Los Alamos Woods Wanderer

Cañada Bonita Snowshoe

2012-01-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

Last week, on a Wednesday, got an early-for-me 11 am start from home. Goal was to snowshoe from the ski hill to Cañada Bonita meadow. Nordic Ski Trails and Guaje Canyon Trail 282 (trail out to the meadow also called Cañada Bonita Trail) finally opened last week after a 6 month closure because of damage from this summer's Las Conchas wildfire. To read details of the huge volunteer effort that went into opening the trails, Google the Southwest Nordic Ski Club's blog.

All through the holidays, during the heavy snows that fell (and fell and fell and fell), I kept wanting to snowshoe but never managed. On the snow days (the lab and schools closed two Mondays in a row - unprecedented!), I didn't dare drive our terrifically snow-weenie car. Anyhow, I know I can't park at trailheads for days after heavy snowfalls and trying to drive up Camp May Road before the road dries out completely is suicidal (the way I drive!)

I didn't lie on the divan and balloon up on Christmas goodies, though. Each day, I eked out a walk in the neighborhood, except one and if I'd started BEFORE the blizzard, my record would be unbroken.

On my walks, I listened to Queen Noor's audio book A Leap of Faith which made my daily 4 miles more interesting. If it was icy, I carried a cane. I used it for balance in fording snowy, icy patches (and as self-defense against errant snowplows). Several days, I unfurled my big umbrella and walked while snow fell.

How I treasured the golden days between storms when the streets dried out. After several weeks of snow and ice keeping me off trails, I began to feel like Jack Torrance in Stephen King's The Shining! (Fortunately, the axe is stored in the shed!) The Los Alamos trails provide my sanity and I like to think that I'm committed (or ought to be!)

Last week, with husband FINALLY back to work, I kicked my butt out the door and drove up Camp May Road to the Pajarito Ski Area. The road was in perfect condition. The west end of the ski area's upper parking lot was an ice field but that didn't deter me or the other six vehicles that beat me there. I arrived just as two snowshoers clambered over the rocky, snowy barrier that blocks winter-time vehicular traffic to Camp May Park.

Putting on my gear was maddeningly slow. Two cross country skiers yak, yakked, yakked as they got ready. Finally, got on my gaiters, overboots and snowshoes and started. It being Los Alamos, before I reached the top of the first hill, I ran into 3 people I know from local hiking groups. The first, a snowshoeing couple, said I probably wouldn't need the gaiters! The second, a woman, carried her snowshoes. On the well-tamped down, groomed snow, I probably didn't need my snowshoes either but I persevered!

Going uphill to the Los Alamos Canyon overlook, the snow was thin and icy with bare spots. Even though volunteers worked hard to erect shade fencing, the snow gets no relief from the sun since the June 26 wildfire burnt the trees.

At the overlook, I followed the lower road that snowshoers' use. I stopped often to take photos. Snowshoes make a constant clatter but when I stopped, there was utter quiet unless a jet passed overhead. The trees are standing charcoal sticks, some with burnt orange pine needles still attached and some with unburnt green needles hanging on. Volunteers cut down the larger, burnt trees closest to the trail. The contrast between the black bark and the orange wood is striking. That and the orange pine needles give the scene an autumn look.

Elk have bedded down in the burnt area and melted the snow down to the green grass. Lots of tracks seen in the snow - elk, snowshoes, skis, boots.

About half way to the meadow, I entered the unburnt forest. The shade cooled but compared to the simplicity of the burnt area's charcoal and snow, sunlight and shadow, the unburnt forest is an unlovely dark clot of trees.

Cañada Bonita meadow looks much the same although there are orange burnt trees on the hillsides north and south of the meadow. I can't positively tell if the aspen island that I look forward to seeing in the middle of the meadow is untouched. The true tale will evidence in Spring when the unburnt aspens leaf out or not. At the western end of Cañada Bonita meadow, I gleefully smiled at seeing the tracks of people going over the snow-buried Valles Caldera National Preserve boundary fence!

The grooming done by the Southwest Nordic Ski Club volunteers ends in the meadow's western bowl but I wanted to go further to the high point above the meadow where Guaje Canyon Trail 282 continues two miles to the rim of Guaje Canyon. First I followed a lone snowshoer's track. When that disappeared, tried to stay off the ski tracks but eventually settled on a combination of breaking trail and taking the easy way out by followed the tangle of uphill tracks. Snow was thin in places and rocks popped out. Snowshoes seemed rather optional except for this last "quarter mile" to the ridge. I got to the ridge at 1:38 pm and put on more layers. If I'd started earlier, I thought deludedly, maybe I could have gone another mile to Pipeline Road. I wished that I'd packed a lunch but I probably wouldn't have stopped to eat it because it was late afternoon and I needed to head back to the ski area.

As I came back past the meadow, a ski skater and her dog approached me. The skater took the middle of the trail and vigorously skiied side to side. The dog stopped in its tracks to intensely look at me but continued on to keep up with the woman.

Then I ran into familiar faces, a neighborhood couple. They were walking although I know the man is a snowshoer because after one of the December snowstorms, I saw him carrying his snowshoes, walking his dog, to the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail. We talked of neighborhood issues for a while but they looked cold and I too needed to keep moving.

Almost out of the meadow and back into the forest, I heard a bell tinkling and the ski skater's dog came bounding up from behind. This time, the dog boldly jumped on my right arm, its claws scratching at my nylon jacket. The ski skater yelled "Nooooooo!!!" as she whizzed by and the dog ran after her.

As I approached the hill to the Los Alamos Canyon Overlook, I saw two buff colored dogs loose on the trail ahead. They saw me and took off. I thought - how exciting - coyotes! When they reappeared, their snow-walking owner had leashed them. I laughed when I told her I'd mistaken the dogs for coyotes! This was her first time on the trail since the fire. She said she noticed things now in the landscape she hadn't before and the burnt area was beautiful in its own way. I definitely agreed with her!

Almost back to the car, my younger neighbors caught up with me. I joked about my slow progress on snowshoes compared to their snow-walking!

At the car at 3:03 pm, I drove back home, glad of progress made in opening some of the Los Alamos trails!

at very beginning of trails

looking toward Pajarito Mountain Ski Area, shade fencing along first hill

cut down timber at side of trail

at top of first hill, overlook into severely burnt Los Alamos Canyon

rock outcrop more visible after Las Conchas wildfire

charcoal and snow, sunlight and shadow

more felled, burnt timber along trail

mostly unburnt forest

unlovely dark clot of trees

Cañada Bonita meadow lives on!

aspen island

majestic burnt conifer on ridge

Part 2: Down Zipline and Up Camp Hamilton

2011-09-15T13:18:00.004-06:00

Or, I See Fences

On Monday, 9/12/11, I decided to try again to make a loop between the Zipline, Camp Hamilton and Pueblo Canyon Rim trails. This time, I started down the Zipline. When I got to the faint, blocked off trail, just off the Tent Rocks Trail, I headed east on it with very high expectations. The "trail" started innocently but quickly disintegrated into game trails going through gambel oak thickets - not my favored hiking flora but better than New Mexico locusts! I kept imagining mountain lions stalking and looked back often to catch them in the act; fortunately, they were sleeping off their breakfast of bunnies and rattlesnakes and had no appetite for tough, old bird!

I kept an eastward trend, not going too high or too low on the north-facing slope of Pueblo Canyon, through open areas that could have been game trails but at times seemed more open than game trails, traveling more continuously without dead-ending. When I came to any "intersections", I generally stayed left and low rather than attempting heroics by climbing uphill. If there is any "real" trail in this area, I don't think I found it; perhaps I totally missed it and maybe it would be worth another explore one day. I was quite spooked hiking alone in the thick shrub-land and would not do this explore again unless I could conscript an equally foolish soul to accompany me!

Eventually I reached the wider canyon below Pajarito Cliffs at which I had turned tail last week because of a thunderstorm (Part 1: Camp Hamilton Trail Explore). Now, with the clearer weather, the small canyon didn't look as daunting. I found an almost trail-like path that went down to a pumice ridge that rose up between the split in the drainage. I followed this gentle ridge down to an easy crossing of the canyon bottom and then went up and out of the canyon. (I'm hoping this canyon isn't what the "Contaminated Area - Do Not Enter" sign refers to - see Part 1: Camp Hamilton Trail Explore.)

After the canyon crossing, I felt perfectly safe toddling along by myself in the open ponderosa forest. Somehow, my primate sensibilities like open spaces. As I got close to where I could see the large, orange, tuff cliff that heralds the Camp Hamilton Trail, I disobeyed my no climbing rule and bushwhacked up brushy hillside strewn with dead and down wood, planning to pinch out at the level of the Camp Hamilton Trail.

As I got to the cliff, within sight of the pumice steps of the Camp Hamilton Trail, I was consternated to find yet another fence - this one of nasty barbed wire - that butted up against the very base of the orange, tuff cliff. This fence sign read: "Closed for Resource Evaluation - For Required Access Contact Department of Energy - Environmental, Safety and Health Branch - at 665-7203".

The stout iron top fence post had a space large enough to squeeze around between it and the cliff, so I did. The other options were backtracking down the nasty uphill or crawling under the barbed wire. Backtracking when maybe the fence continued all the way downhill and connected with the dreaded resource protection fence (see Part 1: Camp Hamilton Trail Explore) didn't seem like a good option and barbed wire hurts.

So, now I know that even if I had last Wednesday tried to travel west bound from the Camp Hamilton Trail, in an attempt to avoid completely the dreaded "Environmentally Sensitive Area" resource protection fence, I would have had to deal with this "Closed for Resource Evaluation" fence anyway. It seems unfair to fence off all westward cross-country travel from the Camp Hamilton Trail. Perhaps consideration should be given to provide hikers a right of way so they have alternatives that don't involve crossing fences?

Now I was back on the Camp Hamilton Trail where I continued uneventfully in a light rain up to the 3 mesa top cairns (see photo in Part 1: Camp Hamilton Trail Explore) and (finally!) closed the loop by making a sharp right onto the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail which I followed all the way back home.

Because it's on the way and I had already reached my mandatory daily 4 miles, I was tempted to stop at the new Los Alamos Food Cooperative to call spouse, begging him to pick me up, promising he could buy anything in the store, but I stolidly hiked on for a roundtrip total of nearly 6 miles - woohoo!! (Truth be told, part of the mileage is because I started on the Los Alamos Mesa Trail which connects the western and eastern sections of the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail.)

I was happy to have completed the loop but hope one day there will be a way to do this without encountering fences that block travel. If it weren't for the "Closed for Resource Evaluation" fence, the way I went would be a good route for a trail between the Zipline and the Camp Hamilton trails that would completely avoid the the "Environmentally Sensitive Area" resource protection fence as well as the treated sewage effluent stream. I hope this trail is built one day!

Kwage Mesa and Jemez Mountains from Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Zipline switchbacks - there are 19 of them - from Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail.

Zipline Trail on left and Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail on right.

From Zipline Trail, Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail winds along Los Alamos Airport fence above awesome cliffs.

Rock overhang on Zipline.

Added value along Zipline.

Check dam trail feature along Zipline.

Zipline on left, Tent Rocks Trail on right. I went left on Tent Rocks Trail which continues east to Pueblo Canyon Trail.

Asters against tuff.

Tent Rocks Trail travels gently in and out of drainages.

Blocked off "trail" along Tent Rocks Trail.

You got Gambel oak?

Power line coming down from Los Alamos Mesa into Pueblo Canyon.

The "almost a trail" into canyon below Pajarito Cliffs.

Pajarito Cliffs.

Open ponderosa park land.

Ponderosa totem.

The only cairn I saw.

Stream gage on small drainage?

Cliff of Camp Hamilton Trail ahead.

Not another fence!

Fence sign and top post against cliff.

Why are there trip wires along this part of Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail?

Backside of Eastgate Industrial Park and Pajarito Cliffs Site, along Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail. The runoff pond is not pretty but it drains down the dramatic Pajarito Cliffs into Pueblo Canyon.

Zeus Throne along Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail.

Part 1: Camp Hamilton Trail Explore

2011-09-14T16:44:00.006-06:00

Or, How Fond Hiking Fantasies Are Imploded by Ground Truth:

On 9/7/11, both Wednesday hiking groups went far afield - Cerro Azul and Atalaya - so I chose to stay in Los Alamos to explore. I'm always excited about the new possibilities for hiking close to home on all the newly constructed Los Alamos County trails in the Eastern Area. For instance, each time I go down the new Zipline Trail (constructed by Youth Conservation Corps, sponsored by The Family YMCA), I pass, soon after turning right onto the Tent Rocks Trail, a faint, blocked-off trail that beckons me. I've often wondered if I could somehow follow this over to the bottom of the Camp Hamilton Trail, hike up and then loop back via the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail.

I decided I'd first try the loop in reverse, starting from the Camp Hamilton Trail and then hopefully working my way west to go up the Zipline. I knew from reading Craig Martin's 2nd edition of Los Alamos Trails that the traditional route of the Camp Hamilton Trail is interrupted one half mile from the trailhead by a "resource protection" fence. Craig's book says the trail would be re-routed in 2007 and gives directions to go eastward along the fence, then northward to the Camp Hamilton cabin ruin, which is the trail's namesake destination. I've visited the cabin ruin and it's in truly deplorable shape. I knew for my loop hike plan, it would have been best to determine if it was possible to travel west along the fence but I was curious about the re-route so I decided to follow it at least to where Camp Hamilton Trail crosses Pueblo Canyon Trail.

