on the peak above, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the snow there had been packed down by vehicle tracks. I’d hiked down that road from the peak once and discovered the bottom stretch of it was lined with clearings and informal campsites. If my only other option was to go home and give up on hiking, why couldn’t I at least hike up that road? It was 7-1/2 miles to the lookout, with over 2,000′ of elevation gain. If I made it all the way, that would be a 15 mile round trip hike.
I figured I would drive up the rutted forest road a hundred yards or so, looking for a place where I could park without getting stuck in the snow. Almost immediately I found a big clearing in the mature pine forest above the road. There were no other vehicles, but oddly, there was a tent pitched under the trees, surrounded by a large collection of valuable camping gear, all covered with 8 inches of snow.
I crawled out the back of my vehicle and suited up for a subfreezing hike through the shade of the forest, where I began walking on the hard-packed, now-frozen snow in the tire tracks of vehicles that had been here yesterday. The forest was beautiful under the snow, but the slopes on both sides of the road had been driven over randomly by UTVs and big trucks yesterday, clearly in the afternoon after most of the snow had fallen. I hadn’t realized it, but apparently this was a traditional playground for my town’s off-road enthusiasts.
The road climbed back and forth over the gently rolling foothills of the peak, soon leaving the forest and entering the moonscape burn scar of the 2014 wildfire. Above me on the right rose stark snow-white slopes populated with standing snags stripped of bark like toothpicks. Below on my left I could gaze across the entire wilderness landscape, rumpled, snow-blanketed mountains stretching 40 miles to peaks and ridges on the northern horizon. I quickly warmed up and shed ski gloves and heavy fleece jacket. That would be another theme of the day, shedding layers in sunlight and putting them back on again in shade, over and over again. Shortly I came upon a big 4WD pickup truck that had slipped off the road into a ditch, gotten stuck, and been abandoned there.
I could easily spot the fire lookout high over my right shoulder, less than a mile away as the crow flies – but the access road heads east, in the opposite direction, for several miles before climbing to a high ridge and looping back to the lookout peak. And since it runs almost entirely through the burn scar, it’s fully exposed and I’d be getting sunlight reflected off the snow as well as from above. In cold weather I wear a small cap instead of my shade hat, so I had to dig out the sunscreen for the first time since last winter, plastering what little of my skin was uncovered.
After the first couple of miles most of the vehicle tracks ended and I had only two ruts left to walk in, left by two vehicles with completely different tread. The snow was now over a foot deep and I hadn’t even reached 8,000′.
Finally the road left the burn scar and began to climb through intact pine forest. At 8,500′ the snow was knee deep, and the winds yesterday had blown powder into the tire ruts, so it became harder and slower going. Since there was still hard pack under the powder, but I could never tell how deep it was, it was unstable footing and really hard on my hips and knees. But it was doable – without yesterday’s tire ruts I never would’ve been able to hike today.
In the back of my mind was all those vehicle tracks through the forest at the beginning of the road. Would the off-roaders come back today? Every now and then I stopped to listen, but the entire frosted landscape was silent and seemed to be at peace.
After I crossed the ridge, the southern basin-and-range landscape unfolded below on my left, 5,000′ lower, into an endless golden haze. The road follows the high ridge for a couple miles, then dips a few hundred feet to a small saddle, before climbing steeply across a north-facing slope the last mile and a half to the peak. On that last climb I’d be almost completely in shadow and it would be very cold. I toyed with the idea of turning back there – it would still be a decent day’s hike – but as usual I hated to turn back with a clear destination in sight. And I figured I had just enough time to reach the peak and return to the vehicle by sunset.
So I trudged on, climbing hundreds of vertical feet up that difficult snow-covered road, gradually feeling better as I finally neared the peak. My quads were cramping, so I spent my brief time up there doing some long slow stretches.
I was halfway down toward the saddle when I suddenly heard an angry engine growl from somewhere ahead. I scanned the high ridge and finally spotted two dark UTVs driving out of the ridgetop forest and down into the burn scar. Within minutes they reached me. They didn’t slow down, so I had to quickly step off into the knee-deep snow as they raced past – both closed-cab 4-seaters full of high school kids, with the windows rolled up. I waved, but most of them ignored me, one or two waving back as they bounced up the road.
I kept hiking down the road in the shadows, and after a few hundred yards heard more growling ahead of me. This time it was two giant open-cab, open-frame, homemade-looking UTVs designed for travel in deep snow or mud – with at least a couple feet of ground clearance, extra-wide tracks, and tires almost 4 feet in diameter – each driven by a middle-aged guy. They looked like something built for the apocalypse in somebody’s garage. A red-tailed hawk flushed from a snag by the road as they approached and soared out over the void. They slowed and I told them how impressed I was by their machines, and they thanked me before rolling on.
