Thursday, January 29th, 2026
Monday, February 9th, 2026: Black Range, Hikes, Sawyers, Southwest New Mexico.
My new physical therapist, trying to treat my right knee, gave me a new exercise that instead, triggered pain in my left foot. The left foot condition was diagnosed 9 years ago by my San Francisco foot doctor, a national authority on biomechanics, and the nonsurgical treatment required 18 months of twice daily ultrasound. Since then, I’ve been able to control two or three minor flareups with something called contrast bathing, which is even more inconvenient than the ultrasound.
So for the past two weeks, I’ve been doing both the twice daily contrast bathing for the left foot, and three times daily icing on my right inner ankle bone. But on Sunday morning, getting dressed for another hike, I discovered that as soon as I put my boot on, the ankle bone hurts just as much as before.
I spent another half hour experimenting with padding. Finally, in desperation, I tried attaching one of the “beveled” metatarsal pads I use for the left foot, just below the ankle bone. And miraculously, that worked – apparently it’s the lower edge of the ankle bone that’s suddenly become a pressure point, and the pad holds the boot lining away and absorbs most of the pressure.
Today’s hike would be one that’s been on my list for months – just the right distance and elevation gain. I’ve been avoiding it because the drive is dangerous, the habitat is almost exclusively burn scar, and the last time I tried it I gave up because it was overgrown with thorny locust.
But that was years ago, and I figured by now, it would’ve either been cleared or seen enough traffic to beat back the thorns.
The sky was mostly clear, and the high in town was forecast to reach the mid-60s. So despite the high elevation – this hike climbs a peak, from 8,200 to 9,700 feet – I expected most of the snow we’d had weeks ago to be melted by now, especially in the exposed ground of a burn scar. I carried my gaiters and trekking poles but didn’t expect much trouble.
Sadly, I was wrong. Like many trails in the Southwest, this is routed mostly on north and east slopes to reduce solar heating, and most of the trail was snow-covered, up to 16 inches deep. And making it much worse, someone or something had walked the trail shortly after the last big storm, punching deep holes at intervals longer than my own footsteps. And adding insult to that injury, the snow had then melted and frozen repeatedly. Each step I took would either land on rigid snow, or snow that would compress a few inches, or snow that would collapse a foot or more, and there was no way to anticipate without taking the step. In the process, my foot might sink directly down, or slide forwards, backwards, or sideways, and sometimes end up tilted, throwing me further off balance.
For the first few hundred yards the snow was only a few inches deep and packed by a confusion of tracks, but after that, it was only Bigfoot, with a stride length of a meter – more than a yard. What human can stride like that in deep snow? The only animal out here that approaches that stride is a bull elk, with from two to three feet between tracks – and this was longer than that. What are the chances that an elk would stick to a man-made trail, back and forth across the crest, for three miles? And I saw no elk droppings all day.
I immediately thought about giving up on this hike, but as usual, figured I would just try it and see how far I got. The trail begins in the high pass on the crest of the north-south range, and proceeds for more than a mile in long traverses up a bleak northwest-facing canyon on the west side.
When I reached the crossover to the shadier east side of the crest, the patches of snow became deeper, and I strapped on the gaiters and broke out the trekking poles, hoping they would improve my balance as I lurched across the sometimes frozen, sometimes soft snow between deep holes punched by Bigfoot. The view from the east side – across rocky foothills and the Rio Grande Valley to 12,000 foot Sierra Blanca Peak over a hundred miles away in the Sacramento Mountains – would be spectacular except for the skeletons of pines and firs killed by the 2013 wildfire.
Two-thirds of a mile farther, I reached a saddle which reminded me of previous hikes on this, the southern extension of the crest trail. I’ve hiked over 17 miles of the northern crest, but since the 2013 fire, this southern part has only been cleared for the three miles to the saddle below the peak. Back in 2020, I tried bushwhacking farther south, but only made it a little over a mile, where the old trail disappeared under an obstacle course of blowdown and deadfall.