What I found is that if there truly has been a "re-route", it's very indistinct. Trying to follow it, I went into, across and along a skinny arroyo that runs below the ridge fenced off by the resource protection fence but I often had to stop and carefully look to see where to go next. Eventually the fence and trail headed north and intersected the Pueblo Canyon Trail, a dirt road. At that point, I walked west on the Pueblo Canyon Trail until I reached the treated wastewater effluent stream from the new Los Alamos Wastewater Plant. The stream crossing is too wide to hop across, there are no helpful rocks to aid in stepping across and I don't trust crossing at the marshy areas on either side.

I decided to try Plan B: Recently I had looked down onto this area from high atop Kwage Mesa and imagined myself easily going uphill to bypass the treated wastewater effluent stream and then back down to the Pueblo Canyon Trail. Enacting ground truth, when I went uphill just south of the stream, I encountered the dratted resource protection fence - again! I was disconcerted to see from my hillside perch that the fence continued all the way downhill to the marshy, effluent stream thus totally blocking travel outside the fence above and around the stream. Now, I became stubborn and, although I don't like to trespass, I didn't intend to backtrack, so I stepped across the fence (bare wire not barbed wire); unfortunately, I did this just as a pickup, with a clear line of sight, passed by on the dirt road below. I briefly saw myself getting arrested for trespassing but decided to quickly walk my way out of the fenced area to finally get around the stream and continue westward.

When I managed at last to leave the resource protection fence behind, I found myself in an enchanting park of tall ponderosas. I saw a faint trail going my way, could have been a game trail, that traversed gently into and out of pine needle laden gullies (and past some discarded truck tires). I enjoyed following this west, paralleling the north-facing slope of Pueblo Canyon, hopeful that I was finally on course to the Tent Rocks and Zipline trails. Along the way, I came upon a partially-standing fence, this one barbed wire, with a rusted sign, ominously warning "Contaminated Area - Do No Enter". Non-plussed since the sign looked ancient, and the fence was mostly broken down (barbed wire laid haphazardly on the ground), I continued on.

When I started hiking several hours earlier, I saw dark clouds far to the northwest but by now, the storm was overhead. I could hear thunder rolling as raindrops splattered on my golf umbrella. When I came to a wider canyon dropping from sheer cliffs above which the Los Alamos County Pajarito Cliffs site is located, I decided it was time to head back to my car rather than tackling the canyon crossing.

On the way back, it rained hard and my arms, pants legs and shoes got soaked but my trusty umbrella kept my pack dry. On the way up Camp Hamilton Trail, water streamlets ran downhill on the trail. Ascending the cliffy, rock wall part of the trail, I saw water flowing in mini-waterfalls off the edge. The arroyo far below the trail, which had been perfectly dry that morning, now had a skinny, frothy stream tumbling down it. On the mesa-top, parts of the trail were underwater. When I got to the head of the formerly dry arroyo, which the trail crosses, the storm run-off made a small, prettily gushing waterfall which was easily crossable . Back at the car, although I hadn't been successful in my original loop hike plan, I was glad I attempted it and plan to try again.

I have some harsh words, though, to say about the resource protection fence which is a hindrance to hiking in the area. I wish I knew the precise reason why the fence cuts through the traditional middle route of the Camp Hamilton Trail. The Camp Hamilton Road is listed as a New Mexico Registered Cultural Property in Los Alamos County. I don't know what, if any, protection this listing confers. Regardless, it's unfair to have chopped the trail in the middle without the public having any clear idea why.

The indistinct "re-route" of the Camp Hamilton Trail that I followed to bypass the resource protection fence does not seem a viable, alternative travel pathway because it forces a long detour eastward around the fenced resource protection area in order to rejoin the Camp Hamilton Trail. Since the "re-route" of the Camp Hamilton Trail is so ill-defined, it appears not well-used by hikers, perhaps indicating they are voting with their feet to get where they want to go.

The Camp Hamilton Trail is more than just a trail that goes to the Camp Hamilton cabin ruin. The cabin ruin itself is at the edge of reclaimed open space at the site of the former Bayo Canyon sewage treatment plant so the trail provides a way for hikers to access that as well as the Los Alamos County trails in Bayo Canyon. The Camp Hamilton Trail also intersects the Pueblo Canyon Trail, the dirt road that crosses the treated sewage effluent stream and continues up Pueblo Canyon to a slew of other trails in the Los Alamos County Trail Network. Before the "Environmentally Sensitive Area" was fenced off, chopping the trail into two separate sections, perhaps consideration should have been given to providing a more direct right of way for the Camp Hamilton Trail.

Despite the severing of the Camp Hamilton Trail, this area still has potential for many great loop hikes for hikers willing to hike into Pueblo Canyon from the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail, via the Camp Hamilton Trail or the new Zipline Trail. Hiking access between the Camp Hamilton and Zipline trails could be improved by construction of a trail that would travel more directly between the two without need to detour eastward around the resource protection fence and without having to deal with crossing the treated wastewater effluent stream. This trail could be constructed by following a route that goes north of both the fenced resource protection area and the effluent stream, along the north-facing slope of Pueblo Canyon. The terrain this trail would pass through is rough, going in and out of drainages, filled with dead and down wood and teeming with gambel oak thickets; but if you look at the daring chutzpah of the new Los Alamos County Open Space Trails constructed since the 2nd edition of Martin's Los Alamos Trails, like the Pueblo Canyon Rim and Zipline trails - you'll know it could be done!

From mesa-top Camp Hamilton Trail, looking back toward Eastgate Industrial Park.

Three cairns at start of descent of Camp Hamilton Trail into side canyon. Here, the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail intersects the Camp Hamilton Trail. On the way back up, make a sharp left turn here if you want to continue on the Camp Hamilton Trail.

Beginning descent from the 3 cairns, you see successive tiers of rock walls built on a cliff face along this part of the trail.

More views of rock walls on Camp Hamilton Trail.

Tent rocks in canyon arroyo far below trail.

Lighter green area is the decommissioned Bayo Canyon wastewater treatment plant. It’s now been reclaimed for open space. The Camp Hamilton cabin ruin is on the southern edge of this.

The green-roofed building tucked into Pueblo Canyon, below Kwage Mesa, is the new Los Alamos Wastewater Plant. The treated wastewater effluent stream runs in the trees south of the new plant.

High tuff walls along Camp Hamilton Trail.

Looking across Pueblo Canyon, the lighter green area is Big Otowi Ruins, now owned by San Ildefonso Pueblo and off limits to hikers. Also owned by the pueblo is the bumpy mesa, called Seven Bump Mesa, to the right of Big Otowi Ruins.

Downhill, this is more a slide than a trail. On the way up, the eroded “steps” cut in the pumiceous tuff work quite well!

The Camp Hamilton Trail descends around the end of this mesa, part of Los Alamos Mesa. The rusty sign in the foreground says “Upper Trail Closed - Use Lower Trail”. This is from long ago when the lab had a radioactive source shielded on one side only, with the other 3 sides exposed to the trail. Dorothy Hoard’s book, Los Alamos Outdoors mentions this.

Walking east along the dreaded resource protection fence which has totally cut off the more direct northerly route the trail used to follow.

The "re-route" of the Camp Hamilton Trail loosely follows a small arroyo. At times, the trail is indistinct. This whole area is rife with dead trees.

A corner of the dreaded resource protection fence. The sign says "Keep Out - Environmentally Sensitive Area - No Trespassing"

When I reached the Pueblo Canyon Trail, I walked westward on it as far as the treated wastewater effluent stream.

It’s difficult to find good places to cross the treated wastewater effluent stream because the area is marshy.

Westward through the ponderosa parkland in hopes of intersecting the Tent Rocks Trail.

This partially standing barbed wire fence. The sign says “Contaminated Area - Do Not Enter”. More remnants of the national lab.

The small canyon I turned around at because of impending thunderstorm.

Looking across the canyon where I turned around, at astoundingly steep cliffs below the Los Alamos County Pajarito Cliffs site.

This is the small, unnamed side canyon far below the Camp Hamilton Trail where there is now a silver ribbon of water running in the formerly dry arroyo.

A close-up of water streaming over the tuff in the arroyo below the Camp Hamilton Trail.

The small, prettily gushing waterfall running over the Camp Hamilton Trail.

All I Need Is a Ski Hill to Wander On

2011-06-09T22:20:00.004-06:00

Parked at Oxbow Road, just uphill from Townsight Lift. Usually when I walk up Pajarito Mountain, I go up Zero East Road (also called East Road) starting from the ski lodge. Feeling wild and crazy, I decided to walk up a different way.

Following Oxbow takes you to an intersection where a left turn will go to Evershine Ridge ski run, the eastern boundary of the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. Once there, Oxbow ends and you're forced to walk steeply up the ski run. There are stupendous views to enjoy but the footing is not wonderful - very stony and hiking sticks are a necessity unless you are a mountain goat.

I took Oxbow's right fork which took me over to Zero East Road anyway (I knew it would!). Instead of stolidly tramping up the switchbacks of the jeep road to the back side of the mountain (which, by the way, is a perfectly wonderful route with stunning views!), I opted for a combination of bike trails and side roads. The bike trails were empty and I enjoyed the shade in the woods.

When I got to the 4 way intersection (see Craig Martin's book, Los Alamos Trails, Pajarito Mountain Ski Area Trails, page 70, mile 1.5), I continued on a bike trail to the top of Lone Spruce lift. Then, onward and upward to Aspen lift and my final destination, the snowmaking water storage pond on the back side (south) of the mountain. I turned around there and followed the jeep roads to my car since they gave more sure-footing for the downhill. I'll keep going back to Pajarito Mountain and trying new ways of going up to the top but up to the top I must always go. I am in love with this mountain!

The whole time on the mountain, I had an earworm but an entirely pleasant one. I had recently seen Cats at Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque, NM. Afterward, I checked out from the library the Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway Favorites Collection. The disc with the Royal Albert Hall Celebration (1998) featured Elaine Paige singing Memory which she absolutely owns! Listening to it more than a few times (and forcing family members to listen too!) implanted it into my mind! Who needs an iPod!!

Tschicoma Peak from top of Lone Spruce lift

Tschicoma Peak from top of Aspen Lift

Monument to our dependence on electronics

Snowmaking water storage pond on south side of Pajarito Mountain

From snowmaking pond fence, Sandia Peak on horizon

Valles Caldera National Preserve: New South Mountain Hike

2009-08-31T18:00:00.348-06:00

A few weeks back, I heard on the hiking grapevine (here and there) that the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) was offering a new hike - the South Mountain hike. Neat deal was that you didn't need a van ride or reservation to go on it and it only cost $5 a person. I was intrigued and found other hikers also curious about the new hike. On Monday, August 31, we all met at the Back Gate in Los Alamos and headed up into the Jemez Mountains for adventure!

We parked at the Valle Grande Staging Area (VGSA) to check in. The staging area is a tiny, portable building that suffices as visitor center, gift shop and security.

This looks south toward Rabbit Ridge. Rabbit Mountain is the highest peak. In the foreground are corrals. Nearby, a horse stood in a parked trailer. It stomped its hoof as though to say "I'm here!"

The VCNP staff were very helpful and friendly. After we paid $5 a person and signed in, Carmen gave us tips for finding our way up South Mountain - turn left at the new-looking bunkhouse at the intersection of VC01 and VC02 (PDF download of map on VCNP website). Turn left again at a large stump with a piece of rebar in it at the intersection of VC02 and VC0201. Then follow logging roads with blue diamonds nailed onto trees. (During the Preserve's winter recreation season, South Mountain's logging roads become challenging cross country ski trails.) She said that as we got higher up, flagging tape on trees would also guide us. Just in case, the staff took our cell phone numbers and gave us their telephone number - very thoughtful.

In August, the first month the hike was offered, about 20 people went on it. Carmen warned that hikers have missed the turn-off to the South Mountain trailhead at the intersection of VC02 and VC0201. They reported back that they got a good hike anyway but it wasn't exactly the one they had intended. (Buy a copy of the Preserve's Nature Guide and Visitor Map and you will quickly discern that starting at the South Mountain trailhead, interesting possibilities exist for other road walks. As of now, none are officially sanctioned by the Preserve.)

We were also told that a some hikers complained about walking on the gravel and dirt roads from the VGSA to the trailhead. This adds approximately 6 extra miles round trip so take that into consideration if you would prefer a shorter hike or abhor road walking.

The logging roads themselves on South Mountain feel more like walking on a trail rather than a road. If you choose to ride the van, bring an extra $5. Since we all wanted more time in the stunning landscape of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, we skipped the van ride and started from the staging area.

We're walking in the Valle Grande on VC01, on our way to the historic Baca Location No. 1 ranch headquarters. Along the way, we could spy a large herd of elk between us and ranch headquarters.

This road has no shade so take that in consideration when deciding whether or not to ride the van. The extra $5 charge includes a van ride both ways.

We were passed very courteously by a few Preserve vehicles. We waved and everyone waved back - friendly people!

My fellow hikers were no slackers - very strong and fast! We left the staging area at 9:20am, made it to left turn at the bunkhouse at 10am and the top of the South Mountain around noon. (Shhh - don't tell anyone: they told us not to go all the way up but we had to! ) We headed down around 12:15pm and got back to the staging area at 2:30pm.

My GPS said the total distance hiked was 11.7 miles but that may be high. Looking at the VCNP's map of the South Mountain hiking trails, I guesstimate it's between 10-11 miles round trip to the summit from the staging area. The Bland and Redondo Peak topo maps show a 1,300' elevation gain. The elevation gain of 1,000' given on the VCNP website is for a point about 300' below the mountain's summit ridge, where the logging roads play out and the official South Mountain hike ends.

This is the bunkhouse cabin at the intersection of VC01 and VC02 where you turn left. We all agreed we'd be happy living here!

If you mistakenly turn right here, you'll walk through the historic ranch headquarters and the History Grove, a tall grove of old Ponderosa pines that was spared the woodsmen's axe, but this is not part of the officially sanctioned South Mountain hike.

