Monday, February 3rd, 2025
Saturday, August 30th, 2025: Hikes, Nature, Pinos Altos Range, Rocks, Southwest New Mexico.
This one’s for my mom. Just a stroll through a nearby canyon that’s normally one of our wettest places year-round, but is now bone dry, late in monsoon season.
Monday, September 1st, 2025: Hikes, Mineral, Nature, Rocks, Southwest New Mexico.
I invited my neighbor along for this short hike in one of our most spectacular canyons. We seem to be entering another active phase of our Southwest monsoon, and impressive clouds were spreading over the high mountains as we drove north. But the creek, normally running, was mostly dry.
I only went about a mile up canyon, and by the time I was halfway back the sky was pretty threatening. We both welcomed the rain, but this narrow stretch of canyon wouldn’t offer many escape routes during a flash flood.
The rain hit as we walked from the vehicle to the cafe for lunch, and continued steady all the way home – one of our best rains this season.
Alcoves, Rock Outcrops, Nooks, and Crannies
Sunday, September 7th, 2025: Black Range, Hikes, North Star, Southwest New Mexico.
Our weather’s getting cooler – at least for now – but it still wasn’t cool enough for low elevation hiking. And since my knee is still (hopefully) recovering, I needed a level hike – which are hard to find at cooler elevations. But to narrow my choices even more, I wanted a decent lunch spot somewhere along the way. I’d already done the northwestern option last Sunday, and the northeastern option offered a couple of untried lunch spots that didn’t excite me at all.
But looking at the map again, I realized the northeast route offered the possibility of a shady canyon hike at over 7,000 feet, accessed via one of our most iconic backcountry roads. The map shows a trail running less than a mile down the canyon, but I figured I could keep walking to get my mile in. The Forest Service has a web page for that trail mentioning “alcoves, rock outcrops, nooks, and crannies”, but all I was interested in was the elevation and shade.
Not a cloud in the sky as far as the eye could see. But I was encouraged to find the river running – and actually in moderate flood. Amazing that in town we can still be in severe drought, while only thirty miles east they’re having a sustained wet monsoon.
Leaving the highway and climbing to the mesa, I found abundant wildflowers and lush grassy slopes all around, and actually began to get excited about the coming hike, despite the boring sky. This road starts out well-graded gravel, but as it dips into canyons it gets rockier – and it’s popular, so you gotta watch those blind curves and be ready for big pickups going too fast and tourists going too slow.
I parked in the tiny campground in the dark, narrow canyon that had seen a lot of debris after past wildfires. I saw a couple other vehicles back in the trees, but no people. The campground track had once crossed the now-dry creek, but floods had made it undrivable. There was no trailhead so I just followed what was left of the vehicle track until it ended and I found a trail sign.
Taking flower photos slowed me down a lot. I came to a spot where the creek held a little water in bedrock, then reached a cairn where the trail began climbing. I checked my map and found this should be the spot where the canyon trail branches off. But there was no tread through the new growth of annuals, so I just started finding my way down the banks of the creek.
Within a hundred yards or so I found the barest vestige of a trail – maybe just a game trail. It soon petered out, but short stretches would reappear at random. No worries, I’m pretty good at find the best route, and I couldn’t go wrong in this narrow canyon.
I saw some rock bluffs along the dry creek, and a formation on a slope above, but after a half hour I still hadn’t reached the “alcoves” etc.
Finally I saw something off through the trees that might be an alcove. And from there on, the slopes on both sides of the canyon became rockier and rockier, until I came to a narrows with an overhanging rock wall.
This is where the party began! I laughed, remembering how I had disregarded the name “Rocky Canyon”, thinking it would just offer mild temps. Little did I know it would turn out to be one of the most spectacular short hikes in our entire region.
Of course, the rocks were still mostly hidden behind trees, and up slopes that were a struggle in my knee brace. But even the canyon bottom was a beautiful, magical place.
No trail in this narrow, rock-walled stretch of canyon – I mostly stepped precariously from boulder to boulder in the creekbed, protecting my knee as best I could.
I’d spent more than an hour so far, on what was intended to be a one-mile out-hike, but I had to keep going until I ran out of rocks. In the end, it took me an hour and a half, and when I checked the map I found I’d hiked almost two miles and dropped over 400 vertical feet. No matter, I was in heaven – and the weather was perfect. I even had a breeze.
With less stops for photos, it only took me an hour to get back to the campground. Looking up, I spotted a few clouds through gaps in the canopy. The last remaining camper was just leaving, but others were arriving in a huge pickup.
Monsoon clouds were beginning to fill the sky as I drove up onto the mesa and headed back toward the highway. I had a late lunch at the less boring of the two untried spots – I was the only customer, not a good sign. But the huevos rancheros were actually pretty good, so I’ll be back.