By now I could tell that whatever benefit I’d gotten from yesterday’s tire ruts was being eliminated by today’s UTVs. Because they were lightweight, they didn’t pack the snow down, and because they drove fast and bounced on soft springs, they spread the snow back over yesterday’s ruts and created wavelike softer and harder patterns that were really hard to walk in. If I’d known this I never would’ve started up the road, but now I was stuck, with another 6 miles to go.
Moving more slowly now, I passed the saddle and began trudging up hundreds of vertical feet to the high ridge. There I encountered a smaller open-frame UTV driven by an old guy with a ZZ Top beard. He didn’t look or slow down as he passed me, so I yelled “It’s like a freeway up here!” and he gave me a vague wave.
From then on, I could hear engines in the distance, all the time. With the snow tossed around by so much UTV traffic, the road was getting harder and harder to walk. But finally I reached the end of the ridge and began descending, although the snow was so unstable, going down really wasn’t much easier.
Suddenly I realized my cap was gone. That was a new cap, ordered from San Francisco! I looked all around, but I had no idea when I’d lost it, so I gave up and kept trudging down. Then I realized it was time for a drink of water, and when I unshouldered my back, the cap fell off it onto the road. It had slipped off the back of my head and was just perched on the sloped lid of my pack, with nothing but friction to hold it on.
Shortly after that I was passed by the high school kids’ UTVs, again racing past without slowing, forcing me off the road into deep snow. I was now out of the forest, crossing the burn scar, with the vast northern wilderness laid out to my right and the bald toothpick slopes rising on my left. Rounding a broad turn, I saw an unfamiliar open-topped UTV ahead, parked just off the road. There was a young guy standing on the side of the road scratching in the snow with a branch, and sitting in the UTV watching him was a beautiful young Native girl, with long braided hair parted down the middle like something out of a 19th century painting.
As I approached them I noticed writing in the bank of snow along the road: “Suck Me” followed by something I couldn’t read. “Suck Me!” I yelled, laughing. “So that’s the word of the day!” They both cracked up and I wished them more fun. The whole thing was finally becoming clear. This area really was a traditional playground for the local working class folks, who work hard to afford their expensive mechanical toys, and yesterday’s snow was an opportunity none of them could pass up. Today was their big day to celebrate.
Across the next long bend, I could hear an engine laboring and men yelling. I saw two pickup trucks pointing up a steep, shaded section of the road, one of them obviously stuck in the snow.
More young people. There was a couple sitting in the stuck truck, the guy revving the engine, spinning his tires, as two other guys tried to pull from the back with a nylon strap. The young guy had obviously been trying to impress his girl, driving up this steep road in the deep snow, and it backfired. I didn’t see how they were going to get it out – the other truck was no bigger and no better prepared for towing – but I wished them well.
Around another bend, and I came to another pair of trucks, one of them stuck, too. The young driver was obviously pissed – I asked him if they’d tried laying branches under the tires, but he just spat “I’ll get it out!”
Shortly after that, the two giant UTVs driven by the middle-aged guys overtook me going down, waving as they passed. The road was entering the foothills where it wasn’t so steep, and ahead I saw two big 4WD pickups parked on a rise beside the road, with middle-aged men and women standing around as their kids played in the snow. A younger man dragged two laughing tots on a sled down the road toward me.
“There’s two trucks driven by young guys stuck up there,” I said to one of the older men. “That’s why we stopped here,” he said, laughing. “You really need UTVs for that stuff.”
More UTVs passed me coming up the road. I started down through a small patch of forest with a clearing and corral, and saw two kids sledding and a big SUV parked by the corral. As I was passing them, more UTVs driven by older men raced up the road toward me and I dashed out of their way.
Shortly after that I heard another engine behind me. It was the big SUV from the corral, towing two kids sitting in inner tubes at the end of long lines. They were moving slow so I had to wait a long time, standing off the road in knee-deep snow, for them to pass.
Finally I approached the end of the burn scar and could see the forest below. Another open UTV approached me driven by an older Hispanic man with his wife. At least half the people I’d seen today were Hispanic, matching our local demographic. They stopped to ask me if I was okay and if I needed a ride or some water. Despite the fact that I was warmly dressed and carrying a backpack, everyone I’d met acted as if walking were a sign of something terribly wrong.
As I walked down the road into the gently rolling forest I could hear a lot more noise ahead, and vehicles parked off the road in the deep snow under the trees. A young woman raced up the road in a single-seat UTV with two smaller girls hanging on her back, asking me if I needed help. There was a big family party going on in a clearing under the trees on the right side of the road. There were no tents or RVs, but they’d set up tables and stoves and had a campfire going, and there were kids and dogs running around. The folks nearest me waved and smiled. A little farther down I passed an even bigger party on the left, with a roaring fire and half a dozen big pickup trucks parked randomly in the snow under the trees.