We had just stopped to look at the hawk that you see flying away from the snag. This is on VC02 which has tall ponderosa pines shading the road. Rabbit Ridge and Rabbit Mountain are on the left and an heavily timbered arm South Mountain is on the right.

Our leader and driver next to the pivotal stump with the rebar and green flagging. This must have been a truly huge tree -the stump looked about a yard and half in diameter. It marks the beginning of the blue diamond logging roads up South Mountain. If you don't turn left here, you may end up at El Cajete crater.

Our leader unerringly led us up, up, up! There was one part where we thought the blue diamonds and flagging ended. The forest looked chock-full of dead fall. Luckily, we spotted more flagging above us and after wending under and over a double-decker of downed trees, we continued on.

Our reward for all the uphill was popping out into a series of increasingly larger and more splendid meadows. In this one, a piece of orange flagging had fallen to the ground but the hikers quickly affixed it back on a tree. At the nearest edge of this meadow was the last blue diamond I recall. Ahead is the summit ridge of South Mountain.

This is the final climb. It looks idyllic but we had to be very careful not to trip over hummocks of dead grass roots that tower above the ground. What this meadow needs is a good game trail! We saw signs of game - matted grass where elk had bedded down (and pooped in their bed!) but they had neglected to build a game trail!

From near the highest point of South Mountain, 9,795' , looking northeast across Valle Grande at the speckled meadow on the backside of Pajarito Mountain. Even though there are extensive meadows on South Mountain, they are ringed by trees which impact the views. But - who's complaining? How lucky we felt to be able to hike up South Mountain to enjoy these views!

That's Tschicoma Mountain in the far left background and Valle Grande is in the foreground. The views to the north and northeast were the widest available from the summit ridge.

This is looking southeast toward Los Griegos and Cerro Pelado. Hidden on the left is most likely Las Conchas Peak. Moving around on South Mountain's topmost meadow ridge, I was able to see more of Las Conchas from a slightly different vantage point but not a full sweeping view - just a small view through the trees. Near here but further south, I saw a peak I didn't recognize and wondered if it was Cerro del Piño?

After lunch, we are heading downhill toward an aspen grove and another meadow beyond. I was surprised and fascinated at the extent of the meadows on South Mountain. This photo doesn't show it but the meadow we are walking in is quite large and wraps around to the right and below the highest point of South Mountain. These high altitude grasslands are a very worthwhile destination in themselves.

This healthy, tall spruce captured our admiration!

Back in the woods and heading down to the double-decker dead fall. This section that was more like a trail than a logging road.

This is typical of what the South Mountain logging roads look like. Above the hikers is a teensy view of the high meadows on Redondo Peak.

Pumice deposit spilling down hillside. Lots of interesting geological information (and more) about the Valles Caldera National Preserve can be found here.

Even though there were virtually no clouds during lunch on South Mountain, by the time we got back to the Valle Grande, loads of dark clouds had gathered and we could see rain falling to the northeast. On the right is a shoulder of South Mountain extending into the Valle Grande.

Our leader had led us perfectly until I, in my direction-challenged fashion, chimed in about seeing some blue diamonds off to the right and weren't they surely the way we should go instead of the very main-looking logging road we were on! Because of my...ahem, "guidance", we had to cut across this meadow to get back to VC02 but it was an enjoyable diversion.

To the east, the sky contained a pure white cloud surrounded by pink clouds. The little dome of Cerro la Jara is on the right. The Valle Grande Staging Area is hidden behind it.

The VCNP will very soon open a larger temporary visitor center in a more substantial building right next to the small portable building that presently houses the staging area. Eventually, the VCNP hopes to build a permanent visitor center near NM4 to attract tourists driving by.

The sign on the tree says Remuda Grande. Googling remuda, it means a herd of horses from which ranch hands choose their mounts for the next day. Hmmm...I should have asked someone at the VCNP about this!

Las Tres Amigas on the home stretch! At this point, maybe we were fantasizing riding horses or at least bicycles! Truthfully, though, it was exhilarating and enjoyable to have been on South Mountain's gentle summit with its golden grass meadows even though it was a tough hike because of the distance, elevation gain and fast pace. I would like to go back one day.

As we were hiking down, we saw two other hikers - the only other people we saw all day on South Mountain. Since they were so low on the mountain, they must have gotten a late start. The personnel at the staging area felt reassured when we told them the two hikers had at least made it up the logging roads on South Mountain and hadn't missed the turn-off!

A few selected waypoints - 001 is the intersection of VC01 and VC02, 002 is the South Mountain trailhead, 003 and 004 are traveling through the meadows and 005 is near the highest point on South Mountain.

We were told that Monday, August 31 was the last day for the South Mountain hike. I would say that if you want to go, first verify on the VCNP's September calendar if the hike is still available.

As of right this minute, it still on the calendar from September 17- 21 and 24-30 but that could change. When the aspen leaves turn golden, wouldn't it be a good time to visit South Mountain again!

Found: Key to Backyard Hiking Kingdom!

2009-07-26T16:23:00.011-06:00

On a recent hike with the Betty Ehart Senior Center hiking group, Walk in the Woods, one of the hikers mentioned a new trail that could be accessed from East Park, Pine Street Playlot, the Jewish Center or the Walkup Center. I was excited and wanted to check it out.

Today I started from East Park and followed it all the way over to the Los Alamos Ranch School Trail (below the Walkup Center). The trail winding down from East Park's Mesa Trail is very steep but quite do-able. It drops down to Graduation Canyon so named because the Los Alamos Ranch School boys used to hold graduation ceremonies at this scenic viewpoint.

The Pine Street Playlot Trail comes down canyon and connects with this trail (I don't even know its name but it's a good bet that it's a continuation of the Pueblo Canyon South Bench Trail) at Graduation Point, below the east end of Rim Road. There are good views into, across and down Pueblo Canyon. It's amazing to look over at the south-facing cliffs of Pueblo Canyon and see houses perched on the edge of North Mesa!

The trail goes around the end of the mesa below Rim Road and along the north-facing slope of Pueblo Canyon. This part of the trail is not wonderful in places. I wish I knew how to fix the spots that are washing away and perilously narrowing the canyon edge trail.

There is one area, before the sewer pipe I had to step over, that has an upper and lower trail. Next time I will take the lower option as the upper was too slippery.

Eventually, I can't tell you exactly where but somewhere below Canyon Road before the Jewish Center, the narrow trail merges into a wider trail that was obviously recently built. I love the one section that so easily traverses down an impossibly steep slope.

Eventually, I came to a chain link fence where a dirt access road went down to the now-demolished Peggy Sue utility bridge. This is below the Jewish Center. Go through a tall gate in the chain link fence and walk along this chain link fence over to where the Los Alamos Ranch School Trail goes steeply down into Acid Canyon.

From here, there are multitudinous options! You can follow the Ranch School Trail or Acid Canyon Trail up to the Walkup Center. Or you can do what I did. I went down into Pueblo Canyon on the Ranch School Trail. At the bottom, though, don't do what I did, turn upstream - that leads to a rubbly canyon that came down from the decommissioned Olive Street sewage treatment plant.

Instead, when you cross the Pueblo Canyon drainage at the bottom of the Ranch School Trail (bridge has washed out but it's easily fordable), make an immediate right turn and follow that up canyon to the Walnut Street Road which goes quite precipitously up a hill to connect with the Pueblo Canyon North Bench Trail.

An alternate route is to take the East Fork Trail, just downstream from the Walnut Street Road, up to where it intersects Walnut Street Road. Walnut Street Road goes out to the golf course and follows a network of trails over to the Bayo Canyon Trailhead (near the pedestrian underpass tunnel). The Pueblo Canyon North Bench Trail has many possibilities but I chose to take it back to the Pueblo Canyon South Bench Trail and then took the Ranch School Trail up to the Walkup Center. I went to the library and then walked home on the streets because a thunderstorm was happening with plenty of rain.

For further information on any of the mentioned trails, see the second edition of Craig Martin's Los Alamos Trails. Also see Los Alamos County Trail Network.

Pajarito Trail 286 to Guaje Reservoir

2009-05-21T19:35:00.032-06:00

My friend will be going on a walking tour of 84 mile long Hadrian's Wall. She has been taking long hikes this Spring to get in condition for walking long miles each day. Today, I went with her on a training hike. To be sure I could do it and that my boots were comfortable, I walked 8 miles last Thursday and 13 miles last Sunday.

We started at 8:20 am on Pajarito Trail 286, accessed off the Rendija Canyon Road, FR57. It was overcast which was welcome as the first part of the journey would be up to the Guaje Mountain saddle, through a treeless area devastated by the Cerro Grande fire of 2000. I left my GPS, binoculars and camera at home so I wouldn't have to lug along extra weight. Here are a few photos of Guaje Reservoir taken on May 17, 2008 by a bicyclist. The day stayed overcast and on the way home, as we walked eastbound on Guaje Canyon Road, FR442, it rained lightly but steadily for 20-25 minutes so we both unfurled our umbrellas. We never overheated.

The only people we saw all day were at the very beginning. First, a man walking two dogs on a leash and then, right after, a woman with two dogs off-leash.

Notable flowers seen on the hike: white yucca flowers blooming on cliffs below Guaje Mountain and on south-facing slope above Guaje Canyon; further up canyon, velvety hot pink wild roses and clumps of light blue chiming bells that were the size of small shrubs. May have heard owl or mourning dove when we got to bottom of Guaje Canyon and a hermit thrush in the forested area. Saw faint but perfect bear track in soft dirt after we went through first gate in Guaje Canyon. Both of us speculated on how, if we saw a bear, we could open our umbrellas and raise them high over our heads to appear gigantic!

In Guaje Canyon, westbound from the Guaje Narrows to the first gate, a huge iron one located just past the intersection with Upper Guaje Road, regeneration in this heavily burnt area is occurring along the stream with box elders giving attractive islands of green among all the brown and black.

After the first gate, the tall living ponderosas began again and we were in a verdant, sylvan world. Butterflies flitted around. The air was perfumed with the scent of blooming flowers. At some point, we passed through a second, smaller gate.

The Guaje Canyon Road, from the Guaje Narrows, westbound to Guaje Reservoir, is very well cleared of fallen trees by chain saw wielding off road vehicle enthusiasts (we could see their tracks and lots of fresh sawdust). We made 21 stream crossings. The stream crossings were easy as the creek is shallow and mostly narrow. We danced across rocks and sometimes crossed the span in a single leap. It was lucky that the rain did not occur during all the stream crossings as that would have made it slippery. In some short sections, the stream and the road were one. In a few places, we had to go on the bank above the road-stream but the path was well worn by others. Once we came to an open area paved entirely by rocks and small boulders that had washed out of a steep side canyon below a burnt hillside. We both wondered aloud what we would do if it started raining hard and lots of water came rushing at us.

We determined to walk until noon and were amazed to make it to Guaje Reservoir. It is located just past where Mitchell Trail 69 comes down. We found a wooden sign laying on the ground which gave distances to Los Alamos, Guaje Ridge Trail 285 and the Mitchell trailhead. The reservoir area is amazingly beautiful in a setting of gnarled, gray rocks that closed in and towered over us. The water falling from the dam is very loud.

The Guaje Reservoir silted in after the Cerro Grande fire - it's basically now just a stream flowing over the dam. We had to climb a sturdy metal ladder to get to the top. We walked a tenth of a mile beyond the reservoir and were mightily tempted by the beauty of the area to keep going but we turned around and had lunch near the bottom of the Mitchell Trail.

We both had a bathroom stop before climbing back up to Guaje Mountain saddle; this caused us to miss the rock cairn and the Pajarito Trail back up. We walked about a tenth of a mile more down canyon than we needed to but enjoyed the closer look at the Guaje Narrows and agreed that we would like to walk through it one day down to where Guaje Canyon Road and Rendija Canyon Road meet and return via the latter.

We retraced our steps back to the rock cairn on the Pajarito Trail 286 and started climbing out of Guaje Canyon when I was startled by what I thought was the sound of human voices. It was quite a racket of eerie, moaning sounds and was most likely caused by the wind blowing through standing dead trees in the opposite drainage. I joked that it was probably La Llorona and she was sad to see us leaving her lonely canyon!

We got back to the trailhead at 4:20 pm for a total 8 hour trip. My friend's GPS read 14.7 miles but that number may be slightly suspect as it couldn't find a signal for a long time as we ascended up canyon. It felt like that much, though!

Check Craig Martin's Los Alamos Trails for more information about the Pajarito Trail 286 and Guaje Canyon Road, FR442.

Ramon Vigil Grant: Some Fence Posts and Benchmarks

2009-04-27T21:31:00.064-06:00

These are two fence posts just below the southwest corner benchmark of the Ramon Vigil Grant. The bottom one still has pieces of barbed wire attached. They are located to the west of the Trail to Upper Crossing and on the rim of Frijoles Canyon. Here is the waypoint (Datum: NAD27CONUS):

Zone & Easting Northing Elevation
13S 377180mE 3964337mN 7485 ft.

The Trail to Upper Crossing trailhead is at Ponderosa Group Campground, in Bandelier National Monument, just east of the intersection of NM4 and NM501 at the Back Gate in Los Alamos.

In Dorothy Hoard's A Guide to Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos Historical Society, 2009, 4th Edition, she mentions the Ramon Vigil Grant's checkered history and writes that "History buffs can still follow the old fence line and benchmarks along the base of the cliffs." A number of these old fence posts are still standing. In places, strands of barbed wire are also on the ground. A few of the Ramon Vigil Grant benchmarks are documented on Waymarking.com.

Dorothy Hoard also wrote Historic Roads of Los Alamos this year. (It is the seventh monograph in the series The Los Alamos Story, published by the Los Alamos Historical Society. Titles of the six other monographs are here and here and can all be purchased from the Los Alamos Historical Society's Online Shop.)

