Thickets & Thorns

On the following Sunday, I set out for my favorite high-elevation hike, an hour’s drive west of town. My foot and knee felt fine at that point, and I was even more excited than usual about hitting the trail.

I was a little surprised to find the trailhead occupied, with a family all decked out in identical camouflage outfits milling around their SUV. As I got out, I yelled, “You guys going hunting?”

The father came over, wearing a midsize pack with a rifle pointing out of the top. He looked to be in his early 40’s, tall and strikingly handsome, and when he spoke, he immediately reminded me of the charismatic, good-looking Jewish intellectuals from the East Coast that had so intimidated me during my university years at the University of Chicago and Stanford. But he said they were from Cliff, the rural community that’s ground zero for the Cowboys for Trump movement!

He was super friendly, saying his son had a bear tag and they were headed for the “top” to glass for bear. “Holt Mountain?” I asked.

“Oh, no, we’re not going very far, just to where we can get a good view.”

“The Johnson Cabin trail?”

“I don’t know, where are you headed?”

“Holt Mountain, that’s why I asked.”

“No, no, we won’t be anywhere near you.”

I was left with lots of questions, but had no business prying. His kids looked to be no older than 10 – do they really issue bear tags to kids that young? And what was this suave, urbane guy doing in Cliff, and hunting predators, a practice I normally associate with arrogant assholes?

I always come prepared to hit the trail immediately after arriving, but as a family it was taking them forever to get ready, so I left them there and headed out.

Already, during the first half mile, everything felt very different. It was a cool fall day with clear skies, so that was nice, but my body felt better than ever. It felt like I’d developed hiking super powers. This is a long, hard trail with steep grades beginning about halfway, but I powered up every one of them without needing to rest. What had happened? I’d been hiking less during the past two months than at any time in the past two years, but here I was in better shape than ever.

Not needing to stop to catch my breath, I reached the little clearing at the bottom of the switchbacks almost an hour earlier than usual. I wasn’t conscious of hiking faster than usual, but obviously I was.

Then, on the long, steep traverse that is always the hardest part, I just walked steadily up it for the first time, whereas in the past, I’d always had to stop 3 or 4 times to catch my breath.

I reached the crest at 9,500′ an hour and a half ahead of time. During the past week, a friend from Santa Fe had said that his family was planning a hike to see aspens in their fall colors, and as I rounded a shoulder of this peak and saw the saddle up ahead, I realized that since I hike in aspens almost every week, their fall color isn’t all I get to see. Most busy city people only venture into nature to witness popular spectacles they discover through news media, like “superblooms” and “supermoons,” whereas I get to discover dozens of equally interesting and beautiful, but lesser known, seasonal phenomena all throughout the year.

The little grove of aspens in the saddle was blazing red and gold, but they were all small trees because they were part of early succession after the massive 2012 wildfire in these mountains. From up there, I could see bands of color striating distant peaks – all of them small trees in dense fire-recovery stands. Nothing like the towering, mature groves we used to admire in the High Sierra of California. In fact, since I moved to New Mexico and began hiking wildfire scars, I’ve come to see aspens not as beautiful members of mature forests, but as scrubby thickets colonizing burn areas. On these slopes, they alternated with the deeper red of maples as well as rust-colored oaks and ferns. The brown of the ferns actually covers the broadest expanse of these fire scars, and is attractive in its own right.

But it wasn’t just trees. From the beginning of my hike, deep in the canyon bottom, I’d been surrounded by fall color: flaming sumacs, golden oaks, burgundy poison ivy, rust-colored ferns, and a myriad of shrubs and tiny ground cover plants that created a mosaic of color, making even the predominant green seem more vibrant.

Since I’d reached the crest so early, and still felt so good, I hiked down the other side, planning to go much farther than usual. This trail already offers the most elevation gain of any, so I was really stoked. It actually continues all the way to the crest trail of the central range, for a total of 19 miles one-way – the rest of the trail is only used by backpackers. I was curious to see how far I would get, especially since the rest of the trail is choked with fallen logs and thorn scrub, including the nasty New Mexico locust.

It got harder and harder the farther I went, and only my new hiking super powers kept me going. The trail actually got more interesting, too, with more exposed rock and new views, but eventually I realized I’d better turn back if I wanted to get home before dark. Taking off my pack to log my position via GPS, I noticed the bandana I’d tied on to dry had been dragged off somewhere by thorns. It’s a nice one printed with the constellations so I hated to lose it, but on my return, I found it on the trail, back near the crest saddle.

White-tailed deer were everywhere, and red-tailed hawks soared through the tall firs and wheeled around summits. The hunting dad had mentioned a fire over in the Blue Range primitive area, to the northwest, and after returning to my vehicle and driving down out of the foothills, I could see the long plume and then a billowing cloud rising above the tallest peak of the range, dozens of miles away. When will this fire season ever end?