Hillsboro
Monday, August 29th, 2022: Black Range, Hikes, Hillsboro, Nature, Plants, Southwest New Mexico, Wildfire.
Since mid-June, when this year’s massive wildfire burned through the habitat of one of my regular hikes, I’ve been yearning to go back there. But the Forest Service had issued a closure notice for that entire area effective until the end of the year.
The trail is really popular with Texans from El Paso, so on Saturday, on a whim, I checked the web page for that trail on the most popular online hiking forum, and found trip reports from a couple of weeks ago saying the trail had just been reopened. So this Sunday’s choice of a hike was a no-brainer!
I was especially concerned about the beautiful old-growth fir forest on the back side of the peak. That forest had survived the big 2013 wildfire as an island of lush alpine growth, and there were two ancient firs I really loved that stood on each side of the trail, like sentinals. During this year’s fire, the incident team had noted that the burn on top of the peak was low-intensity, so I was pretty sure my favorite trees had survived.
The weather forecast I quickly checked before leaving predicted cloudy skies and mild temperatures, so I reluctantly pulled on my heavy waterproof boots and packed the heavy, uncomfortable waterproof hunting pants. I was so tired of dressing for rain! But by the time I’d crossed town and entered open country, I noticed there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky ahead. Damn! Had I forgotten to refresh the weather page? It doesn’t auto-refresh on every platform – maybe I’d been looking at yesterday’s forecast.
The highway was virtually empty of other vehicles, but I came close to hitting deer twice – our deer population has exploded again, and driving anywhere outside of town is super stressful. But on the plus side, as I was slowly winding up through the tall forest toward the pass, a bobcat crossed in front of me. I hadn’t seen one in years.
Since this is our most popular trail with out-of-towners, I always expect to meet other hikers, and today was no exception – within the first 2 miles I encountered a single middle-aged man heading back out. We exchanged brief greetings but that was clearly all he was interested in. Most people using this trail are simply heading for the famous fire lookout on the peak, but I’m here for the wilderness – I bypass the lookout and continue several miles farther on the crest trail.
This year’s fire had stopped its southward advance at the peak, 5-1/2 miles north of the trailhead, and its scar couldn’t even be seen until you reached the top. But the 2013 wildfire had turned most of the crest into a treeless moonscape, colonized in the intervening years by shrubs and annuals. After this year’s wet monsoon, I saw plenty of flowers and birds in that area.
And during the initial traverse through the old burn scar, I was a little encouraged to see some small clouds rising behind the crest to the north. Maybe I’d get some weather after all, to justify my preparations!
By the time I reached the end of the burn scar at a saddle below the peak, a storm was definitely brewing in the north. And it hit me just as I crossed the southeastern shoulder of the peak, quickly developing into a heavy hailstorm as I scrambled to change pants and pull on my poncho.
Climbing the final switchbacks to the peak, I finally came upon scars of this year’s fire. Here, they were simply small black bare patches in a sea of lush annuals – it looked as if windblown sparks had started spot fires that had burned out without spreading.
But when I traversed around the peak through the lush forest below the lookout, I became confused. This area alternates between dense stands of fir and small grassy meadows surrounding isolated stands of venerable pine, fir, and Gambel oak. Here, many firs had been killed while their immediate neighbors had been spared. As before, there were small black bare spots where ground fires had burned with high intensity, but hadn’t seemed to have spread. The more I looked, the harder it was to tell where and how the fire had actually burned, because most of the ground cover was grass and forbs, which could’ve come up after the fire.
Suddenly I came upon two blackened stumps, and realized my favorite firs had not only been killed – they’d completely burned down. It was so strange – firs only 40 feet from them hadn’t even been scorched.
The peak forest is an island. Forest on the slopes below it was destroyed in the 2013 fire, and the trail there is crowded with seedlings of thorny locust and aspen. Some of this survived this year’s fire – enough to really slow me down.
And at the bottom, a trail junction and saddle where some tall ponderosas had survived the 2013 fire, this year’s fire had burned hot. The tree holding the trail signs had been torched – its charred trunk lay on the ground, and the trail signs had apparently burned to ashes. I’d often stopped at this saddle for a shaded lunch or a few minutes’ rest, but it was a bleak place now.
Beyond the saddle was a bowl that had been turned into a chaos of fallen logs by the 2013 fire, and these logs had clearly provided fuel for this year’s fire. Now that those logs had burned, along with the new growth of shrubs, this year’s wet monsoon was quickly eroding the bare soil and washing it downstream.
Below the bowl is a narrow canyon, whose forest had been partly killed by the older fire. This year’s fire had killed all the rest, and this summer’s rains were alternately flooding the creek with debris and cutting it into deep gorges.
