High Color
Monday, October 14th, 2024: Hikes, Middle Fork, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico.
This marks the hopeful return of my hiking Dispatches, after a three-month hiatus due to knee pain and family troubles. In August, I got an injection for shoulder pain, and the dosage was so high it gradually wiped out pain in both shoulders and the knee, but in September and October, travel prevented me from walking or doing rehab. The long rest seems to have finally eliminated my knee pain – knock on wood! But on my first short walk around town last week, I got bad shin splints – is this old body ready to curl up and die after all?
I was really missing the high mountains, so I decided to make another long, arduous drive for a short hike. We’re having apocalyptically warm weather this fall, and the high in town was forecast in the low 80s, but that would mean 70s in the mountains – perfect.
Since my first journey to the northern edge of our wilderness, four months ago, monsoon rains had torn up the steep, winding, one-lane forest road over the 9,000-foot crest, cutting deep gullies and exposing more embedded rock. Driving it now was like driving over a debris field. As long as I wore my noise-cancelling headphones I could just bounce my little truck over the rocks, although with no weight in the bed there was a lot of wheelspin. But on the last stretch I frequently had to pull over for bigger vehicles, took off the headphones, and the rattling left me a nervous wreck by the time I descended to the open country on the east side.
I picked this remote hike because I needed to protect both the recent shin splints and the long-term knee issue, and this is one of the few pretty hikes in our area that doesn’t involve big elevation changes. I wasn’t thinking of the fall color, but that turned out to be a bonus. We’re at the tail end of a severe drought, so I was surprised to see all the creeks still running.
There are a few small ups and downs to bypass creekside bluffs, and I took short steps or sidestepped down those to protect my legs, so it was a very slow hike.
All in all, it took me almost two hours to hike less than three miles on a very easy trail – but after such a long hiatus this is how careful I need to be.
It’s amazing how noise-dependent my stress level is. The headphones made the rough drive back over the crest tolerable, despite the traffic. For almost the whole distance, I ended up stuck behind a family in a big crew-cab truck. They were sightseeing, never exceeding about 7 mph, the kids hanging out the side windows, yelling at each other and tearing branches off roadside aspens.
My next goal was the tiny restaurant in the ghost town at 6,600 feet. They’re only open on weekends, spring through fall, because the road closes in winter. Basically a burger place, they have counter service inside with tables outside beside the creek, which has been channelized for flood control. It was a perfect chance to chill after the arduous road over the crest and before the final dangerous one-lane descent to the highway.
Despite not being able to do big hikes, trips like this refresh my soul. Spending my days in flat lands, in airports and airplanes, in city traffic – that just destroys me. Friends keep advising me on how to take better care of myself on these trips, but I’m actually the expert on that now, and it still doesn’t help. I simply waste away when I’m deprived of access to mountain wilderness.