On that 2020 hike, I encountered four bull elk with huge racks and a group of six mule deer bucks, likewise with nice horns. Then, while bushwhacking to what I thought was the peak, I was caught in a hailstorm with lightning striking all around me. Finally, at this very saddle, I discovered a lost dog, abandoned by its owner, a dog so depressed that even after I offered it food and water and tried to lead it by a nylon strap I carry in my pack, it refused to leave the saddle and I had to leave it behind, presumably to be eaten by a mountain lion.
At the next saddle, the trail crosses to the west side and passes through remnants of intact forest. Even there, patches of snow with holes punched by Bigfoot kept slowing me down. But now, I could glimpse the peak looming hundreds of feet above, so I was no longer likely to give up.
At a saddle just below the peak, the trail crosses to the east side again, but here, Bigfoot continued straight up the steep slope. I’d done that before, there was no way I was going to try it in snow that was now over a foot deep. So I followed what I thought was the trail, beckoned by the tracks of a lone deer. I was halfway across the traverse to the next saddle when I realized the deer had led me off the actual trail, and I would now have to pick my way through deadfall to the back side of the peak, where the slope is gentler.
I finally found myself above the little saddle on the south side of the peak, where I normally start my bushwhack upwards. Although the south slope is gentler, it was burned in the fire and is becoming crisscrossed with more and more deadfall every year as giant pine and fir snags continue to topple.
I started to make my way across it, but every glance upward was more discouraging. I finally stopped and decided to give up on the peak – at least for a few minutes. But how could the masochist in me turn back when my goal was so close?
The horizontal distance is only a few hundred yards. But climbing over or around those huge fallen logs seems to take forever – and just when you think you’re approaching the peak, it turns out only to be an outlying shoulder or false peak.
When I finally saw a bald mound above me, I felt like something was wrong. The peak I’d climbed several times in the past was surrounded by a dead forest of standing snags that blocked its view, whereas this peak was completely clear all around.
I finally realized that what I thought was the peak in the past, was only a false peak a hundred yards east. How could I have made such a mistake, over and over? Anyway, it was nice to have my labors rewarded with a view.
Of course, going the distance meant I’d have to repeat that struggle with snow postholed by Bigfoot on the way down. I kept using the trekking poles, although it was a toss-up whether they helped or hindered, because they had the same problem as my boots – either hitting rigid snow, or sinking part or all the way. And when they sank all the way into the snow, they often snagged and yanked me further off balance. And they constantly got caught in the thorny locust that leaned over most parts of the trail.
My right knee, that had set my hiking back for two years, was finally doing well. And the right ankle that had been so excruciating during recent weeks, was now merely uncomfortable. But as if to compensate, the left foot was getting worse and was now becoming my limiting factor. Contrast bathing had not reduced the inflammation enough – would I have to repeat the ultrasound and give up hiking for another 18 months? Might as well just put me out of my misery.
When I reached the last crossover from east to west, the sun was rapidly setting and it was clear this seven-mile hike would end up taking me a full seven hours, due to the uneven snow. This is one of the worst hikes I could’ve picked at this point in my “recovery”. But as usual, the late-afternoon sun and colors on the landscape were beautiful, and a couple of pain pills helped salvage my attitude.
Sunday, February 15th, 2026: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
This Sunday’s hike needed to be nearby, and there are only three hikes near town that offer significant distance and elevation gain. All of them are forested, and only one has a distinctive destination – a peak – so that’s the one I planned to do. But it shares trailheads with a long ridge hike with better views, so at the last minute I set off on the ridge hike instead.
The full hike is over six miles one-way, ending at a “lake” at the west end of the ridge, which is really just a large stock pond. The first mile or so sees regular traffic, but despite being close to town, it hasn’t been regularly maintained, and blowdown and overgrowth have made this trail nearly impassable at times. Sometimes in the past I’ve been the first hiker in months or even years to go halfway, let alone reach the lake.