The trail through this canyon had been cleared of logs just last fall – 8 years after the 2013 fire – and now it was rapidly being eroded away. As usual, it was only my past familiarity that enabled me to follow it. Slowed down by all the fire damage, I only made it to the second saddle – a mile short of my destination. The rain had finally stopped, and despite frequent thunder from surrounding storms, I could pack away the poncho for the rest of the hike.
The rain had chilled the air here between 8,000′ and 10,000′, so I could climb the 1,400′ back to the peak without much sweating, which was a relief from the heat and humidity of so many recent hikes. And as usual on crest hikes, there were no flies bothering me!
The long descent gave me an opportunity to watch storms developing far away across the landscape, as well as to appreciate flowers and fungi I’d missed on the way up. Just below the peak, I surprised a small hawk from the slope just above the trail. It first thought to perch on a seedling right in front of me, then decided it was too close and soared away to a much farther branch, so I couldn’t get a good picture.
The work of my hikes seldom ends when I reach the vehicle. During a wet monsoon, or in winter snow, my gear gets soaked and filthy. I can’t relax back home until it’s stashed somewhere for next morning’s cleanup, and the next day begins with a cleaning session for hat, boots, pants, poncho, etc.
Monday, October 17th, 2022: Black Range, Hikes, Hillsboro, Southwest New Mexico.
The world changes around us, and we must adapt. I’ve lost most of my high-elevation hikes to flood damage and debris in their canyon approaches, and I’m still not sure what to do about it.
This Sunday arrived with a forecast of rain all day, for the entire region. I considered postponing my hike and staying home – the vast majority of hikers avoid “bad” weather – but rain was forecast for Monday as well. And one of my main goals has always been to experience habitats in all conditions.
With the need to avoid flooded creek crossings, there was really only one remaining option – the crest trail east of town. I’d last hiked it less than two months ago, in late August – the trail had just been reopened after this year’s big wildfire, which had burned patches on the peak and destroyed my favorite fir trees. I wasn’t looking forward to returning, because overgrowth and fire damage had slowed me down then, and I expected conditions to be even worse now after much more monsoon rain.
Resigned to a day of frustration, I pulled on my waterproof pants and boots, and packed cool-weather accessories – the temperature was in the high 40s.
The sky was clear over town, but when I drove through the low pass into the eastern river valley, getting my first view of the mountains, I saw that most of the crest ahead was blanketed by clouds. And nearing the top of the narrow, winding road, I entered the cloud layer, and the slopes around me disappeared.
This trail takes more than 5 miles to climb the 2,000 vertical feet to the 10,000′ peak, so the grade is mostly gentle, and for some reason I had a lot of energy and moved fast for the first 3 miles. This is normally a trail with continuous views far across the landscape to east and west, but today visibility ranged from 200′ to only 50′. I was all socked in.
Then my energy crashed, my legs seemed to lose all their strength and I suddenly felt exhausted. My fingers got chilled – Raynaud’s syndrome – so I pulled on wool gloves and stuck my hands in my pockets until they warmed. I’d been walking in a cloud all the way, and in the last mile before the peak, a light rain began to fall.
The rain only lasted about 15 minutes, and as I crossed to the back side of the peak, the clouds receded over me and I spotted tiny patches of blue above.
I’d seen horse poop on the way up, and their hooves had punched postholes in the wet dirt of the trail on the backside, making for tricky footing. Despite the wishful thinking of the Feds, horses and hikers are generally not compatible trail users.
In the big burn scar from the 2013 fire, on the western slope of the peak, I got my first view to the west, and could see storms developing and clouds flowing from canyon to canyon in the direction I was headed. And I discovered that the horsemen who’d made the trail harder to walk had cleared most of the thorny locust where the trail passes through thickets. So I was able to proceed faster than expected. Maybe I’d get to the rock formations, halfway to the far junction saddle?
Before I knew it, I was at the little saddle at the western base of the peak, where the trail marker tree had burned down.
At this first junction saddle, the horsemen had stopped and turned back, but after crossing the deeply eroded basin below, I found that another hiker had added tread to the trail down the narrow canyon since my August visit, so it was a little easier going.
I’d been walking downhill for over a mile now, and my energy had returned. And so had the rain, this time harder and longer. Making good time, I continued past the little saddle where I’d turned back in August, where the trail leaves the narrow canyon and passes to the west side of the crest. And since the trail gets better there, I shortly reached the first of the two rock formations. Would I actually make it to the next junction saddle?
The rain slacked off, and the hike seemed to go faster than ever before. I came to the long descending traverse, a corridor through Gambel oak, that leads to the saddle, and found a continuous trail of fresh bear scat, literally dozens of piles lined up in a row. I came upon a flock of band-tailed pigeons, flapping through the canopy, a hundred yards from where I’d first encountered these birds more than a decade ago. They’re hard to miss because their wings make a lot of noise. Then I suddenly emerged into the saddle, so smothered by the cloud I could barely see the forest on the other side.