Then I saw another big party farther back in the trees, and another up ahead on my right. I was getting near the end. Suddenly an old pickup truck pulled alongside me, driven by an old long-haired guy wearing a cowboy hat who looked like a Mexican bandit out of an old movie. He couldn’t roll his passenger window down, but he frowned and used sign language to ask me if I was okay. I’d been picking up trash in the road so I couldn’t sign him back, but I yelled I was fine and after a while he drove on.
The young girl on the UTV passed me again and asked if I needed a ride or some water. I couldn’t count the offers for help I’d had so far. Most people were worried about me, and nobody could understand why I was walking.
Finally I reached the big clearing where my vehicle was parked. There was another big party going on there. The tent and all the camping gear had disappeared, and several more pickups surrounded the spot, with stoves set up on tables and campfires burning on the ground. This party was strictly young folks, and I could see tall liquor bottles in the cab of the nearest truck.
I smiled and waved yet again. My whole lower body was sore from 15 miles of walking in unstable snow. The temperature had climbed slightly above freezing at this elevation, and my door locks had melted free. Still, it was a stressful drive back through the mountains, because the traffic was now relentless and the shaded asphalt still bore long patches of ice and frozen snow. Even after sunset, people were streaming from town out into the mountains. At one point where the icy road topped a rise and the ice cleared, there was a Prius stopped in the opposite traffic lane, rightly afraid to go any farther. An out-of-state plate – a tourist learning about our conditions the hard way. They’d be lucky to get turned around and make it back out of the mountains.
Tantalus & Sisyphus Go For a Hike
Monday, April 11th, 2022: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
As usual, this Sunday’s hike was conceived with complicated and conflicting desires. I was still reeling from last weekend’s accident, so I didn’t want to drive far and risk returning in the dark. I was worried about the recurring pain in my hip, so I didn’t want as much climbing and rough surfaces as usual. But to give my hip a break, I’d skipped my short midweek hike and was also reluctant to wimp out and do an easy hike on the weekend.
I ended up targeting a trail about 45 minutes from town that I’d had on my list as a lower-elevation winter hike, but hadn’t tried yet, since it didn’t seem to offer as much elevation gain as I usually craved. I’d already located the trailhead along the highway east of town that goes up a rural valley toward remote recreation areas, and I’d observed from the faint tread that this trail is little used. It climbs up a series of canyons to the crest of the low forested mountains that trend from east to west north of town, where maps show that it meets the Continental Divide Trail and ends at a forest road I’d spotted from a crest hike last year. I wanted to try for the CDT junction 8-1/2 miles in, but that would be a 17 mile round trip with nearly 3,000′ of elevation gain, and I didn’t know if my hip was ready for it.
Online maps disagree as to the exact route of this trail. I vaguely remembered reading an online account of a partial hike that said it was confusing and hard to follow and there was a corral or cabin in one of the canyon bottoms. But in my usual hurry to hit the road I failed to bring a map, trusting on my routefinding skills.
The day was forecast to be clear with a high of nearly 80 in town. It was in the low 50s as I left home, but when I reached the trailhead I took my sweater off.
The first thing I encountered was a confusion of trails up a broad, dry floodplain forested with large, old pinyon, juniper, and oak and rumpled with flash flood debris. I just assumed the trails would all converge upstream and took the most direct routes. After a quarter mile they did converge and began climbing the left slope. But that slope turned out to be laced with a dense network of intersecting trails, like the diagonal grid of a chain-link fence, and they all showed heavy use, so it was initially hard to figure out which to take. Most were clearly animal trails, but I saw no cowshit so I was initially mystified.
But I did begin to notice human footprints, and was soon able to pick out the hiking trail from the animal trails. Then, when the trail dipped back into the canyon bottom, I found clearings of disturbed ground covered with piles of horseshit. Horses are not generally allowed to range free, so I figured this must be a rare enclave of feral horses.
The trail began climbing steeply, and two miles in from the trailhead I came to a stock gate in a narrow saddle marking the watershed between this canyon and the next. The gate had been left open by the recent hikers who had left their footprints on the trail, so I reclosed it. We think of hikers as environmentally sensitive people, but this hike would yield ample evidence they can be as insensitive and irresponsible as your average urban consumer.
Through the gate and over the saddle I got my first and only view into the next canyon. The trail was heading down the north slope of a small, densely forested basin, at the far end of which I could glimpse some kind of small grassy clearing. The trail quickly deteriorated into a very steep, rocky erosional gully, in which I slowly and carefully tried to avoid stumbling down a couple hundred vertical feet through dense scrub. I began seeing cowshit, and at the bottom of the basin I entered a thoroughy trampled and overgrazed area with a fence, corral, and a small, muddy water hole. From there I followed a broad cattle trail to a running stream trampled by cattle and choked with algae, and another stock gate. I was pleased and surprised to see so much water in the canyon, but in general, this was turning into a fairly depressing hike.