Hoard's Historic Roads of Los Alamos, gives a succinct synopsis of the history of the Ramon Vigil Grant. In 1742, land was granted on the Pajarito Plateau, then owned by Mexico, to Pedro Sanchez. By 1851, the Sanchez Grant was owned by eleven Sanchez heirs. Antonio Sanchez bought the shares of seven of them but the other three refused to sell. Antonio then sold his eight-elevenths share of the Sanchez Grant to Jose Ramon Vigil in 1851.

After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the United States was required to protect the property rights of Mexicans in the newly ceded territory. The Sanchez Grant was confirmed as the Ramon Vigil Grant by Congress in 1860, relying on forged Sanchez Grant papers that Ramon Vigil submitted in 1856.

In 1879, Vigil sold the Ramon Vigil Grant to Padre Hayes who received a rude awakening when the grant was finally surveyed by the United States Office of the Surveyor General and the size of the grant was trimmed considerably. The fault was the language in the forged Sanchez Grant papers which put the northern boundary of the grant in line with the southern boundary of the Pueblo of San Ildefonso instead of much, much further north to Guaje Canyon. It had been commonly understood for years that the northern boundary of the Sanchez Grant was Guaje Canyon but whoever forged the Sanchez Grant papers neglected to put that detail in.

It all worked out though. The good Padre was able to sell the much-reduced-in-size Ramon Vigil Grant for a killing to some eastern investors from Milwaukee and Ohio and a whole lot of the grant's former lands on the Pajarito Plateau opened up to homesteaders.

To find some fenceposts of the Ramon Vigil Grant along the way to Frijoles Canyon, you'll need to walk in the woods to the west of the Trail to Upper Crossing and look for fenceposts and downed barbed wire about midway between the cliffs and the trail. As you get closer to Frijoles Canyon, you'll cross well-defined "elk highways" that come off the mesa above the cliffs. Be careful not to trip over any barbed wire. Some of it was cleaned up but strands still remain on the ground in places.

Top photo is a U.S. General Land Office Survey benchmark at the southwest corner of the Ramon Vigil Grant. It is about a mile in on the Trail to Upper Crossing. The benchmark reads: "RVG, SW Cor, T18NR5E, 1913". Here is the waypoint (DATUM: NAD27CONUS):

Waypoint 1 (see map below)
Zone & Easting Northing Elevation
13S 377177mE 3964334mN 7485 ft.

Bottom photo is of the benchmark pipe at the base of the leafless shrub in foreground, looking southeastward toward Frijoles Canyon. The Trail to Upper Crossing descends steeply into the gully in the middleground, going into Frijoles Canyon via switchbacks.

Top photo is a U.S. General Land Office Survey benchmark along the southern boundary of the Ramon Vigil Grant. It's to the east of the Trail to Upper Crossing, on the rim of gully in which trail descends. It reads: "RVG, AP1, PL, 1934". Someone has scratched on it: "JB, 2002". Its waypoint is:

Waypoint 2 (see map below)
Zone & Easting Northing Elevation
13S 377349mE 3964287mN 7413 ft.

The bottom photo shows the benchmark pipe is encircled by stones. This is looking southward toward the hill up which the Trail to Upper Crossing steeply ascends from the bottom of Frijoles Canyon.

Top photo, another U.S. General Land Office Survey benchmark along the southern boundary of the Ramon Vigil Grant, north of Frijoles Canyon and east of the Trail to Upper Crossing. It reads: "RVG, S1, S6, R5E, R6E, T18N, CC, 1935".

What's especially neat about these last two benchmarks is that they are colored gold and especially stand out. Perhaps someone who studies benchmarks could explain the gold color. It's quite striking and lovely. The waypoint is (DATUM: NAD27CONUS):

Waypoint 3 (see map below)
Zone & Easting Northing Elevation
13S 377457mE 3964234mN 7462 ft.

The bottom photo is again looking south toward Frijoles Canyon. The metal fence post looks newer than 1935 and runs at an oblique angle to the Ramon Vigil Grant boundary. The fence seems to be a divider between Section 1 and Section 6 but why?

Guaje Mountain-Cabra Loop Hike

2009-04-15T17:06:00.024-06:00

Went on a group hike today - 17 people plus one dog.

View toward ridge on which Guaje Mountain resides. Guaje Mountain, our destination, is not visible here but rises further to the north along this same ridge. The hike starts at the Pajarito Trail 286 trailhead in Rendija Canyon. Drive into Rendija Canyon, from Barranca Mesa, and park at asphalted parking lot on left before pavement ends. Trail goes downhill and intersects Rendija Canyon Trail 279 but you stay straight and start up uphill, below Beanfield Mesa. If you hear shooting from the Sportsmen's Club nearby, you'll know you're in the right place!

The trail winds around these tent rocks which are below Beanfield Mesa. This whole area was quite toasted by the 2000 Cerro Grande fire but it's still very beautiful. There were dark clouds when we started out but they blew past and blue skies and billowing clouds prevailed. From Guaje Mountain, I did see snow showers over Caballo Mountain but they blew to the northeast.

Here's some of the hikers climbing the pumice hill. The hill is so distinctive! From that point, it's all uphill to Guaje Mountain.

This was our quarry - to see pasque flowers blooming. We saw a few when we started out and then didn't see more until we were started from the saddle to the top of Guaje Mountain. The hikers were very game going up. The trail is in very good condition. They had lunch on top and enjoyed the views though they did sit on the leeward side of the mountain as the winds were blowing but not enough to blow us off the mountain. After lunch, all but five of us followed the Pajarito Trail back to the vehicles. We five went west on a mesa that's right at the Guaje Mountain saddle and followed it out to the end where one of the hikers spotted a way down. We interesected Upper Guaje Road, the one that comes out of the Guaje Pines Cemetery.

This is on Upper Guaje Road, looking back at Caballo Mountain. After this, we intersected the upper Cabra Loop Trail and went back to the Pajarito Trail. All told, we did a little over six miles. I like it that this group is so adventurous!

Spring Cleaning Work Party

2009-03-22T20:21:00.008-06:00

Well, actually it was more work than party. I went up to the Route. Hadn't been there for a while. There was lots to do - freshening and rebuilding cairns, moving fallen trees, rerouting around fallen trees. It's great exercise with all the bending but I'm hoping I didn't give myself a hernia dragging a tree off the path. Someone cut away a really big fallen tree. I was grateful for that! I left the trash for another day, maybe eternity.

Brought along in a cooler six of the raisin-walnut-pumpkin-applesauce muffins but took them back home again. I had a couple when I got home. They are delicious.

It was helpful to wear mid-cut hiking boots. The canted part of the Route didn't hurt my feet because of the support they provided. My knees benefited from changing my lower leg exercise routine last night. They felt freer moving.

Going up took me 2 1/2 hours and going down took an hour and 15 minutes.

Near Paintball Road, I was surprised to see a woman on a blanket reading, with another blanket and lawn chair near but no other people. Her dog was very friendly and if she hadn't held the dog's collar, it was going to run away with me!

This morning when I woke up, it was overcast. By the time I got to the Route, the bank of clouds had blown over the Sangres. It turned into a blue -sky-big-fluffy-white clouds-day.

Rhapsody on FR181

2009-03-19T16:18:00.013-06:00

OK, I'll only bore you with a few details from my favorite road. This is mainly because I can't read the notes I scribbled while walking:

Billowing white clouds were building over Pajarito Mountain, Cerro Grande and Sangres but deep, New Mexico blue skies prevailed.

Sangres were in a grey haze which lifted somewhat as I walked but then, on the way back, I detected the slightest transparent haze over Cerro Grande.

Young aspens's bark greenish but no leaves yet. Gambel oak still has rust orange leaves of winter.

Most mud I saw was on downhill portion going into Water Canyon. One patch of snow there too. Butterflies especially loved the puddles and sunshine near Water Canyon.

Area east and uphill of Water Canyon (after you pass the two side roads) which is usually a mud bog isn't this year. It's rutted so there was mud earlier but it's dried out now.

Saw deer track but not much elk sign on road. Lots of dog prints including black ones from where the dog stepped into black mud of American Springs seep that drains next to and under road.

Patted the warm bark of a straight and mighty ponderosa that grows alongside road. Listened to far off wind, with many birdcalls carried on the breeze.

Going out of Water Canyon, on my way back, I saw plastic yellow flagging tied to trees on each side of the road. It made me look around to see what there was to see. I was astonished to see below in Water Canyon the skinny dead trunks of aspens that were such a startling burnished silver color! Thought about how Cerro Grande fire has made this land very open but vulnerable; yet, lovely still!

Duchess Castle

2009-03-18T16:14:00.007-06:00

The Lemon Lot hiking group's drive today was very short - from Tsankawi's parking lot down to the White Rock Y. The photo is of the ruins of Duchess Castle, a short distance south from NM-4 and north of Tsankawi. It's on Bandelier National Monument land. In the background is the Queen Mary Mesa and Tschicoma Mountain with the snow.

This area was badly hit by the bark beetle and it looks like Bandelier treated it by chopping up the dead trees. There is a trail to the ruins. The group continued past the ruins, eventually going into the north branch of Sandia Canyon. In the past, the group has followed Sandia Canyon to the Rio Grande and then gone up Buckman Road but it's said that San Ildefonso Pueblo is thinning in that area now.

At one point, I thought the group was stopping for lunch so I went a little further down canyon, planning to skip lunch, but then they decided they were going further up canyon for lunch. I apologized for making them wait for me. I wanted to go all the way to the Rio! It's beautiful in the Sandia Canyon with tall walls of columnar basalt towering above you.

On the way back, we went up to the side of a mesa to admire a sun dagger and then continued back along mesa tops, with views of NM-502 below us. Joan showed us the "Jump" where someone has carved three footsteps into the rock to make it look as though a person went over the cliff. In the past, the group has followed these same mesa tops eastward to an overlook of the Rio Grande called Red Cave. The ceiling has fallen down so now it's more like White Cave!

At the end of the mesa top, it was problematical going back down but we all made it in one piece. As we got back to the highway, the coffee van that parks at the White Rock Y was being towed away - must have broken down.

The leader's gps said we did 6.75 miles and I feel like it but it was a good hike and I've wanted to get back into that country around Tsankawi and toward the Rio Grande for a long time!

Water-Potrillo Connector Trail

2009-03-16T20:41:00.002-06:00

This afternoon I walked the Water-Potrillo Connector Trail, page 105 in Craig Martin's Los Alamos Trails. I started at mile 0.5 of Craig's Trail Log, which is close to NM-4 and where the connector trail comes up from the main Water Canyon Trail (page 104 in Los Alamos Trails) at the base of astoundingly orange cliffs. This is Gate 7 (so is the main entrance to Water Canyon!) and you follow the powerline as it trots easterly uphill. If this is confusing, and I'm sure it is, read the directions in Craig's book. My goal was the Potrillo Canyon Trailhead at Gate 11 on the southern edge of Pajarito Acres.

Along the way, I passed Gate 8 which the connector trail goes through via a people gate. The only rationale that I can see for Gate 8 is for hikers to access the area because it's only a people gate and not a road. I forgot to look if there was a parking area for it on NM-4. I also passed Gate 8a where a tiny yellow construction vehicle was playing with the dirt piles which seem to have gotten bigger since winter.

At Gate 9, a gravel road leads into the switchyard (ask an engineer!). In the switchyard, I took a side trip up the two small mesas to the north and east of the impressive array of high voltage wires protected by razor wire fencing and signs in English and Spanish warning of danger. I enjoyed going off the south end of the last mesa, using the butt-bump method.

At Gate 10, a trail follows underneath a powerline branch that goes up on top of a mesa between Potrillo and Water Canyons. Three vehicles were parked at Gate 10. I saw one of the hikers, walking two small dogs, going back to a vehicle but the other two were still parked there when I headed home a little past 4pm.

It was a beautiful day to be out exploring.

New paradigm is that this blog may or may not have photos and links!

Cure for the Common Winter

2009-01-06T16:48:00.027-07:00

First, buy a pair of snowshoes. Mine are the black MSR Classic Denali. REI in Santa Fe rents snowshoes.

Then, get some overboots to protect your feet from getting soaked. I treasure my overboots from Forty Below. Before I started using them, my toes would freeze while snowshoeing!

Old ski poles with plastic baskets would be helpful although I once saw someone snowshoeing in Valle Canyon on wooden snowshoes with no poles - must have tremendous balance! I'm able to find ski poles cheaply at the Jemez House Thrift Shop in White Rock.

Next, add some snow - fresh snow is wonderful and we're getting a lot of it this winter in Los Alamos!

I took the cure today. At first, I thought I'd attempt something epic like going up the Nail Trail to FR2998 and out to Camp May Road, breaking trail for 4 miles round-trip. Let's see - with 1:30pm start - I would have gotten back to my car after sunset!

Fortunately, I had time for further reflection during the drive to the Pajarito Canyon Trailhead. I was listening to Colin Fletcher's book River in which he follows the Colorado from its source to the sea. He mentions that at age 67, he preferred taking time to appreciate nature's beauty more than merely accumulating fast miles.

I started out in that spirit, only intending to explore the forest south of Pajarito Canyon, below the south Perimeter Trail. For a while, the strategy worked well. I saw lots of rabbit and squirrel tracks and elk tracks in the snow, heard a woodpecker, saw where hungry squirrels tore branch ends from ponderosa pines and threw them to the ground. I appreciated the sunshine, the clear New-Mexico-blue skies, the orange of the gambel oak and all the beautiful white snow! I even spotted a cross country skier above me on the south Perimeter Trail.

