Old Reliable
Monday, September 4th, 2023: Hikes, Pinos Altos Range, Southwest New Mexico.
I didn’t feel like driving this Sunday, but the day was forecast to be hot and I wanted to keep working on my conditioning. There was really only one option near town, the eighteen-mile crest hike that utilizes part of the national trail. It’s not wilderness, it’s close enough to town that I often meet casual hikers near the lower and upper trailheads, and cattle occasionally use the upper part, but it allows me to achieve serious mileage and elevation on a reliable trail. And even though it’s not wilderness, it proves how healthy our mountain habitat is in general, compared to public lands near urban areas.
The approach is on a sporadically maintained primitive forest road up a narrow canyon. There were two other vehicles at the trailhead, but the only track I found on the road, and on the upper trail, was from a single mountain bike. The upper trail is so steep and rocky I assumed the biker took the gravel fire road to the crest from the opposite side, and rode down this canyon segment.
The habitat along most of this trail is lush even in a drought, but we’d gotten enough rain recently that wildlife was really thriving. Heading down though dense regrowth past the shoulder of the 9,000 foot summit, I noticed a hummingbird working the flowers ahead and froze where I was. The bird also stopped, to perch on a low branch beside the trail. I waited several minutes, then slowly moved a couple yards closer and froze again. I kept moving closer in stages like this until I was literally only a yard away, and the hummingbird – probably a female broad-tailed – hung in there, staring back at me with what appeared to be curiosity.
That experience was so cool that I kept stopping in flower-dense areas during the rest of the hike, hoping pollinators would ignore me and approach. It generally worked, but I was paying so much attention to what was happening above the trail that I slipped on a rock and tweaked my ankle at one point. My reinforced boots allowed me to keep hiking, but it was swollen and sore the next day.
The lower part of the trail is mostly shaded, but burn scars and scattered clouds along the crest meant that I was moving between hot sun and chilly shade for most of the day.
The last two-and-a-half miles are very seldom used, running just below the crest through wildfire burn scar and remnant forest on a steep and rocky slope. I heard whooping and hollering behind me, and the grinding of tires on gravel, and was glad the mountain bikers were sticking to the fire road on the north side of the ridge.
There’s always at least one hawk working this slope, and today there were three, along with many other birds closer to ground. But finally, I heard tires behind me, and scrambled to find a place to safely get off the trail on this steep slope.
It was a group of three mountain bikers, the first of a convoy of twelve. The leader, the oldest, stopped to placate me, warning about the others to follow and wishing me “peace and tranquillity”. He said they were riding to honor the race which had been cancelled this year – a downhill race where they get a permit to close off one of our most popular trails, and competitors bomb down in full body armor on $10,000 bikes.
The other riders were spread out over a half mile, and from then on I kept having to quickly find a safe place to step off the trail so they could pass. The last group was a duo, and the young female rider lost her balance on a loose rock so I had to wait patiently while she figured out how to get going again.
Riding high on their machines, they were obliviously disrupting all the wildlife I’d been enjoying in my frequent stops. Our natural habitats were just a colorful backdrop for their adrenaline sport.
When I reached the “park”, the shallow natural basin at the end, I stretched out on pine needles in the shade and rested for a full half hour before heading back. The next day, lying on the sofa with an ice pack, I found myself wondering how much longer I can keep doing these punishing marathons!
Eighteen miles is a long hike, even on a good trail, and I was getting pretty sore by the time I reached the shoulder of the peak. That’s an important milestone because it’s all downhill from there.
And by the time I reached the trail crossing four miles from the end, I was limping. I collected some trash left by hikers or bikers during the day, and I finally took a pain pill to get me through the last two miles on the canyon road.