Past the gate, the trail became a vehicle track. I kept following it through forest and out into a big grassy meadow, but I was worried that like much of the CDT, this trail would turn out to follow a road the rest of the way.
At the upper end of the meadow lay a cabin and a series of old but intact corrals and sheds. The cabin looked maintained and its door was tightly wired shut so I didn’t try to get in. But I could see through a window screen that it was clean and fully furnished inside. I later learned that it’s still used by the family that ranches the canyon.
Beyond the cabin the trail continued to follow an old road, back and forth across the algae-choked creek and its trampled, overgrazed banks, until it finally began to climb a steep, rocky slope and narrowed into a real hiking trail again. The footprints of three other recent hikers continued there, but they were dominated by the hoofprints of cattle.
We didn’t really get that much snow over the winter, so I was surprised to find more water draining from the slopes into the creek here than I’d seen anywhere else in our region.
Continuing up the canyon, I finally emerged into a stretch with more exposed bedrock and clearer running water. I came upon a crumpled piece of toilet paper on the trail, and continuing, saw a scatter of toilet paper on the ground at the foot of rock outcrops above the trail. These recent hikers were truly jerks, failing to carry out their paper waste, leaving it to be scattered by animals and found by later visitors.
I was now in a stretch of canyon lined with huge boulders, cliffs, and impressive rock outcrops, but immersed in dense forest, I could only catch glimpses through the tall ponderosas, oaks, and alders.
Four or five miles in, I came to a junction with a trail that led into the next canyon south. My trail so far had been fairly clear of logs but showed no sign of recent maintenance. But beyond the junction, I encountered a few shrubs along the trail that had been recently chopped. That isolated trail work only lasted a few hundred yards, so I figured the crew had come up the side trail from the other canyon and only worked a short distance in this one.
Flies – the size of house flies – had been visiting me occasionally all the way up the trail, but had never become a nuisance, in contrast to the small flies or gnats that had plagued me in Arizona recently. I associate these larger flies with livestock and was relieved not to need my head net.
The rock formations just became more and more spectacular the farther I climbed up this long canyon, but remained tantalizingly hidden. I figured I’d gone well over 6 miles at this point and was still stuck in the canyon bottom. When would I start climbing to the crest? My hip wasn’t bad yet, but I didn’t want to reach a tipping point where my return hike would become really painful.
As much as I hate perpetuating colonial culture, I couldn’t help mixing up the myths of Sisyphus and Tantalus, kings who were punished by the gods in ways that resonated with my situation. Not that I really think I’m being punished – the life of all true seekers is hard as we refuse to fit into the dominant mold of our culture, rejecting the career, the steady job, the marriage, the kids, and the endless upward climb of consumerism. But today I felt continually tantalized by brief glimpses of majestic rock formations, and condemned to an endless climb.
The last couple of miles were especially hard as I sensed the crest getting near. The canyon narrowed and seemed shallower. I was now in the upper elevation mixed conifer forest with firs and tall old-growth Gambel oaks. My hip was beginning to complain, but surely I was nearing the top?
I wasn’t. The trail turned left, then right, and just kept traversing up a gradual slope, and trapped in the dense forest I had no way of orienting myself in the landscape. Human footprints had ended much earlier – the recent hikers had only gone about four miles in – but cattle were using this trail all the way up. At this point they were the only users. Nor had there been any maintenance in a long time – I found logs that had lain across the trail for at least a decade.
Eventually, instead of cliffs and rock formations, I began to glimpse blue sky through the trees above, and believed I was nearing the top. But after a few more turns and long traverses, I found myself again in the bottom of a narrow, rocky canyon. There I found a rusted, empty water trough half-buried in debris. And after crossing the canyon bottom again, I faced the steepest trail I’d seen yet. Surely this must be the final climb? I’d been hiking for five hours, which would normally take me more than ten miles. But coming this far, I just had to see where the steep trail led.
It turned out to be one of the steepest trails I’d ever climbed. I estimated the grade at 35%, and to prove I don’t normally exaggerate, when I got home I measured it on a topo map and found the average grade is actually 36% on that stretch.
But nearing the top of the steep stretch, I suddenly emerged into a zone of strong wind, and was convinced I was nearing the crest, where wind would strengthen due to the funnel effect. And after traversing an overgrown burn scar, I finally came upon a fence and the dirt forest road. I’d seen no sign of the CDT junction – I’d misinterpreted the topo maps.
I was now behind schedule, my hip was hurting, and this overgrown burn scar offered little in the way of views and was no place to hang out. But I knew I’d achieved a serious hike and was proud of myself. Knowing the descent would be even harder on my hip, I took a pain pill and began the long slog back, most of which would mercifully be downhill.
Before reaching the overgrazed canyon bottom, I did finally encounter some small flies, but they never became bad. I’m always intrigued by the ecology of things like this. Why are they localized, and locally a problem?