More firs had been killed here by this year’s wildfire, and this saddle was no place to linger. But what a hike! I’d gone at least 9 miles – by the end of the day, I would’ve covered more than 18 miles and 4,500 vertical feet, far more than expected. And in the chill and the damp, my gear was working – I was warm and dry. Despite not being able to see out of the forest, I was feeling pretty happy about the way things were going.
On the way back up the narrow canyon, rain started again, harder than before, and this time it lasted all the way to the peak, more than an hour, as thunder crashed off to the west.
Approaching the peak, I developed a sharp pain in my right knee. It’s strange – for a decade, I had sporadic tendonitis in my left knee – that’s why I have multiple knee braces. But now, for some reason, it’s shifted to the right knee. Maybe it has something to do with the chronic inflammation in the left foot and the right hip. Ah, the joys of aging with an active lifestyle!
I toughed it out for another mile going downhill, then finally stopped to strap on my brace. But the brace didn’t help, so after another half mile of limping, I took a pain pill. That did nothing for the pain, but made me feel good in general, so I could ignore the pain, which is sometimes the way it works. Trying to discourage abuse, doctors often claim that pain meds don’t work, but the fact is that they help immeasurably even when they don’t eliminate the pain.
During the last two miles, it started raining again, this time harder than ever. It would continue for the next two hours, becoming a torrential downpour on the drive home.
It was getting really cold and I donned my storm shell under the rain parka, and my thermal cap under the hood. Here above 9,000′, after a day up in the clouds being rained on for hours – conditions most hikers would avoid like the plague – I was warm, dry, and despite the sharp pain in my knee, feeling great. Not even the low visibility could dampen my mood – I’d actually come to enjoy being socked in, surrounded by the gently flowing cloud blankets. Like the walls of a house, they temporarily obliterated the endless outer landscape, and I’d spent most of the day walking through interior spaces that felt intimate and, despite the storms, comforting.
Monday, July 10th, 2023: Animals, Black Range, Hikes, Hillsboro, Nature, Southwest New Mexico.
We’re having the kind of weather we have if the monsoon doesn’t start on time – highs in the mid-90s in town. In the past, it would drop into the 60s overnight, I’d run the swamp cooler to fill the house with that cool air, and the interior would never get above the mid-70s.
Now, it’s only dropping to the low 70s overnight. It’s too humid inside for the swamp cooler to work. The interior of my house gets up to 90 in the evening and never drops below 80. On today’s hike, I was really looking forward to getting above 8,000 feet.
But first, I had to chase these deer out of my backyard, where they threaten my apple and pear trees.
When I reached the pass at 8,200 feet, it was clear, sunny, still, and hot. The Rio Grande Valley to the east lay under heat haze. This is the old familiar trail that follows the crest to a 10,000 foot peak in 5-1/2 miles; I sweated during the long traverses and relished a light breeze when crossing saddles. Finally, after about three miles, I reached the relief of the shaded mixed-conifer forest.
I’d been missing birds on recent hikes. Sure, I’d always see jays, ravens, and vultures. But this has always been the best place to see birds, and today there were a lot of different kinds active on the crest, from flocks of bushtits in the understory to woodpeckers squabbling over tree trunks in the canopy.
After I crossed over the peak and started down through the alpine meadows of the back side, through the burn scar of last year’s mega-wildfire, I began encountering the pollinators. They seemed to be loving this hot, still weather, they were swarming tiny, dull-looking flowers we’d normally ignore, and in the windless quiet the buzzing of the bees could be heard from far away.
No one had been down the crest trail past the peak since my last hike here in October of last year. The trail, which had been cleared last year, was now almost completely obliterated, from post-fire erosion, blowdown, and overgrowth. I was only able to follow it because I know it so well.
As usual, I was hoping to continue the full nine miles to the junction saddle, but I was stopped at seven miles by blowdown in a spot where I knew the overgrowth would keep getting worse.
I was okay with turning back at this point; even truncated, this would be my most challenging hike since the first week of May, with 14 miles round-trip and over 3,200 feet of elevation gain. And I was mesmerized by the swarm of bees on a shrubby, dull-green annual that surrounded me on this hillside stopping point.
So I started paying more attention to flowers and pollinators, and all the way back up to the peak, I kept stopping to watch them at work. I literally had to tear myself away from each little patch of flowers along the trail.
Some of these photos are like those puzzle pictures that challenge you to find all the hidden objects. Can you find all the pollinators?
I’d been praying for rain all day, and storm clouds had gradually been gathering, finally producing thunder, breezes, cooler temps, and a few drops here and there. It was perfectly timed to keep me cool on the last three miles of exposed crest.
I drove through some heavy rain on the way home, and my house cooled down a few degrees more overnight. Hopefully we’ll get more monsoon weather this week!
