Crazy or Suicidal?
Monday, March 25th, 2024: Hikes, Peloncillos, Southwest New Mexico.
The high elevations were still blocked by snow, so I remained in search of lower-elevation hikes. Driving back from Arizona last week, I’d again wondered about the interesting-looking but unexplored mountains I was passing. Years ago I’d researched them online and concluded they were surrounded by private land, inaccessible behind ranchers’ locked gates. Also, I was trying to maximize both distance and elevation gain in my Sunday hikes, which could only be achieved in the high mountains protected within national forests. But since then I’d found a couple of trip reports from people who’d actually been able to hike in some of those “unprotected” ranges.
So during the past week, I’d spent some time digging deeper online, and found ways to access nearly all those unexplored mountains, all of which were low enough to be snow-free. I picked the nearest one to experiment with first.
I always check the weather forecast for the entire region the night before, and this time, I concluded there might be a little rain in the higher elevations in early morning. I’ve never been so far off with my expectations!
The temperature was in the mid-30s when I left home at 8 am, but by the time I crossed town sleet was falling, and as soon as I hit the highway south I was in a blizzard of sleet which began piling up on the road. The temperature would continue to drop throughout the day. I pulled over and shifted into high-range 4wd, but whenever I tested for traction I found 45 mph was my safe limit.
These conditions continued through the mountains south of town, and even when I reached the vast valley beyond, dropping from to nearly 4,000 feet elevation, the storm ended but visibility remained limited to about five miles.
My main source of information on these unexplored mountains turned out to be a website for “peakbaggers” – an obsessive and competitive subculture similar to birders, whose goal is to add as many hilltops as possible to their life lists, while mostly ignoring the rocks, habitats, and wildlife they’re passing on the way.
Whereas hikers’ websites focus on developed trails in national parks, forests, and preserves, peakbaggers are used to bushwhacking off-trail, because the vast majority of “baggable” hilltops are not on protected land. They’re accustomed to finding ways around gates and fences, while ostensibly honoring private property.
Like my beloved Mojave Desert, the stateline region near me has few paved roads, and the range I was heading for today is fifteen miles off the highway – you can only see its distant profile, none of the details – and that’s one thing that made it appealing. A sort of final frontier. The drive started with 56 highway miles and ended with 20 miles on dirt ranch roads.
This range belongs to a rare class with only one other member that I know of: long, skinny north-south mountain ranges split in half by an interstate highway. And it’s made rarer still by lying along the state line. The gate I reached at the end of my road, plastered with “No Trespassing” signs, lay right on the border.
I found myself in an interior basin surrounded by low hills and buttes topped by bands of caprock. Directly north loomed the mountain I wanted to explore, a rampart of cliffs deeply dissected by steep canyons. From the road where I parked there was no apparent route up, but the peakbaggers had found a way up the leftmost canyon through narrow gaps in the cliffs.
Their goal is always to reach the peak by the fastest and easiest route, but my goal was to cover as much distance and elevation as possible in a day hike, so I’d planned a route up the rightmost canyon, which I hoped to continue northward from the peak along the crest, maybe even returning by a different route farther west. But without a trail, I had no way of knowing how hard and slow my route would turn out to be. The peakbaggers’ route involved 6 miles out-and-back with 1,800 feet elevation gain, and all 18 of them on record in the past 15 years had followed it slavishly.
Like them, I initially followed the fence north along the state line. The basin had been heavily grazed but I found no recent cowpies on the New Mexico side. On the Arizona side I came in view of an abandoned horse trailer, then a corral and water tank. When I came parallel to it I saw 15 or 20 cattle grazing over there.
I cut northeast toward the mouth of the canyon I wanted, over a broad stony debris field cut by meandering sandy washes – tough and slow walking. I reached another fence and had to crawl under it where it crossed a wash. Eventually I reached an alluvial fan covered with catclaw, mesquite, and prickly pear that rose gently toward a low divide. I was able to follow a wash partway, then at the end, picked my way up a difficult slope lined with sharp volcanic rock and masses of prickly pear.
I’d had my eye open for cattle, and finally saw a herd of a couple dozen off to my right, in an elevated draw beyond the mouth of the canyon. Based on the fencing I’d seen, they could drift across my return path, but I couldn’t tell if there was a bull among them.
Weather had been moving around the landscape all morning. I’d been hiking across open country and wasn’t worried about finding my way back until I reached the steep canyon. Working my way up the first wash I came to, I had to divert up the opposite slope to bypass boulders and big oaks, and discovered the canyon bottom was divided into two parallel washes by a tall debris pile running down the center. The washes were choked with boulders and vegetation, and the debris pile consisted of jumbled boulders that were really slow going.
The drainage was blocked ahead by a cliff, and above that loomed the caprock with its narrow gap. At left I could see a steep slope that I hoped to use as a route to the upper gap. I began memorizing features of the landscape I could use to find my way back.
Experts advise “seniors” to work puzzles as a way of exercising and retaining their memory skills as they age. Bushwhacking is one way I do that. On a hike like this, I stop at critical points and look both forwards and backwards, trying to memorize features for my return, and I do that at least a dozen times per hike. Features I’ve only seen once, in a landscape I’m seeing for the first time. If I had GPS or a smart phone I suppose I could record my route, but this is a much healthier way.
The slope I’d scouted turned out to consist of loose rock lined with agave and prickly pear, dissected by narrow, deep gullies – one of the most hazardous hikes I’ve ever done. And shortly after I reached it, dark clouds closed in and sleet began to fall. I was now crossing the state line into Arizona.