The day had gotten windier, and I realized that despite its frustrations, the wind and shade of this hike had been an escape from our spring heat wave in town.
I reached the trailhead 9-1/2 hours after I started. I’d made a lot of brief stops, but it had to have been a long hike. When I plotted and profiled it back home on a topo map, I found it had totalled 17.3 miles, with 2,932′ of accumulated elevation gain. Coincidentally, the forest road where I turned around is only a quarter mile from the point I reached last year on a 19-mile hike from much closer to town. So I was only a quarter mile from connecting the two hikes.
Monday, September 12th, 2022: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
Last Sunday’s hike had involved a long drive and an overnight, so today I wanted to stay closer to home. But many of my favorite crest hikes could only be reached via a canyon-bottom trail, and after our wet monsoon, canyon bottoms had turned into jungles.
There was one crest hike very close to town that I hadn’t tried since my recovery, because it started with a “primitive” road up a narrow canyon with at least a dozen crossings of a perennial creek. And on my last visit, shortly after the start of the monsoon, the creek had flooded so high it couldn’t be crossed on foot.
But our rains had slacked off recently, so I figured I’d give it another try.
This is the longest of my day hikes – 18-1/2 miles out and back, with 4,400′ of accumulated elevation gain. The only reason I can achieve that much mileage in a day is because the trail’s in better condition than any others – most of it follows the Continental Divide Trail, which is completely restored annually, as opposed to our national forest trails, a few of which are only partially cleared at much longer intervals, with the rest completely abandoned.
On the down side, with the exception of one short canyon passage, it’s the least spectacular of my hikes. You’re mostly hemmed in by forest, and when you’re not, you’re crossing burn-scarred slopes with only nearby views of featureless forested mountains. I end the hike at a “park” – a shallow bowl on the crest of a ridge with tall ponderosas around the edge and a grassy clearing in the center.
The hike starts at 6,600′, following the primitive dirt road eastward up the canyon for two miles. The creek was running briskly, but my waterproof boots made all the crossings easy. Spectacular rock formations rise on both sides but are mostly hidden behind the trees, until you reach the mid-section, where the canyon narrows and the road becomes steep bedrock, with the creek pouring down it.
Here, I found the road completely destroyed by erosion. Not even the ruggedest and highest-lifted Hummer or Jeep Wrangler could get up this road now – there were multiple 3-foot-high ledges and 3-foot-diameter boulders blocking the narrow passage between shear cliffs.
I recalled the day a couple of years ago when I’d met a young couple from California who were hoping to view a property at the end of this road, high in the forest. The road had been barely drivable for my vehicle then, with 4wd and 9″ ground clearance, but they’d made their way up to the midsection in a Prius, finally giving up and hiking the rest of the way. I wondered who owned that property now, and what they would do with the road, if anything. It’s simply a misconceived road in the wrong place.
Less than a mile up the “road” past the midpoint, you reach the hiking trailhead. From there, you wind and switchback up the densely forested side of the canyon to a long level ledge through parklike forest. That takes you to the upper part of the canyon, where the trail rejoins the creek and climbs steeply to a forested saddle where it joins the CDT.
The CDT crosses eastward to another densely forested watershed, where it traverses in long switchbacks up a south-facing slope to the 9,000′ peak. Apart from short rocky sections, this is mostly a smooth forest trail on packed dirt, so I was able to make good time.
Northwards past the peak, the trail reaches the edge of the 2014 wildfire, dropping toward a saddle through alternating burn scar and surviving stands of mixed conifers. Here, I found very fresh bear sign, then suddenly came upon a young couple hiking up from the saddle, where the trail meets the gravel road to the nearby fire lookout.
The young woman was busy leashing a medium-sized black dog, but what immediately caught my eye was the black cat wrapped around the young man’s shoulders. “Wow, you’re the first hikers I’ve ever seen with a cat!”
“That’s right, ignore the dog, he’s used to it!” said the girl, laughing.
We had a brief, friendly chat, while the cat on the guy’s shoulder fixed me with an intense stare. They seemed anxious for more, but I felt like I was running out of steam and wanted to keep my momentum.
Shortly after leaving them I felt a shadow passing over and figured it was a vulture. Instead, I saw a large hawk just settling into an upper branch of a low snag next to the trail, to peer down at me curiously. We watched each other for a while, then I continued, finding the couple’s vehicle at the road, with a New Jersey plate.
Past the saddle the trail begins traversing further east around a series of rounded slopes through moonscape burn scar which has filled in with shrubs and annuals. Here I was joined by the hawk again. Why? Normally a hawk will only pay attention to a human if it has a nest nearby, but this hawk was stalking me a quarter mile from where I’d first seen it.
As usual at this time of year, the annuals on the slope were at their peak of flowering, but hard to photograph. Nearing the intact forest after another half mile of traversing, I was amazed to find the hawk again joining me, briefly. I guess it was just curiosity!