The snowshoeing only got mildly epic when I was crossing one of the several drainages that come down to West Jemez Road. To get out of the drainage, I had to bull my way up a short but steep hill. I used my ski pole baskets to tamp down the snow ahead in an attempt to give myself the advantage of a "broken" trail. Near the top, I grabbed onto a gambel oak to hoist myself up. It wasn't so much that I was slipping backwards but I wanted to get up in a way least damaging to my feet. If my posterior tibial tendon dysfunction and plantar fasciitis survive this abuse, it's all due to my wonderful custom made orthotics!

At this point, I should give you more information about MSR Classic Denali. They are very short, only 22" long, and don't provide much flotation in deep snow unless you weigh less than 125 pounds and I don't. You can buy tails to add more length and flotation but I tried them last year and didn't see much improvement.

The best use for MSR Classic Denali snowshoes are on packed trails. However...they do have very good crampons both under the toe and ladder crampons along each side which helps when I pretend I'm Spiderman! I break trail in deep snow with them anyway. I prefer their light weight and aggressive crampons. I'm sure that without them, I would have had to crawl up the short but steep hill.

After crossing the pint-size drainage, I soon came to a much deeper unnamed side canyon (see waypoint on map below) and decided that it would be a good idea to go uphill to intersect the south Perimeter Trail and follow that back instead of blandly following my broken trail back. I had gotten into a shady area so I was also happy to head uphill toward the comfort of the sun. I topped out in an area of thin snow with rocks showing through but helpfully flat. There were good views of the Sangre de Cristos to the east and views north toward Los Alamos.

Using my compass to keep trending west, I eventually hit the south Perimeter Trail. It hadn't been trod on since the last snowfall but I could see where the new snow had covered the old tracks. I didn't see fresh tracks until I got closer to where the south Perimeter Trail intersects the Pajarito Canyon Trail. Then I saw lots of snowshoe tracks. The cross country skier I had seen earlier had turned around not far from the trailhead. The snow became thin and a little icy near trailhead. I got to my car around 4pm. My GPS only read 1.78 miles but I had a good time!

Las Conchas Canyon: A Pretty Canyon in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico

2008-07-08T20:22:00.030-06:00

In Ski Touring in Northern New Mexico, Second Edition, by Sam Beard, there is a section on the Peralta Ski Touring Area that mentions Las Conchas Canyon Trail. Beard writes "Seldom skied, this trail leads southeast past old beaver dams and up a short steep canyon with several meadows to the south end of Calzada Trail at the junction of Peralta Canyon Road (Route 280) and Route 282. Beard says the canyon is 1.3 miles one-way, and goes from 8480' to 9192'. Beard calls it a former hiking trail. I found it on the south side of NM4, approximately .8 miles west of Corral Canyon Trailhead. (Corral Canyon is 12 miles from the intersection of NM4 and NM 501, according to the booklet 50 Hikes in the Los Alamos Area, available at the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce.) There is a large parking pullout on the north side of NM4, just east of Las Conchas Canyon.

I had to go under a very well-maintained barbed wire fence to get into Las Conchas Canyon. Maybe I'm missing an easier way in. I'll look more carefully next time I visit. Seems since this is public land that a less dangerous way to get into the canyon should be provided.

I spooked myself in one of the wooded sections. Noticing fresh pee in the dirt, I alerted and looked around for animals. Imagine my shock and horror when I saw through the trees a small, underfed bear nosing around on the forest floor. Then, horror upon horror, I saw a larger but equally skinny bear and here I was in a narrow canyon, alone with a mother bear and her cub!! Forcing myself to look more closely, I was relieved to realize they were only a mother and daughter deer!!

I'm not sure what this piece of concrete with the hole in the middle is but it looks like it could have been a cover for a spring. This concrete monstrosity is located near the beginning of the canyon. The USGS Redondo Peak topo map shows a spring about a half mile up Las Conchas Canyon.

Grazing fence, with gate, crosses the canyon. Gate was closed so I left it closed - the law of the West!!

A pretty view north (down canyon). Las Conchas Canyon is in Santa Fe National Forest, the Jemez Ranger District. It's within the topographic Valles Caldera, beneath the caldera's south rim, but is not part of the more famous public land, Valles Caldera National Preserve, much of which is ironically temporarily closed to the public.

A broader portion of Las Conchas Canyon that has a view of the top of South Mountain, 9795', one of the ring fracture domes of the Valles Caldera, located in Valles Caldera National Preserve.

I was walking along, peaceably minding my own business, when I was suddenly stunned to see this enormous felsenmeer rising above me. Believe me, if you are standing at the base of it, it positively towers over you!! It is on the west side of the 9360' unnamed peak that's tucked between Corral and Las Conchas Canyons.

It surprised me that the canyon was so clear but I saw no evidence of recent clearing until well into the hike when I saw this recently cut log. I'm glad that someone is watching out for the trail.

The trail was of stone and dirt and very walkable. Later I did encounter some deadfall but that may be because I lost the trail. I'll have to go back to try to find the trail better where I blundered through the deadfall. It was fairly near to where Las Conchas Canyon Trail intersected the Calzada Trail.

The trail went alternately through meadows and woods. There were several pretty meadows like this one. I can envision coming here for a picnic one day and staying to enjoy the canyon instead of just passing through.

The map has the Las Conchas Canyon waypoints showing my path through the canyon. 001 is the wide turnout off NM4 where I parked. 002 is the mouth of Las Conchas Canyon. 004 is a meadow. 005 is at the stupendous felsenmeer. 006 could be the meadow where the Las Conchas Canyon Trail split and I took the left fork, saving the right fork for another day's adventure! CALZAD is where the Las Conchas Canyon Trail meets the Calzada blue diamond cross country ski trail. 007 is where the Calzada Trail meets Peralta Road.

Camp May Road Route Photos

2008-05-09T21:00:00.035-06:00

A squashed, homeless Casper the Friendly Ghost? Naw, it's just someone's security blanket tossed near the route. The route gets very trashy around any of the areas where people can drive in or drive by.

I used to go straight but now have to detour left around the fallen tree. This is next to the Ocean, a picnic area at the top of the first steep curve on Camp May Road. The Camp May Road Route is on Santa Fe National Forest land and travels in a thinned forest south of Camp May Road.

The route is marked with cairns - perhaps a bit overdone. Originally it was marked with both blue and orange plastic flagging.

On the south side of Camp May Road, the route passes two parking areas - one known locally as the Ocean and 4 dead end dirt roads. This golden grass area is near the second dead end road (the first turnoff past the Ocean). It's splendid in late afternoon when sunshine makes the grass glow golden.

A baby ponderosa growing on the route.

These aspens put on a brilliant show in the fall - especially when their golden leaves are backlit by the sun.

That's Guardrail Hill coming up. It doesn't look like much but it's steep! The route follows along the right side of the photo and then cuts across the top of the hillside.

Why did it take me several years to notice these twin widowmakers dangling above my head? I now go behind the tree, on the right.

This portion of the route runs alongside the guardrail on the south side of Camp May Road in a mechanically thinned forest. This tree fell in the last month. I now go around it on the left. The guardrail is there because the hill is steep here and this means the flattest path is near the guardrail and the road but at least it's off the shoulder-less Camp May Road with its speed racers.

This is at the left end of the fallen tree above. What flower is it? It's on a tall, skinny stem. The basal rosette of last year's leaves have a pinkish tinge. I'm wondering if the long skinny needle-like parts are seeds from last year. It's a mystery to me!

A short part of the route follows the abandoned remnant of a bike trail, complete with jumps made with logs and earthern ramps. The Camp May Road Route goes left here while the bike trail goes out to the intersection of FR2998 and Camp May Road.

The winds have been busy toppling a giant ponderosa pine over FR2998. Vehicles have already found a way around it. The distant view to the north is of the Pipeline Road area.

The turnoff to FR2998 is a little less than two miles up Camp May Road. The area surrounding it was burnt in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. This is the burned east side of Pajarito Mountain. The aspens transform the area into an unbelievably golden tapestry in the fall.

Click on this picture to enlarge it and see the orange plastic flagging (just off center, looking like tiny flames) that's marking part of the route of the 50 mile run that the High Altitude Athletic Club will hold May 17. This is the end point of the Camp May Road Route but you could continue on, following the flagging, and end up at the bottom of the Townsight Lift of Pajarito Mountain Ski Area. From there, you could follow bike trails all over the north face of Pajarito Mountain.

The Wooton's Senecio flowers have heeded God's command to be fruitful and multiply!

Always Prepared: Wandering on Camp May Road Route

2008-05-08T20:16:00.011-06:00

Today I finally went up to the Camp May Road Route because I was missing it and also to check on things. Even though I was too lazy to get a trash bag out of my backpack, I ended up picking up at least a plastic grocery sackful of trash - mostly beverage containers. I managed to stuff the trash in my pants and windbreaker pockets and carried what wouldn't fit.

I saw that thistles were sprouting on the hillside below The Ocean where I pulled out a bunch last year so I worked at pulling out the young ones without gloves because I had left my heavy gloves in the car. I certainly hope I'm destroying invasive thistles and not native ones. They seem to be growing too thickly to be natives.

A big live tree has fallen over the trail on the upper guardrail part. In rerouting around it, I managed to get some nasty splinters from using a stick as a trail clearing tool.

When I got to FR2998, I noticed that the path which the High Altitude Athletic Club Jemez Mountain Trail Runs 50-miler will take up Pajarito Mountain is being marked with orange flagging this year. It's much more visible than the candy-cane-striped flagging they used last year. The route the race follows up Pajarito Mountain connects in perfectly with the Camp May Road Route that I follow. I need to check it out to see how well-cleared it is this year. Last year, even after it was "cleared" for the race, it was still in serious need of a chainsaw. It would be so perfect if some group would adopt the Camp May Road Route, starting from the intersection of West Jemez and Camp May roads all the way up Pajarito Mountain. It provides a safer, more peaceful experience than walking up Camp May Road, with its non-existent shoulders, alongside all the amateur race car drivers aiming to run me over!! Maintaining a trail without a chain saw, though, is getting a little ridiculous even by my low standards.

On the way back down, at the top of Guardrail Hill, I also rerouted a section around two nasty, gnarly widowmakers, one above the other on the same tree, that I have been walking underneath for several years without ever noticing them hanging right over my head.

Before Cerro Grande Fire: Jemez Mountains West of Los Alamos, New Mexico

2008-04-16T20:10:00.027-06:00

Terry Foxx's book, Out of the Ashes (available on Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Environment webpage as a free download), has a 1999 photo that shows the Jemez Mountains west of Los Alamos, before the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000. Other than that one, I could only find online the stunning aerial photo (JPG) of the Pajarito Plateau that Dan Elliott took for LANL (couldn't find the date). If you look above the green grassy area of the Los Alamos Golf Course (right middle), you'll see the small, triangular bald patch of LA/Burnt Mountain. The ridge that Pipeline Road follows to the rim of the Valles Caldera is to the left of that. The light, straight slash up the ridge is the actual trace of the natural gas pipeline and not Pipeline Road. The mountains were so heavily treed before 2000 that it's difficult to see the faint path of Pipeline Road. Below are three scanned photos that I took when I owned a Minolta SR-T 101 35mm camera. They give the flavor of how our mountains looked before the 2000 Cerro Grande fire.

(1) Before Cerro Grande Fire: Jemez Mountains West of Los Alamos, NM

This may have been taken from Canyon Road, summer 1986. From left to right (south to north) are the north branch of Pueblo Canyon; then Pueblo Ridge, which terminates in LA/Burnt Mountain; Quemazon/Rendija Mountain (the highest in this photo); and the area of the Mitchell Trail beneath Guaje Ridge. LA/Burnt Mountain had only a small burn on its east facing slope and looks quite filled in with vegetation in this photo.

Quemazon/Rendija Mountain has no formal name. Years ago, I first heard it called Quemazon Mountain. Recently, in reading Terry Foxx's Out of the Ashes, I saw that she called it Rendija Mountain because Rendija Canyon originates from its east side. Rendija Canyon was also severely burnt (PDF) in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. It's the next drainage north of Pueblo Canyon. Quemazon Canyon and Pipeline Road wrap around the west side of this mountain. On Google Earth, the altitude for Quemazon/Rendija Mountain is almost 9800' - a hunk of earth to be respected! I know of oldtimers who have hiked down Quemazon Mountain, back to town.

(2) Before Cerro Grande Fire: Jemez Mountains West of Los Alamos, NM

This was taken autumn 1991. It shows the Los Alamos County Municipal building (soon to be torn down) with Ashley Pond (JPG) and its famous ducks. Quemazon/Rendija Mountain is above the municipal building. The aspen-sprinkled double peak near the left (south) edge of the scene is Cerro Bonito, a mountain north of Pajarito Mountain.

(3) Before Cerro Grande Fire: Jemez Mountains West of Los Alamos, NM

This shows the mountain tops, northward from Quemazon/Rendija Mountain over to Caballo Peak. Here's a panoramic photo (JPG) of the Pajarito Plateau in winter, post-Cerro Grande, created by Kirt Kempter. The most severely burnt areas appear whitest with snow.

Pipeline Road: A Walk in the Cerro Grande Burned Area

2008-03-26T16:41:00.633-06:00

Pipeline Road, Los Alamos County Open Space and Santa Fe National Forest, Los Alamos County, New Mexico, March 18, 2008

On March 17 and 18, I walked up Pipeline Road to its intersection with the Quemazon Trail. On the 17th, as I hiked uphill, I obviously became anoxic and drunk on endorphins, because I concocted grandiose plans for a photo blog of a walk in the 2000 Cerro Grande burned area. That day, I had started my walk in the afternoon and shooting conditions were ideal - the light was golden, with white, puffy clouds floating above the mountains; however, I, in my immense wisdom, had left my camera at home!