By the time I reached the little saddle in the gap at the top, I was in a full-on sleet storm. I huddled in the lee of a boulder to check the topo map I’d printed at home. I knew I had to circle behind the cliffs to reach the summit, and based on the topo map I’d expected some sort of traversible slope, but all I could see from here was boulders and thickets.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I fought my way up through storm, thickets, and boulders, eventually emerging on a more open slope where I could see more sheer caprock above. I had to keep traversing and gaining elevation while staying below that.
I was on the back side of the mountain now, although the storm still obscured the view below me. At the end of the caprock I rounded a bend and overlooked a shallow cove, the head of a backside canyon. The slope was mostly bare of vegetation and boulders, and as I made my way across it the storm intensified. As I approached the saddle at the top of it, the wind howled through, hammering me with sleet. What the hell was I doing here? I’d had no inkling the weather could get this bad.
It was so bad I was in denial. I just wanted to keep going until it either stopped or I reached some kind of shelter. And as I began traversing the opposite slope, the storm suddenly subsided, a patch of blue sky opened, and a view of the northern plain emerged, 2,000 feet below me. I’d been climbing for the last two hours without a drink of water, and it was lunchtime, so I stopped in the temporary sunlight for a drink and a snack.
Due to Raynaud’s syndrome my fingers had gotten chilled in the lightweight glove liners I’d started out with, and I now switched to the lined Goretex gloves. I had to keep flexing them for the next half hour or so to get my fingers warmed up, and after stashing the glove liners in my pocket to warm them up, I would wear both pairs, one inside the other. When the sun wasn’t shining it was damn cold up there!
With storms drifting over the crest, I found the topo map inadequate to orient me. I had no idea how much farther the peak was, or what kind of terrain to expect. The way ahead threatened to be blocked by cliffs or boulders, but I picked my way across it, rounding another corner, where I was relieved to find a gravel-lined rock ledge. I was able to follow this a hundred yards or so, until it ended in a maze of trees, brush, and boulders that choked a steep, narrow defile. In the distance beyond loomed a hunchbacked peak – much too far to be the summit I sought.
I started clambering up through the maze, hoping the summit lay somewhere above me. Another storm was forming. A tiny voice kept saying I should turn back before I got in real trouble, but I seemed to be on autopilot. I literally threw myself into thickets of stiff brush, clambering over them on all fours like some kind of giant beetle. Finally I emerged into the head of the narrow gorge, and thought I saw a way up it to the crest. It turned out to be a rockfall just wide enough for me to climb up, and at its top I emerged onto a gentle slope across the top of which ran a fence.
It was a very recent fence, and as I approached it I saw it crossed a rock pile where I could probably step over it. The wind was howling through here, too, but mercifully carrying no sleet. Once past the fence, I saw the peak rising at my left. It was a steep climb in wind that constantly threatened to topple me on the rocks, but I’d come this far and wouldn’t be stopped. At my right was the edge of the caprock and a dropoff of nearly two thousand feet, but I didn’t even glance at the view until I’d actually reached the top.
The view was spectacular, but what next? I’d originally hoped to continue northwest along the crest, but it’d taken me more than half the day to get here, and it was time to turn back.
Amazingly, all that memorizing paid off – I was able to follow more or less the same route going down as coming up. As usual, I kept surprising myself by encountering features I remembered from the morning.
But the weather had prevented me from hydrating sufficiently on the way up, and that took its toll on the way down – I developed a bad cramp in my left thigh just as I was picking my way across some gnarly rocks between two prickly pear. Perching precariously in place, I somehow managed to take off my pack and mix some electrolyte supplement in my water bottle, and after ten minutes of tense drinking and resting was able to proceed.
When I reached the gap at the head of the first canyon, recalling all that loose rock and sharp vegetation below, I realized it’s very similar to a perilous descent in my desert mountains, which I’d last revisited in fall of 2022. Every time I do something like this, I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to safely subject my aging body to such abuse and danger. I ended up falling three times on this hike, but each time I landed softly and safely.
I did stab my finger on an agave blade on the way down, and was surprised not to impale myself many times. I’ve never hiked in a place so full of blades and spines.
The cattle had moved off by the time I reached the mouth of the canyon, but as I picked my way down the difficult slope of volcanic rock and prickly pear, I noticed them a half mile away at the base of the alluvial fan, near my route back. To avoid them, I would divert westward across the difficult debris field, toward the state line.
But they noticed me, formed into single file, and began running west to intercept me. As I continued, they stopped and began to mill around in the area where the fences converged. I noticed a bull in their midst, and he stopped and turned around to see what I would do. I had to divert eastward again to avoid aggravating him.
About halfway down the basin toward my vehicle, I noticed an unusual animal off to my right. At first I thought it was a goat, but then realized it was a big black dog with white markings. It saw me and began barking. Great!
I kept going, but the dog kept barking, and another bark joined it, behind me. I ignored them, but their barks kept getting closer. Dogs don’t generally scare me, but here I was alone in the midst of someone’s very remote cattle range, and I had no idea what to expect. I kept going, the barks kept getting closer, and finally I turned to confront the two dogs. They were really worked up, angrily jumping up and down about a dozen feet away across a shallow wash. I talked to them in a friendly voice, calling them good boys, but they wouldn’t calm down.
Finally I just turned around and kept going, picking up a hefty branch along the way, and eventually they lost interest and turned back.
Thus ended my big experiment with off-trail hiking in unprotected ranges. A 71-year-old man, hiking alone far off the beaten path, overtaken on a mountaintop by winter storm and gale-force winds, falling on loose rock surrounded by lethal blades and spines, threatened by bull and dogs. Many people would hesitate to believe my story, and most people would consider me crazy or suicidal.
I was plenty sore, and the cramp returned as I drove out, trying to work the clutch pedal over rocky stretches of road. I had to stop, get out, drink more water, and stagger around for another ten minutes until it began to fade. But I managed to get home before dark – just as another unpredicted sleet storm began.