The trail crosses into yet another big forested canyon, where it continues to traverse the head, just below the crest, descending gradually toward a saddle on the eastern rim. At this point I was really fading. My legs and right hip were burning and I was deeply fatigued. I’d only gone between 7 and 8 miles – how would I make the full 18-1/2? I stopped to stretch my hip, and that helped a little, but I was still worn out. Then, nearing the saddle, I came upon recent cattle tracks. Great.
But I’d come this far – I had to reach the park. Once there, having finally crossed to the north side of the long ridge, I didn’t continue to the grassy center – I collapsed on pine needles in the shade of the big ponderosas and Gambel oaks.
I lay there for a long time, knowing it was getting late, but figuring the return hike would go faster since it was all downhill past the peak.
Finally I forced myself to get up, and trudged back out of the park and over the crest. On the long traverse back toward the road saddle, after another session of stretching my sore joints, I took a pain pill, and by the time I’d reached the road I was feeling good again.
Surprisingly, the New Jersey van was still there. And just as I reached the top of the traverse to the peak, I glimpsed them through the trees ahead, and their dog shot forward barking hysterically and threatening me.
I was making good time, so at this encounter, while the woman struggled to subdue her young dog, we talked even longer. Despite the Jersey plate, they’d been living in town for a year, cobbling together miscellaneous jobs. They hoped to see me again later.
I was really feeling much better as I strode down the mountain, smiling and spreading my arms to stretch my shoulders. I hadn’t seen any recent footprints on the CDT, but when I eventually reached the creek trail I began to notice occasional mountain bike tread, and when I finally reached the upper part of the dirt road in the canyon bottom, I realized two people had ridden their mountain bikes here while I was hiking. Then at the rocky midpoint of the road I found footprints of another couple who’d walked up today. And just past the eroded, undriveable part there were off-road-vehicle tracks and horse poop, also from today. Apparently there’d been a whole crowd down here on every conceivable conveyance while I was up higher hiking. Nice to be able to get away from the riffraff!
Monday, December 5th, 2022: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
By Sunday morning, it’d been raining on and off in town for almost 24 hours, and I assumed the crest of the mountains would be getting even more. The vast majority of trails in our region involve canyon bottoms or major stream crossings, any of which could be flooded. And I was really enjoying listening to the rain outside while staying warm and dry with a roof over my head.
Plus, I was still trying to go easy on my knee, so I needed a trail that didn’t involve long steep climbs. There was really only one option – to try the national trail from the starting point I’d used last week, but in the opposite direction. I was pretty sure it would also be overgrown with cosmos and feature the dreaded volcanic cobbles, but I had no other choice. Really hard to get motivated, but you know me.
On the plus side, it was warmer – in the 40s starting out, expected to reach 60 in town later. But most of the landscape was blanketed by fog.
From the remote westbound highway, the southbound trail winds through a dispersed camping area on a maze of dirt roads. Those roads would be muddy now, so instead of hiking from the highway, I drove through the campground all the way back to where the foot trail started, a little over a mile from the paved highway. This detail would become important later.
This trail starts at around 6,200′, in ponderosa forest at the base of terraced bluffs of volcanic conglomerate which the rain had stained a dark russet. I had studied the topo map months ago and picked out a vague destination about 8 miles in that should yield me about 2,500′ of elevation gain – but gradually, which would be easy on my knee. I would judge how far I’d gone by the time it took – I generally hike about 2 miles per hour including stops.
Several miles beyond that point, this trail would connect with a trail I’d taken last spring, and a little beyond that, it would connect with the trail that provides the longest hike in my repertoire – 18.3 miles out and back. Together, these converging trails form a sort of tripod intersecting on the crest of our local mountain range, so today’s hike would help fill a gap in my local hikes.
It wasn’t raining when I started out, but the thick fog, drifting slowly in and out of canyons and over ridgelines, limited my view to a hundred yards or less, so I had no idea what kind of landscape I was traversing. But the first mile or so climbed up the conglomerate bluffs, and along the way I got to enjoy some of that exposed rock.
This mountain range tops out at 9,000′ and consists of a maze of forested ridges which all look the same from a distance, so it’s normally my least favorite terrain. But the fog completely transformed it. Foliage, fire-killed tree trunks, soil, gravel, and stone were all saturated, so all the colors were darkened, and again I was walking outdoors in an intimate interior space, enclosed by the fog, with little sense of distance or elevation.
Climbing out of the ponderosa forest, I entered the pinyon-juniper-oak woodland and was immersed in a powerful pine fragrance, like turpentine but sweeter. That fragrance remained with me as long as I was in that habitat – I’ve hiked it for 16 years in all conditions but have never experienced anything like this before.