On the 18th, camera bag slung from my shoulder containing my powerful (er - paltry), Canon Powershot A540 point and shoot digital, I got an early-for-me 9:30 am start and was dismayed by the total lack of clouds and the early morning haze that shrouded the atmosphere.

Pipeline Road starts from Quemazon Community on the west side of Los Alamos, NM. Here are directions that Craig Martin provides in Los Alamos Trails:

"From Diamond and Trinity, travel north on Diamond 0.5 mile to North Road. Turn left on North Road and drop to Quemazon Road, the first intersection on the left. Turn left and climb on Quemazon Road 0.7 mile to the intersection with the paved portion of Pipeline Road (unsigned) to the left."

Pipeline Road is a just after the intersection of Quemazon and Torreon, near a small rock gabion. Red-lettered street signs warn not to block access to Pipeline. Craig's book says the paving ends in 0.1 mile but I must warn you that it's a very steep and narrow 0.1 miles! I drove my mid-size passenger car up it once but there isn't much room for turning around at the end of the pavement so I never had the desire to do it again. Anyway, parking on the street and walking up gets you all warmed up for the climbing to come!

According to information in Los Alamos Trails, you start at 7700' and end at 8800' at the Pipeline Road-Quemazon Trail intersection. If you follow Pipeline all the way to its intersection with the Guaje Canyon-Cañada Bonita Trail on the Valles Caldera Rim, you'll have walked 6.3 miles one way and gained 2,200' elevation (going up to 9900').

Scoured North Branch of Pueblo Canyon

This view is at the top of the hill, just before the locked gate (below). Upper Pueblo Canyon's north and south drainages were severely burnt in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. The north branch of Pueblo Canyon now has the look of a major river. It was scoured in the years after the fire by tremendous runoff from numerous rain events that caused massive erosion of the hard-baked, denuded slopes above Pueblo Canyon. From this overlook, the drainage goes upstream and then dead ends on the steep slopes of the burnt mountains. I never really considered how trees and vegetation help to slow the runoff into our canyons because the whole ecosystem always efficiently sent water downstream without harming life or property. All that changed in 2000.

No Vehicular Traffic Beyond

The sign on the locked gate states “Road Closed” but doesn’t specify that all motorized traffic is prohibited. I checked with Mesa Public Library reference librarians who called Craig Martin, Los Alamos County Open Space Specialist. He said Pipeline has been closed to all but foot traffic and non-motorized bicyclists since the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000. This is due to hazards like numerous fallen trees across the road. According to Martin, the Forest Service may reconsider reopening it one day but that decision is at least a year away at the earliest. I can understand people wanting to drive up the road, with its spectacular views along the way and even more fantastic views when you top out on the Valles Caldera Rim; but, for the meantime, I'm happy to enjoy the peace of a non-motorized hiking experience.

The tall ponderosa pines here belie the Cerro Grande Fire's destruction of the forest that once surrounded Pipeline Road. The surface of Pipeline Road is a mix of solid tuff, dirt, rocks, and gravel. Wear shoes with good tread as the footing can be slippery.

Pipeline Road Turns Right

Very soon after passing the locked gate, I missed the right turn and followed the road to the left, only realizing my mistake when I came to a green water tank above Quemazon Community. From near the water tank, the trace of the buried natural gas pipeline goes in a straight line west up toward Pipeline Road. From Quemazon Community to the Quemazon Trail intersection, the actual pipeline doesn’t follow Pipeline Road but crisscrosses the road from south to north and back again.

When I got back to the Pipeline intersection, I redesigned the cairn to make it more noticeable but in this photo, it's completely hidden in the shade of the trees. Here again, a few more trees were spared while all around burned.

North Community from Pipeline Road

You can see the set-up here - the North Community neighborhood was downhill and at the edge of a roaring, wind-driven wildfire. The Cerro Grande Fire was moving to the north and west of Los Alamos. This report, written within days of the heartbreaking loss of homes, may explain why there wasn't total loss of tree canopy in North Community. Jack Cohen, the author, concludes that while the Cerro Grande Fire which destroyed the forests was a raging crown fire, the fire that destroyed the homes was a lower intensity surface fire. With very few exceptions, Cohen states that "...firebrands (burning embers from other fires) ignited the home[s] directly and/or in adjacent flammable materials that spread to the home."

Whether surface or crown, it's of little comfort to the victims of Cerro Grande who lost their homes and all their possessions. Cohen, however, raises interesting issues about maintaining defensible space around a home. He observes that several homes whose owners had done such seemingly minor defensible space activities like creating a perimeter free of pine needles around the house avoided ignition during the fast moving Cerro Grande Fire.

During 2003, Los Alamos County conducted a defensible space project that assisted homeowners in protecting their property from wildfire. Although the project is over now, the county is continuing to do their part to reduce fire danger by maintenance burning of grassy fuels and slash piles and thinning in the canyons. Having canyons less filled with flammable vegetation seems like a win-win situation when you consider that the houses in the Los Alamos townsite are built on mesas above the canyons.

Perimeter Trail Crosses Pipeline Road

This occurs soon after the right turn onto Pipeline. Here, Perimeter Trail, part of
Los Alamos County Open Space Trail Network, is going north past LA/Burnt Mountain and on to North Community. Note how the dead ponderosa pine has been neatly cut away from the trail. Los Alamos County Open Space trails are maintained by community volunteers. Some groups that volunteer are the Sierra Club Pajarito Group and the Tuff Riders Mountain Bike Club. The Los Alamos County Volunteer Task Force coordinates many, many more individual and group volunteers.

Burnt Mountain is also called LA Mountain because Los Alamos High School seniors paint a big LA on it every year. It was the site of a small fire in 1954.

Except for its very beginning in Los Alamos County Open Space, Pipeline Road traverses to the Valles Caldera Rim in the Española Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest.

Pipeline Road Ridge

To the right of the tall, burnt tree top (middle) is a shapely peak that's rimmed on its left with green conifers. That is, I'm almost certain, my destination - the intersection of the Quemazon Trail with Pipeline Road. Pipeline Road Ridge, though not an official name, seems appropriate since the road snakes over these mountain tops so perfectly. The north branch of Pueblo Canyon falls off on one side of the ridge and the south branch on the other.

Note in the foreground a number of young ponderosas hiding in the grass. They were planted after the fire. If you've ever visited the Burnt Mesa Trail in Bandelier National Monument, you have witnessed recovery that dates back to the 1977 La Mesa Fire.

Teralene Foxx, fire ecologist, wrote a beautiful, priceless treasure of a book in 2001, Out of the Ashes. If the book is out of print (Amazon has copies of the 36 page book for $34 so it must be), get the book from your library. You can also download the book as a PDF on the LANL Environment website. It's well worth reading. Foxx gently and sensitively educates the reader that fire is a natural process and demonstrates with photos and drawings the timescale over which recovery will occur. The book has photos of the vegetative recovery process after the La Mesa Fire. It also contains amazing photos of fire recovery, young aspens and sprouting shrubs, that had already occurred within months after the Cerro Grande Fire.

Mountains Tower Above

As you climb Pipeline and see the mountains so far above you, it seems completely impossible that an ordinary dirt road will take you right alongside those mountains; yet, Pipeline seamlessly carries you to the heights! Along the way - look closely - there are remnant roads leading through the stick forest that lead to good viewpoints. In the grass, there are plenty of young ponderosas marching determinedly uphill. That diagonal slash at the base of the mountain is a steep straightaway on Pipeline Road - if you just keep looking back as the vast views open to the east, you won't feel any pain (well, hardly any)!

The recovery of the burned area is beautiful in its starkness. I wonder what it will look like when wildflowers are blooming.

Pueblo Ridge and Helispot

Let's call the unnamed ridge in this photo Pueblo Ridge since its ramparts rise above the north fork of Pueblo Canyon. Look on the right middle for an S swirl of Pipeline Road. At the top of the swirl, above and left, is a lighter, cleared bench perched above north Pueblo Canyon. In Los Alamos Trails, Craig Martin says this is a "...former helispot created during the Cerro Grande Fire". It served as a temporary landing and take-off spot for helicopters.

Closer View of Helispot

Another view of Pueblo Ridge with the helispot beneath it. On Google Earth, the helispot appears as a small, light circular area. The next burnt ridge over, above the shadowy rocks, is Guaje Ridge. The dark peak on the left horizon is Clara Peak, a former fire lookout, outside of Española, NM.

View North from Pipeline Road

The large, unburnt meadow on Caballo Peak can be seen just above the toasted mountains. It's on Los Alamos County's northern border and is the highest point in the county. The mountain on the left is Quemazon/Rendija Mountain. It's at the head of Rendija Canyon, the next watershed north of Pueblo Canyon.

Gas Pipeline Valve Station

The natural gas pipeline from Farmington, NM serves Los Alamos and LANL as well as the communities of Española and Santa Fe. This webpage, from the U.S. Department of Transportation, gives general information about pipelines and has a link to a National Pipeline Mapping System Public Map Viewer which you can use to follow the general route of the pipeline, county by county. Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) still owns the pipeline but on January 15, 2008, they agreed to sell the natural gas portion of their business to Continental Energy Systems. The pipeline was built by the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950's to provide the lab and the town a reliable source of natural gas.

Trees Over Road

From Quemazon Community to the Quemazon Trail intersection, there were almost 20 dead and down trees that had fallen over the full width of Pipeline road as of March 18, 2008. This is looking north.

Chopped Up Tree by Side of Road

Does unofficial road-clearing go on?

Ghost Forest Above Gambel Oak

There are still plenty more trees yet to fall in the burned area so avoid it on really windy days.

Young Ponderosa Pine Nursery

The growth of the pines on this hillside is very gratifying. Across the south branch of Pueblo Canyon (middle) is the Quemazon Trail area and beyond that is Camp May Road (where the remnant green edge of conifers are). Pajarito Canyon is below the snowy ridge on the horizon. (The ridge is called the Knife-edge by some and it goes up to the meadows on Pajarito Mountain's south side.) The upper Pajarito Canyon Trail that went to the top of Pajarito Mountain was destroyed by the fire.

Quemazon Intersection in the Trees

The rim of trees on the peak ahead is where Pipeline Road is heading. The road up to the intersection is steep!

St. Peter's Dome, San Miguel Mountains

St. Peter's Dome ( on right side, in front of far off Sandia Mountain) was severely burnt in the Dome Fire of Spring 1996. This website gives some Jemez Mountains Fire History.

Pajarito Mountain Ski Area and Kinnikinnick

Pajarito Mountain Ski Area’s Townsight Lift (the long, wide one on the left (east)) looks so close. You can see where the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire burned a broad swath on the east side of the mountain but spared all the ski runs.

Stream Runs on Pipeline Road

This is right around mile 2. The stream is running down and across the road, from a drainage at the top of the photo, into the south branch of Pueblo Canyon. This is causing some erosion.

Culvert

Here are two culverts that are maintaining drainage under the road. They also drain into the south branch of Pueblo Canyon. These are uphill from the stream-in-the-road situation above.

Reforestation Sign

This sign, from Spring 2003, states that the area would be reforested.

Nothing Grew

This is near the reforestation sign above but it looks like the effort wasn't successful here in this severely burnt drainage. On a hopeful note, this wonderful web page shows before and after Photos of Vegetative Recovery in the Pueblo Watershed . Click on the map to see recovery in vegetation transects near and around Pipeline Road that are monitored by volunteers.

South Pueblo Canyon

Pueblo Canyon's north and south branches merge into one further downstream. Pueblo itself merges into Los Alamos Canyon, near the bottom of the Main Hill Road (NM 502).

Snow Patch

Large patches of snow on Pipeline were less than 10 in number as of March 18, 2008, and occurred mainly after the first 1 1/2 to 2 miles. The most snow was at the Pipeline Road-Quemazon Trail intersection.

Trees

The destination - Quemazon Trail - is at the top of the hill. Don't be fooled by the trees - a small remnant forest somehow escaped destruction here.

Remnant Forest

Perhaps this gives a taste of what the overcrowded forest conditions were like before the Cerro Grande Fire. A 1996 New York Times article,"In Sick, Crowded Forests of the West, Seeds of Infernos Lie Ominously in Wait", details the problems that land managers face in dealing with forests that are unhealthily overloaded with trees. The article was written right after the Dome Fire. It ended with the prediction that "Fifty years from now we'll see crown fires of biblical proportions." Unfortunately, we didn't have to wait that long.

Quemazon Trail Intersection

My ski pole went down 3' in a few places by the side of the road here. From its terminus at Pipeline Road, the Quemazon Trail goes steeply downhill to its trailhead in the Western Area neighborhood of Los Alamos.

Pipeline Road Climbs Onwards

From here, you have about 3.5 miles more to walk Pipeline Road before it crosses the Guaje Canyon Trail at an overlook into the Valle de los Posos, far below in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The pipeline is actually coming up from the Preserve, originating from the natural gas fields in the San Juan Basin in the northwest corner of New Mexico. The Valles Caldera National Preserve is closed to all entry from the rim unless you're a cow!

The trees here are only a facade because right after this, there is a treeless stretch that got badly burnt in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire.

Los Alamos National Laboratory

LANL is located south of the townsite of Los Alamos and is accessed via the Omega Bridge over Los Alamos Canyon. On the afternoon of May 10, 2000, the fire jumped Los Alamos Canyon, forcing the evacuation of Los Alamos. Cerro Grande also burned lab land as explained in the PDF file: Fact Sheet: Impact of the Cerro Grande Fire on Los Alamos National Laboratory Land, June 1, 2000. According to the fact sheet, which was only a preliminary assessment, 9000 acres of lab land burned (more than 30% of their total land). Property losses occurred to portable buildings and historic structures, and LANL built two new buildings as a result of the Cerro Grande Fire. The majority of burned lab land was of low burn severity but there were areas (203 acres ) of high severity burn, south of Pajarito Road. This PDF report, Final Progress Report on Los Alamos National Laboratory Cerro Grande Fire Rehabilitation Activities, October 2003, gives more information on fire recovery on lab land.