One attraction of this trail is that it mostly traverses the steep north slope, with views north over our vast wilderness. And in 2020, a wildfire killed much of that forest, improving the views. The last time I hiked all the way to the lake was three months after the fire, when I found an expensive pistol that someone had left under a pine on the shore.
Today, with my sore left foot, I was only hoping to reach the plateau at the halfway point – the high point of the ridge at a little over 8,600 feet – for an out-and-back distance of seven or eight miles. The sky was partly cloudy and the high in town was forecast in the mid-50s.
I was prepared for snow and should’ve expected it on that steep north slope, but I’d really hoped for an easier hike than last Sunday. When I did reach the first snow after the initial climb to ridge top, it was only a couple inches deep and had been tracked by a small woman and her huge dog since our last storm, a few days ago.
The next complication I should’ve anticipated was the deadfall. This long after the fire, dead trees of all sizes were constantly falling across the trail, many with their branches intact.
A hundred yards in, where the snow got deeper, the woman and the dog had turned back. Past there, the deeper snow, laid down in January, had been tracked by one bigger hiker, then their tracks had been smoothed by last week’s additional snowfall. Since much of the trail is in perpetual shade, the surface was packed and walkable in the morning, but I knew that on my return in the afternoon much of it would’ve melted and be trickier.
So even before reaching the first stretch of snow, I stopped to strap on my gaiters and assemble my trekking poles. The poles helped with the snow but were a handicap climbing past the deadfall.
As the ridgetop rises and falls, the trail occasionally crests in a saddle, and each saddle was swept by a cold wind from the southwest that dropped the effective temperature into the teens. I wore wool gloves at all times.
The north slope traverse zigzags continually out and back, and finally after about two-and-a-half miles I rounded the last shoulder before the steep grade to the high plateau. Here, the snow was up to 14 inches deep, and I could see that the hiker who’d laid tracks before last week’s storm had also been using trekking poles.
As expected, the plateau, with its parklike ponderosa pine forest, is exposed enough to be snow-free by now. But it’s also windy enough to get constant blowdown. Despite a little annual overgrowth that obscured the already faint tread in many places, I remembered it well and was able to reach the west end, where the trail drops precipitously toward the next saddle.
I was aiming for a tiny saddle just below the plateau that has a nice view west. By the time I reached that view, I’d climbed over, under, through, or around 50 fallen trees in 2-1/2 miles – nothing compared to the 500 per mile on the crest trail of our high mountains. But worth considering for those planning to hike forested mountains in this new fire regime!
Sure enough, much of the snow on the north slope had melted by my afternoon return, so that although it was easier going downhill, it was almost as slow as the morning’s ascent. The sun did come out, enhancing the view and the contrast of drought-killed vs intact pines in the forest below.
Past the final snow patch, rounding the last shoulder at the east end of the ridge, I came upon a male spotted towhee in a little trailside tree, doing his mating display of wing flapping and tail spreading. And I got my last view of the high range to the east.
It ended up taking me 7 hours to go 8 miles, and my foot was hurting even more than last Sunday. I wondered if I would need another 18 months of twice-daily ultrasound treatments like in 2017 and 2018….
Monday, February 23rd, 2026: Hikes, Mogollon, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
Last week I drove to Tucson to get a second opinion on the shoulder pain that’s been waking me up throughout the night for the past two years, and to resume the physical therapy I started there in December.
The second opinion will require a minimum of two follow-up visits. And the result of this first visit is that my shoulder hurts more than ever, because the drive itself is hard on the shoulder, and physical therapy has always made the pain worse.
The past two Sunday hikes have also re-triggered the chronic inflammation in my left foot. With the shoulder in the foreground, I tried to ignore the foot pain. Today – in denial yet again – I decided to do a rocky hike that’s always been hard on the feet. It starts out easy enough, heading up a long valley toward the foot of the mountains, but then it climbs a set of rocky switchbacks to a saddle, where you enter another watershed hidden from the outside and traverse the back of the ridge toward a big canyon. I’d avoided this hike for almost three years, so my memory was rusty and I just focused on the positives: that view of the interior, and the pine park which would be today’s destination.