There was plenty of burr-laden cosmos parviflorus beside the trail, but unlike the eastern segment I’d hiked last week, this part of the trail was clear and easy to follow. And amazingly, it was cobble-free, the ground remaining nice and smooth until the later, higher segment became a little rockier. All in all, one of the easiest trails I’ve hiked in this region. I wasn’t pushing myself, but inevitably made good time.
A little over an hour into the hike, I’d reached the ridge top where the trail leveled out, and a light rain began to fall. My boots were already soaked from wet grass – I’d worn my waterproof boots and pants – and now I pulled on my rain poncho. It would rain lightly from then on, until the last mile of my descent at the end of the day.
Around the same time it started raining, I heard a man yelling, down in a canyon hidden by the fog, somewhere west of me. I figured it must be hunters, but there was no road or trail down there, so they must be on foot.
As expected, my walk continued for miles up ridges through low, open woodland – bathed in that amazing fragrance – with intervals across level, wooded, grassy meadows where the trail was flooded. My nose and cheeks itched from catching invisible strands of spider web that spanned the trail between branches at face height. The fog kept me blind to the landscape around me, and except for a couple of short steeper climbs, it became hard to tell whether I was going up or down at any given time. I was yearning to reach the higher-elevation ponderosa forest, just for some variety.
About 2-1/2 hours in, I did reach ponderosa forest, and the kind of pale, lichen-encrusted exposed bedrock I was familiar with on the crest of the range. And the trail began descending steeply into a hollow, which I didn’t remember from the map. I didn’t feel like I’d gone far enough to reach my planned destination, but this descent definitely wasn’t part of the program.
I continued anyway, crossed a little valley with running water and a faint UTV track, and began climbing again. Very strange. This part of the national forest is not designated wilderness, so I felt lucky not to encounter livestock depredations.
Less than a half mile beyond the hollow, I spotted a sign up ahead, and getting closer, a dirt forest road! I checked my watch – I’d only been hiking 3 hours, including lots of stops – how could I possibly be at the road, which I’d assumed was over 10 miles from the trailhead, and connected the three arms of the tripod? I still felt fresh, like I could keep hiking for miles beyond this point.
I noticed an old Forest Service trail sign that claimed I’d hiked 9-1/2 miles from the highway. 9-1/2 miles in 3 hours! That was much faster than my normal average speed, and I’d been taking it easy all the way. I could only assume it was because the trail was in such good condition. Wow! Now I was really excited. Why not continue to the connecting point with the trail I’d hiked last spring, and make it an even 10 miles? 20 miles out and back would be the longest day hike I’d ever done.
The road was muddy and flooded in places as it wound back and forth between the tall ponderosas. I was looking for a fence that ran alongside and intersected with another fence that was perpendicular, less than a half mile east. But I never found it, and eventually the road I was on started descending steeply off the crest. Where was the other trail? Now I was really confused.
So I returned to the trail I’d come up, and began my descent.
About a mile from the road, I heard a single gunshot – it sounded like a .22 rifle, somewhere west of me, where I knew there was no road or trail. Could it be the same hunters I’d heard, 6 miles or more to the north, bushwhacking on a completely different route from me?
Again, in the fog, I noticed that it was sometimes hard to tell if the trail was climbing or descending. I remembered from the map that this trail climbed over 2,000′, but it neither felt like I’d climbed that far in the morning, nor was descending that much now, in the afternoon. Very strange.
Eventually, I reached the final ridge that descended toward the trailhead. But even there, it felt like I was climbing more often than descending. I thought of the Mystery Spot, a tourist attraction in the California mountains designed to disrupt your senses of gravity and perspective. In the fog, this trail was becoming my mystery spot.
The freshness I’d felt at the top had now completely vanished. My feet were sore, my hip was starting to hurt, and I truly felt like this was the longest hike I’d ever done. The trail seemed to traverse in and out of dozens of side canyons on its way to the end of the ridge, all looking the same.
Finally, as I was about to shut down my feelings and switch into survival mode, I emerged into the final landscape of exposed, russet-colored, terraced conglomerate. Here, the fog had lifted enough for a view of several miles across the landscape. I saw a big canyon to the east, and reaching the end of the ridge, I could see north out over the valley of the highway. I was near the end and could stop to enjoy the view.
I also suddenly remembered that I hadn’t taken the trail from the highway – I’d chopped over a mile off the hike by driving through that campground – so I hadn’t actually gone 10 miles, and couldn’t claim this as my longest hike. Damn! Why did it feel so long anyway? Why was I so sore, and so exhausted, if I’d only gone the kind of distance I’ve been routinely covering for years now, but with even less elevation gain than usual?
It got even worse when I arrived home and checked the maps. My mapping platform contradicted the Forest Service sign I’d found, showing that the distance from highway to forest road is only 8 miles, not the 9-1/2 miles claimed by the old sign. And most discouraging, the forest road I’d reached, and continued east on to find the other trail, was not the road I thought it was. It was several miles short of the road that would “connect the tripod” and close the gap between the three trails.