Los Alamos, New Mexico

In the middle foreground is Los Alamos Mesa, also called Los Alamos Townsite. Pueblo Canyon is on the left (north) and Los Alamos Canyon on the right (south). The Sangre de Cristos are the snowcapped mountains to the east.

Downtown Los Alamos, the Eastern Area, the Western Area, Quemazon Community, and the Denver Steels neighborhoods are all located on Los Alamos Mesa. This webpage gives a brief rundown of all the neighborhoods in Los Alamos and White Rock if you are curious.

For more information on the Los Alamos County recovery from the Cerro Grande Fire, please see these resources:

Cerro Grande Restoration: Five Years of Community-Based Success
At the bottom of the webpage, click on "Download a Power Point presentation on Post-Fire Recovery" for an excellent synopsis of all the recovery and rehabilitation work that has been done since 2000.

Cerro Grande Fire Recovery
Download a "Final Issue" of "The Recovery Report: Cerro Grande Fire Recovery Newsletter", February 2004, which details work done by Los Alamos County after the fire to rehabilitate county infrastructure and neighborhoods. Details are also given regarding the 2003 defensible space project conducted by the county.

Pajarito Plateau Watershed Partnership
Under a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Pajarito Plateau Watershed Partnership (PPWP), was formed with citizens and allied professionals. In conjunction with the Volunteer Task Force (VTF), it worked to rehabilitate the watersheds damaged by the Cerro Grande Fire on the Pajarito Plateau with special emphasis on the severely burned Pueblo and Rendija canyons.

The website is filled with information on projects done by the PPWP and VTF such as revegetation with seed balls, rebuilding trails, replanting vegetation along watercourses, and educating the public on water quality issues, fire ecology and post-fire recovery. The last posted meeting minutes for the PPWP are from August 2005. I'm not familiar with the current working status of the group but the website is a testament to the hours and hours of work that the volunteers did to rehabilitate the Cerro Grande burned area. The VTF is an active group.

Pipeline Road Area

The topo map for the area is Guaje Mountain. The first waypoint on the map above is at about the 2 mile mark on Pipeline Road and the second one is at the Pipeline Road-Quemazon Trail intersection. The map erroneously labels Pipeline Road as Quemazon Trail. If you search for Pipeline Rd., Los Alamos, NM 87544 on Google Earth, you can enjoy exploring the geography of this area with your mouse!

Sincerest Apologies to Homer (Not Simpson)

2007-11-25T21:16:00.001-07:00

starting to break a sweat
crow shadow flies off burnt tree
cool shade
feels good

woman coming down trail
hi-good-morning-have-a-great-hike-you-too

bright morning sunlight
nothing to be scared of in these woods

snowy sangres de cristos
off to east
capped by
new mexico blue sky

young yellow aspens
red rosehips
fragrant goosefoot--
startlingly red--
alongside trail

skinny downed tree
walk over

crispy orange brown gambel oak
tall green mullein spikes
leaves so thick
they seem indestructible
yet thin enough
for sun to backlight

who lives in these woods
birds chirping
robust elk tracks
dainty deer tracks

entering the burn
aspens on hillside
leaves mostly all fallen

high above is
burnt knife-edge
with green draping of trees

pajarito canyon
so deep

half-moon-in-the-morning
above pajarito mountain's
grassy shoulder

tall blackened bark-stripped trees
in various stages of falling

handsome giant reposes across trail
polished wood
burnished red-blond-silver in the sunlight

one spindly, blue harebell
hangs over trail edge

down
down
down
into pajarito canyon
easier than it looked

gurgly stream
red rosehips glisten
aspen leaves tremble
fallen aspen leaves
crinkle under feet

one look back at the wild country
couple of aspens
gold topped
up on hillside
in grove of pines

leftover summer--
scarlet gilia
droops alongside trail
wild strawberry runners
leaves turning red

look behind
no one there
ok to be alone in the woods
to be without people
for a while

all downhill now
easy breathing

hear bird in the woods
di-di-di-di
morse code
bird flies up
shadow flits across trail

purple flowers
are they daisies
are they asters
are they beautiful

at one time, vehicles traveled
on this nail trail
all the way up to camp may road
the old timers remember that

roaring hum of los alamos/lanl micropolis
breathe deep
go back to civilization

kick up loose rocks
sound like china plates scraping

pine cone
thick chunks of sap
drip from edges

beige-gray water tower looming
lanl-los-alamos-county-emergency-management-center

snowcapped truchas peaks
last golden eye daisies of summer
wild geranium
red leaves
bonsai ponderosa

when started trail
nothing looked familiar
on the way back,
it all looks familiar

so glad
so thankful
so happy
for this day
for this life
for this season

Giant Raccoon Ridge

2007-11-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a burning desire to explore an area simply to satisfy your curiosity about what’s there, and furthermore, to see if you can do it? I often enjoy walking along American Springs Road, FR 181, in the Jemez Mountains, west of Los Alamos, New Mexico. I would see this ridge, east of where the road crosses Water Canyon, and as I swung around on FR 181, I’d study it and wonder how hard it would be to walk up it.

On April 9, 2006, I even plotted a series of waypoints that started at the twin water tanks on West Jemez Road, the bottom terminus of FR 181, and ended on top of Cerro Grande, and would include going up this ridge. I deemed it a "dream hike" because it seemed a daunting task to walk the route, burned severely in places by the Cerro Grande fire, and burdened with much downfall, all at once without a car shuttle, but over time, I have managed to do most of the route, doing a piece here and there, except for going up this ridge. Had I known how crisscrossed it was with gambel oak, New Mexico locust, and man-swallowing gaps between huge rocks, especially the latter, I might not have gone at all. If so, I would have missed a good trip. There were times, though, when faced with yet more rocks to precariously teeter over, and a thick tangle of vegetation to bull my way through, that I hoped for an easier way.

I carried my camera the whole time but didn’t take it out even once, preferring to shelter it in its bombproof carrying bag, so the photos below were taken a few days later and only show a distant view of the ridge but leave out all the really exciting business. Besides, I was too busy getting torn up on locust bushes, bruised on rocks, and eyes poked out by oak branches to stop and pull out my camera. I regret now not taking any photos at all during the actual event. It even rained a few drops but I "rode" that out underneath the canopy of a conifer and used it as an opportunity for lunch. I smelled smoke throughout the day from the prescribed fire in the Bandelier National Monument Upper Frijoles Unit that was winding down.

The ridge seemed endless even though my Garmin eTrex only clocked it as half a mile. I finally got out of the quagmire of rocks and vegetation that wanted to murder me and went uphill to the northwestern end-point of the ridge that had great views to the east-northeast of Valle Canyon and the ridge just east of it. It had all been burnt badly in the 2000 Cerro Grande fire but was beautiful country, even more so in its starkness.

I stood on the ridge and plotted future expeditions--perhaps going up from Valle Canyon to the pass between the Valle Canyon and Water Canyon drainages, just to the northwest. The pass is covered with autumn-blond slender-wheatgrass, planted after the Cerro Grande fire, and the fallen forest lies in the golden grass. There’s something fascinating about walking through the burned area because everything is open and I feel like I’m seeing the lay of the land for the very first time.

I decided not to go down to FR 181 the way I had always planned to when I was just walking by in ignorance on the road down below. My original plan was to go down a continuation of the ridge, that trended southward at a right angle to Giant Raccoon Ridge, to the easy, unencumbered walking of FR 181. A modicum of common sense now overtook me and I happily bypassed that adventure--becoming even happier later on when I could clearly see how rough and rocky the continuation of the ridge was! Instead, I went down to the saddle between Valle Canyon and Water Canyon to work my way down to FR 181.

There was a lot of deadfall to get around as the area was part of the Cerro Grande disaster. I saw wattles that volunteers had put in place to slow down the flow of water into the Water Canyon drainage and to help stem erosion. The slender-wheatgrass that covered the pass was extensively planted after the fire to keep the soil from washing away. The pass had an inviting meadow to explore above Valle Canyon but I knew I had to make haste to get back to my vehicle before dark. Very soon, the terrain turned ugly and uninviting again with a profundity of oak and locust. In truth, I think a hillside of bronze oak is beautiful--if I don’t have to walk through it--and locust flowers taste delicious but their thorns are brutal! Working my way downhill through this and keeping from tripping over the stout fallen trees took a lot of time. I was ecstatic when I eventually got to the area of green, living ponderosas and the safety of FR 181!

Here’s the sections of the “dream hike” route (map below) that I have completed:

From FR 181, going up a branch of Water Canyon, then following a ridge up to a meadow, plainly visible from FR 181, below an eastern arm of Cerro Grande. It involved lots of dead and down trees, one that I tripped over spectacularly, and since it was spring, a profusion of ticks, and thus, it’s named Tick Meadow.

Then, the upper section was done from on top of Cerro Grande by going down the side of the very steep eastern arm, toward but not quite to Tick Meadow--I count it as good enough!

Connecting Giant Raccoon Ridge with West Jemez Road involved two very pleasant hikes, even though either one would have done the job. The first was going up FR 181 from the twin water tanks on West Jemez Road, NM-501, all the way to the bottom of Giant Raccoon Ridge. The second started at the same place but followed a FR 181 Shortcut that goes up to cross the Perimeter Trail (the trail that goes east-west between FR 181 and Pajarito Canyon Trailhead) and then runs alongside the west Valle Canyon rim to Giant Raccoon Ridge.

Then, this latest stint on top of Giant Raccoon Ridge almost completes the journey. The only section left to do is going up from Valle Canyon to the pass between the Valle Canyon and Water Canyon drainages, beneath Giant Raccoon Ridge, and exploring a bit northwest of there.

To be completely honest, I didn’t set out wanting to do the “dream hike” route in sections but only realized last week that that is what I’ve done and the end result is very pleasing.

What's a "dream hike"? It's a list I made of explores that I want to do in the Los Alamos area, especially in the burnt area. I've done some and others remain only dreams.

Why am I calling it Giant Raccoon Ridge? I kept seeing large, amorphous, seed-filled piles of scat and told myself it wasn’t a bear--only a giant raccoon--that seemed less scary! Whatever it was, it really loved that ridge as the scat made a constant trail across it. Too bad the animal wasn’t tall enough to open the shrubby tangle up for humans to navigate through! Ah, but then, where would the adventure have been?

Far-off view of Giant Raccoon Ridge from American Springs Road, FR 181. I started up on the far northeastern (right) side.

From American Springs Road, FR 181, this shows the saddle, just above the lower, middle grove of trees, that I came down on.

This also shows the saddle. Enlarge the photo and look above the concave arc of green trees on the left middle. The golden grass pass above Valle Canyon is not at all visible. It takes some doing to get to it from FR 181. The best way to approach it would be from Valle Canyon. If you look at the far left horizon, that's the south side of Pajarito Mountain. The photo is a bit misleading as part of what you're seeing in the background is the bare, burnt ridge that rises east above Valle Canyon and, at this angle, towers above Giant Raccoon Ridge which is to the west of Valle Canyon.

The ridge looks so innocent and easy--just a few scrub oak--you can’t see all the rocks--how deceptive! In places, the rocks reminded me of walking in the basalt jumbles of White Rock Canyon above the Rio Grande!

This is the map I made of the “dream hike” route from West Jemez Road to Cerro Grande peak that I so much wanted to do. Even though this jpg version of the map was made on 11/16/07, I first made the original tpo file on 4/9/06, so it only took a 1 1/2 years to mostly complete the “dream hike”! There is still that one small section to do above Valle Canyon!

blinded by aspens

2007-10-29T19:55:00.000-06:00

fast trot, turn corner--

blinded by yellow aspens--

all of me smiles wide!

What a Great Hike!

2007-08-07T17:40:00.003-06:00

Today I walked up Pajarito Mountain on the far eastern jeep road that starts at the parking area off Camp May Road, just a short distance past the Town Sight ski lift. As I started up, I really wondered about the dark clouds I could see but other than some light rain later in the hike, there was absolutely no thunder and lightning. Maybe because it was cool, very Fall-like, and there was moisture in the air, no thunderstorm activity could get a foothold. I felt so grateful for the cool weather, the beautiful wildflowers, the fantastic views, and for having a ski hill to hike on that’s so close to town. I took 37 digital images.

I only went as far as the easternmost of Pajarito’s two peaks, the one just past the picnic deck. I enjoyed the views of St. Peter’s Dome, Sandia Peak, Cerro Grande, Rabbit Mountain, and the Valle Grande. The huge, dark cloud directly overhead was very impressive.

I considered doing a full circuit across the mountain and back down to the Ski Lodge but decided not to totally deplete myself. I would like to do the grand circuit one day though. I’d also love to go up Cerro Grande again one day but feel so happy to have done a hike up Pajarito today.

On the way back down, I walked just a short way on the easternmost ski run, Evershine Ridge, very steep with stony, slippery tread, just to where it intersected the jeep road I’d come up on, Lower East Road. I took that to where it intersected the Upper Oxbow Road.

Then, just by happenstance, I saw a bike trail going downhill right in front of me so I decided to follow it and ended up the intersection of Aspenola, the one I was on, and Aspenola Loop (also called Lower Aspenola) trails. These are Pajarito Mountain Ski Area Biking and Hiking Trails that are built and maintained by volunteers and a map can be downloaded from the Pajarito Ski Area's official website. (Click on Mountain, then Trail Map, then Mountain Biking.) I turned right, onto Aspenola Loop Trail, not having any idea of where exactly it led. The trail is a single track that passed through rain-washed aspens. The forest gleamed when the sun filtered down onto the wet, greenness. There were mushrooms popping up in the moist duff.