As usual this winter, the sky was mostly clear and the high in town was forecast to reach the upper 50s. Snow still lingers above 9,000, even on some south slopes of our high mountains, but today I would mostly keep below 7,000 feet.
You have to ford the big creek to reach the trailhead, and it was flowing pretty strong from snowmelt in the interior, almost reaching the undercarriage of my recently lifted Sidekick.
The first half of the trail, up the long valley, is completely different from the trail shown on every available map. This turned out to be important because it made my hike a mile-and-a-half longer than expected.
There were two other vehicles at the trailhead, which is remote and unpopular: a big pickup carrying an ATV, and a Subaru station wagon from Utah. I was impressed the Subaru had made it across the creek.
At the head of the valley you pass over a scenic rock dam and begin the first set of switchbacks, which seems endless. My foot seemed to be doing okay here. The switchbacks were decorated with frequent pink ribbons, which I assumed had been left recently by the Backcountry Horsemen, who have the permit for trail work. Their horses had left plenty of shit on the trail, probably from last fall, but I couldn’t figure out what the ribbons were for – they seemed completely random. As far as I’m concerned the trail needs no more work than they’d already done years ago, but the equestrians love to cut trees, cacti, agave, yuccas and nolinas way back from the trail. I even found spots where they’d hacked manzanita as much as eight feet off-trail.
The wire gate across the saddle was closed, but the ground inside it was all dug up by cattle – something I couldn’t remember ever finding here.
The traverse to the pine park also seems endless, and the farther I went, the more the trail was dug up by cattle. This east-facing slope holds a lot of moisture, so every time the trail cut back into a drainage, it got really muddy. I was frankly getting pissed.
Nearing the pine park, which is a level plateau, I came upon a guy with an off-leash dog – a violation of forest regs. I started bitching to him about the cattle, and he said he’d seen a “whole bunch” up on the plateau, around a pond that was holding water now. I assumed by a “whole bunch” he meant at least 8-12, and was even more surprised. I wondered if these cattle had drifted over through a gate left open by ignorant hikers, then become trapped over here behind the fence.
The stranger was carrying field glasses and a tripod and said he’d camped there overnight, scouting for deer pending a return in the fall to hunt. He said he’d only seen a couple does, and I said I couldn’t remember seeing deer on this side of the big canyon.
The pond is at the far upper end of the forested plateau, so I fortunately never even saw the cattle. I love this spot, and stretched out on a bed of pine needles for a brief rest in the sun.
But I was frankly feeling kinda sick – unusually fatigued, sporadically dizzy, mildly nauseous. Dreading the return hike, I cut my rest short and unfolded the trekking poles to hopefully reduce the impact on my sore foot.
But by the time I reached the saddle between the interior and exterior of the mountains, not only was my foot hurting, but I realized the trekking poles are hard on my shoulder. So I downed the first pain pill of the day.
Those endless switchbacks are so much harder on the way down! By the time I reached the little plateau below the rock dam, facing another two miles with the sun setting, I couldn’t believe the punishment I’d gotten myself into.
At that point, the only things I had to look forward to were the landscape colors highlighted by the setting sun, and the large covey of quail that’s always flushed from the grassy slope I traverse nearing the low point of the valley.
It’s a pretty drive out at sunset, but nothing could compensate for the pain that kept me awake most of the night, and the depression of realizing I’m simply going to have to give up hiking. It will take months to overcome that foot pain – maybe even a trip to the podiatrist in the Bay Area, and more ultrasound treatment. And that’s not even the priority – the shoulder comes first, and that will take months by itself. I always knew I’d have to give up hiking at some point, but I never believed it would come this early. I just have to be grateful for the sedentary passions that remain – music, art, and writing.