All in all, instead of hiking 20 miles in a day, I’d hiked less than 14 miles, and only felt like I’d hiked 20. And the elevation gain was less than I’d expected, too. Clearly not a day for the numbers, but on the plus side, I now know the trail’s in good shape, and next year, when the days grow longer, maybe I can return and do the whole thing.
Monday, January 16th, 2023: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
2023 was not starting well for me, with severe back pain leading to continuous headache, so that I’d had to skip some of my regular hikes. But meds had made this Saturday fairly pleasant, and by Sunday morning both back pain and headache were manageable. I hadn’t expected to be ready for a hike, but my body was desperate for exercise.
The weather forecast was confusing. A National Weather Service warning for the entire region predicted dangerous winds up to 70 mph, with fallen trees and property damage. And here I was with my neighbor’s 80 foot tall elm overhanging my house. But that forecast was for the whole of our topographically complex region, and local forecasts only predicted gusts up to 40 mph, peaking in late afternoon. Plus rain beginning before noon and turning to snow in the evening.
Somewhat befuddled by the lingering effects of pain and meds, I procrastinated for a while, eventually settling on a short hike near town. It was one of the steepest, and would take me onto the crest at 9,000 feet, where I should have expected at least foot-deep snow. But most other hikes would involve mud, which I figured would be even worse.
How long would I be gone? Would I return to find my house destroyed by a fallen tree? I moved the vulnerable stuff to the opposite end, just in case, and hit the road.
It was already snowing lightly. In my reduced mental state, I’d forgotten that temperatures in the narrow, dark canyon around the trailhead were always much lower than in town, despite being only a few hundred feet higher. There was snow and ice on the mountain road and deep snow even on the south slopes above. I made a snap decision to take the ridge trail instead of the peak trail, since the peak trail is one of my regular midweek hikes. In my confused state, I was forgetting that the ridge trail traverses a steep north slope that holds some of the deepest snow in our region until spring.
So it was another gaiter day. I encountered up to 6 inches on the lower part of the climb, but that was doable. A big man had been up the trail before me, and subsequent melting and freezing had left a crust and solidified his tracks, followed by a couple more inches of powder, so it was the worst possible surface to walk on. He’d also had an older crust to walk on, so some of his tracks were near the surface, while others were deep holes where he’d sunk in. And the new powder made it impossible for me to anticipate whether my next step would land on hard crust or sink into a deep hole. I literally lurched and stumbled up the mountain and across the north slope, where the snow was now up to 14 inches deep.
I tried to go slow to minimize the impact on my headache, but I could feel it coming gradually back. It was still pretty minimal compared to other sensations, like cold face, fingers, and toes, so I kept going, determined to go at least as far as the previous hiker.
The day’s storm hadn’t actually made it here yet, but the wind was rising and the dark storm clouds were racing out of the west and over my head. What the hell was I doing up here?
This is a trail that used to be one of my favorites, but became totally overgrown and virtually impassable after a 2021 wildfire that burned around the entire ridge. I used to take it to the stock pond at the end of the ridge, a little over 6 miles one-way, with about 2,500′ of accumulated elevation gain. I didn’t expect to get nearly that far today, and the way things were going, I would be lucky to get to the first milestone, a rocky shoulder about 2-1/2 miles in.
But I did reach the shoulder, after 2-1/2 hours of slogging and stumbling through deep snow. The previous hiker’s tracks continued past that point, but I’d lost my competitive drive. And as I turned back, the storm hit the north side of the ridge, and on my return, I faced gale force wind driving snow in my face. The snow turned into a blizzard by the time I began my final descent. And something weird started happening to my boots.
There were patches with little or no snow on the descent, and whenever I walked over one of them, a ball of snow and pine needles developed under the arch of each boot. I stopped to knock them off on rocks, but as soon as I resumed walking, the snowball returned. I eventually found it was easier to keep walking (awkwardly) on the snowballs, because they would fall off by themselves when I hit the next patch of deep snow.
These snowballs got worse the farther down I got, because the snow gradually became thinner and I had to cross longer stretches of bare ground. I had to grab a stick before getting in the vehicle, so I could poke off the final snowballs before swinging my feet inside. That’s when I discovered a kernel of solid ice balled up on the synthetic cords that secure the gaiters to my boots.
I hit heavy rain as I approached town, but the tree and my house were still standing. And we never actually got high winds in town – the most we got was a gentle breeze. Fortunately my headache was manageable, and I took another muscle relaxer along with the maximum dose of acetaminophen to help me sleep.
Online forums showed that the gaiter snowball is a familiar phenomenon. I’d worn these gaiters in snow over a dozen times so far and had never encountered it – apparently conditions have to be just right, with light snow over wet, unfrozen ground. Others have succeeded in preventing the snowball by coating their straps with oil or wax.