What surprised me about this trail was how organically it flowed through the woods like it had always been there and what a different world it was than following a jeep road.

Right near where the trail began to loop back, there was my car, showroom bright from its free car wash (if you squinted so as not to see the bird poop!!)

Mitchell Trail Revelation

2007-07-13T21:49:00.000-06:00

Took the briefest hike today (1.75 miles RT) with the Betty Ehart Senior Center Friday morning hikers on the Mitchell Trail. Leader said this was to see the recovery that’s taken place since the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire. The Mitchell Trail was severely burned, exposing the rocky spine of the land. Someone pointed out the Natural Arch way up high which was clearly visible at just the right spot on the trail. As we started from the trailhead, I could have kicked myself for leaving my camera behind. The mountains didn’t look burnt at all. They were draped with green shrubs and grasses in various states of green and gold. The sky had a rain-washed clarity that, with a mix of sunshine and dark clouds, made the mountains larger-than-life beautiful.

Here’s some of the flora we saw on the Mitchell Trail: scarlet bugler, scarlet gilia, buckbush, dogbane, puccoon, golden eye, cutleaf coneflower, blanketflower, yarrow, butterweed (not much in the floral department but produces plenty of tall, green foliage), nodding onion, tons of different grasses (I’m hopeless with grasses), blue flax, incredibly showy purple horsemint (the women were all coveting it for their home gardens), magenta vetch, loads of the reddish purple James’s geranium, salsify, the purple daisy that I confuse with asters, raspberry bushes, loads and loads of Gambel oak, New Mexico locust, evening primrose, wild rose, mullein, and that’s only the ones that I knew or that someone else pointed out. Truthfully, I jogged my memory by looking in the index of Dorothy Hoard and Terry Foxx’s Flowers of the Southwestern Forests and Woodlands--an invaluable resource for flowers in the Los Alamos area. (This book is being revised but I have no details.) The only fauna I saw were lots of bees and butterflies and a black beetle named Sam which took a free ride on a hiker’s hat. Only that in spite of my hopefully scanning the Gambel oak covered hillside for bears!

I know it’s cliched but the Phoenix rising from the ashes comes to mind when I see all the profusion of plant life on the Mitchell Trail.

Joan’s Berry Lemon Cake Roll Recipe

2007-07-04T22:31:00.000-06:00

Thank you, Joan, for your recipe and Happy 4th of July everyone:

First prepare the cake: Line a greased 10x15 inch jelly roll pan
with waxed paper; grease the paper.

Separate 4 eggs. Beat yolks with 1/2 cup sugar until thick in large
mixing bowl. Blend 2/3 cup all purpose flour (unsifted) with 1
teaspoon baking powder; add to yolk mixture beating until smooth.

Add 1/4 teaspoon salt to the egg whites; beat until foamy in small
mixing bowl. Gradually beat in 1/4 cup sugar until moist, stiff
peaks form; fold into yolk mixture. Spread batter in prepared pan
and bake in 375 degree oven for 14 minutes or until top springs back
when touched. Invert cake onto a tea towel sprinkled with powdered
sugar. Remove paper; roll cake and towel into a tight cylinder
starting at the short end; cool.

To prepare lemon filling, blend 2 tablespoons cornstarch and 1 cup
sugar in a small sauce pan; stir in 2/3 cup lemon juice, and 6
tablespoons water. Bring to boiling over medium heat, and cook,
stirring, until thick and clear. Stir 2 tablespoons of lemon mixture
into 1 beaten egg; stir egg mixture back into lemon mixture. Cook,
stirring, over low heat for 1 minute. Stir in 4 tablespoons butter
or margarine until melted; cool to room temperature.

Beat 1 cup whipping cream into soft peaks; fold into lemon mixture.

To assemble, get about 2 cups berries (I use raspberries, but the
recipe calls for olallie berries, and my mom always used nectar
berries).
Unroll cake; spread with the filling, and distribute the berries
over filling. Re-roll cake - this time without the towel mixed in;
cover and chill at least 2 hours. (I made it yesterday, so it had 24
hours to wait to be eaten.)

Generously dust with powdered sugar and cut cake into slices to
serve. Makes about 10 servings. (But, today I cut it into 13 pieces
to feed all of us at least a little.)

Fourth of July Lemon Lot Raspberry Hike

2007-07-04T15:52:00.000-06:00

Went for a Fourth of July Raspberry hike with the Lemon Lot Hikers of Los Alamos and White Rock, New Mexico. I’m calling it a raspberry hike because even though all but one of the raspberry bushes we saw had only green, barely visible raspberries, the hiking leader had prepared a delicious berry lemon cake roll. Now that’s a leader to keep!!!

We saw some tiny strawberries in the middle of the trail--brave little fruit! A hermit thrush was singing away and views of Redondo Peak and Redondito could be seen while walking out on the gated forest road, less than 2 miles in on FR144 and off of SR126, between Bear and Barley Canyons. Lots of scarlet gilia and scarlet bugler and a few blue harebells were scattered about. A deep, dark purple penstemon had planted itself in the middle of the forest road.

The scene is from our lunch spot, in the general direction of Seven Springs State Fish Hatchery. The hike totaled right around 4 miles and there were 13 people.

While we all were enjoying the soda and juice and cake and laughter, we saw a green forest service fire truck roll by, maybe out patrolling on this July 4th holiday. Hopefully they won’t find any work to do!

Later, driving past the Valles Caldera National Preserve, we saw them posting “Welcome--Come Visit!” signs alongside SR 4. The gate into preserve headquarters was wide open but no one wanted to drive in and visit. Wonder if they’ll do it again later this week or if this was just a one day, unadvertised, unannounced event. Maybe they are getting lonely for a bit of human company. Guess cows aren’t as much fun as us unwashed, unruly hikers!!

It’s thundering and raining now which is so very welcome because maybe the hot spell will break even if only for tonight.

Citrus Love

2007-06-28T12:26:00.000-06:00

On the Ohio/Pennsylvania trip, I missed having my own kitchen and simple things like the beauty and the smell of cut citrus. I juiced these this morning and the juice was refreshing and delicious.

Deliriously Ecstatic To Be Back In NM!!!!

2007-06-27T15:00:00.000-06:00

We took a car trip back home to Ohio and Pennsylvania to visit relatives. Very busy with tons of visiting. In my case, relatives I hadn't seen in 8 years. Three day car ride back home was grueling. We took I-81 and I-40 from Chambersburg, PA back to Los Alamos, NM. Went through lots of pretty country but I spent a lot of the time with head down furiously documenting the trip in my journal. No time at all to write in it in Ohio or Pennsylvania! Nearly got drowned by passing semi truck going around Oklahoma City. The last night on the road was spent in Sallisaw, Oklahoma near a nice, quiet neighborhood where I enjoyed the best jogging practice of the whole trip--no unbearable humidity like in Ohio, fireflies sparking here and there, no traffic, last few remnants of sunset.

Last night we got home around 8pm. I unpacked a few things, put some food in the refrig, dressed in my exercise rags and took off for loops on the Mesa Trail behind East Park. I went out around 8:31pm and was just in time to see an incredibly beautiful sunset. Turquoise blue skies with a brilliance and color depth that you would not believe. Long rafts of contrail-like clouds--golden yellow, then rosy. The sky faded, the clouds turned gray but then, closer to twilight, the bright blue color returned. The sky wasn't fully dark until after 9:30pm. I am so grateful to be back home in New Mexico!

Beguiled By Iris

2007-05-30T21:37:00.000-06:00

Flower Bower

Wildflowers Nestled Here and There

2007-05-17T17:55:00.001-06:00

I got a new lease on life today. It took a lot of radiation to get it but hopefully that will have no lasting consequences. I recently had a chest x-ray that looked abnormal. All my old chest x-rays had been purged by Los Alamos Medical Center so there was nothing to compare it to and that necessitated getting a CT Scan of my chest to rule out something dire. I picked up a copy of the radiology report today and anything dire was duly ruled out! I have made a note on my calendar to pick up any radiology studies in 5 years before they are thrown out again.

Clouds looked low, thick, and dark over Pajarito Mountain this afternoon so rather than go up to Camp May Road to do my jogging practice, I drove to the White Rock Rim Trail. When the trail turns away from the Rio Grande to go toward Sherwood, I took the alternate route that is less stony. It’s true that it’s easier and there is less chance that I’ll be doing plank pushups when I fall down while doing the Basalt Ballet but the truth is that I prefer being further from the houses that back right up onto the trail. I like better the stonier trail that goes alongside Pajarito Canyon because it feels more private, more peaceful, more wild.

When I first got started today on the WR Rim Trail, I was struck anew by the vastness and unreality of White Rock Canyon, just like I was the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. Maybe because it was overcast, the lighting was flat and the lack of shadows played havoc with depth perception, but it seemed somehow more impressive than on the sunny days that are the norm here. I could see that the Rio Grande was a deep tan muddy color but the whole canyon seemed very silent and there was no detectable movement even of the river.

I saw lots of wildflowers today along the rim--lavender Desert Verbena; yellow Perky Sue; red Indian Paintbrush; yellow flowered Evening Primrose and white flowered Evening Primrose; orangish-red Globemallow; white fleabane; Firewheel, yellow petals that are orange near the center; hot pink Pincushion Cactus; ruffly yellow flowers of Prickly Pear Cactus; Narrowleaf Yucca with its beautiful white flower stalks almost open; a dwarfed blue Penstemon that was growing practically on top of the trail. Think of how long the list would be if I knew the identity of all that I saw!

One thing that struck me was how, visually, the flowers seemed so much more complete and their beauty highlighted when they were nestled up to something else. Indian Paintbrush looked so much redder next to the light gray green of Sagebrush, lavender of the Desert Verbena appeared startlingly bright against the muted earth tones at canyon’s edge, hot pink flower of Pincushion Cactus was more wildly delicate next to dusty black basalt rocks. Observing all this made me, in my endorphin saturated state, come to the entirely unsupported conclusion that everything in life is looking for something to complete or complement it and that applies to people too.

Just a side note on that impending storm over Pajarito Mountain--it fizzled entirely. On the way back home from White Rock, I could see that the clouds were now higher and lighter. By then, it was getting close to 4pm and I decided to take the day off from building cairns on the Camp May Road Route and come home to blog my outing. I have written so many blogs in my head these last few weeks but none of them ever made it online. So many blogs, so little time but today I decided to take the time. Even if I can only count my readers on one finger, I feel like I am sharing a part of my life and that makes me smile.

Let Us Build an Ark

2007-05-13T21:43:00.001-06:00

We took grandson on a short hike today. On the way out, he complained that he wanted to turn around--he was too tired. At the appointed turn around, he happened to find a beetle which we put on a stick to carry back to the car (ultimately, we left the bug in the wild). Well, wouldn't you know it--not another word said the whole trip back about being tired so fascinated was he by that beetle!!

Afterwards, I bagged up the piles of trash along the Camp May Road Route. I had placed most of the piles very close to the road and parking areas so I expected all this to go rather fast and I even planned to do my jogging practice afterwards. Well, don’t count your chickens before they hatch was surely operative today!! Things were going swimmingly until rain, hail, thunder, and lightning hit. I had just driven to the 3rd trash pickup spot. I had a false start there looking around for the trash pile but forgetting exactly where I had put it and when the precip started, my car was right there so I scampered gratefully into it. I had parked under a tree because all was clear when I first pulled up. Waiting in the car, feeling it vibrate from the occasional thunder, I had visions of lightning hitting the tree and exploding shards into the car’s windows--what a way to go--but I was too dumb to turn on the engine and move the car. I just sat there feeling sorry for myself and then remembered that I had the May 2007 copy of local flavor magazine. I sat and read two of the articles that had looked so interesting that I hadn’t had time to read before.

At one point, I thought the rain had let up and got out to look for the trash pile again and then it really started hailing and thunder and lightning seemed all too close so I mutteringly retreated back to the car. I waited in the car about a half hour before it let up enough for me to retrieve the wretched trash and I, horrors, got plenty wet in the process.

Then I went on to the next to last pile and I managed during a brief lull in the storm to walk over to the tree where I had stashed the trash on a styrofoam cooler lid. But, then it started raining again and really hard as I walked back to the car, holding the trash with both hands and trying to balance the umbrella over one shoulder--I was not amused! I put the trash behind the car and sat waiting about 15 minutes for it to let up enough to put the trash in the trunk. This stop was at the Ocean and I was discouraged to see that someone had thrown beer cans around since I had last done some trash pickup there.

At the very last stop, near West Jemez Road, rain was still coming down but not in such a rush. This trash pile was really strange because someone had thrown underneath a bush unopened cans of food, including a tin of sardines. The labels had fallen off the cans and they were rusted and bulging. Why would someone waste food?

During the deluge, I kept muttering to myself that it doesn’t rain this much here--the storm lasted over an hour--and kept telling myself in astonishment that it doesn’t even look like it should be raining--the sky was so bright--and bemoaning how it always rains when I collect trash on Camp May Road. Which brings me to my idea on how to bust the drought in the Southwest--I could take my trash collecting act on the road!! I hear, though, that Florida may be wanting my services too--the drought is so bad there, according to my brother-in-law, that there is worry about the aquifer becoming tainted by saltwater. And all we have to worry about here in Lost Almost is chromium and arsenic in our drinking water.....

There Be’s People in Them There Woods

2007-05-12T21:57:00.000-06:00

I gathered up trash into junky looking little piles today along my route in the woods near Camp May Road, starting near West Jemez and stopping at FR2998. I didn’t pick up trash in the WHOLE woods on the south side of the road but if I saw it along the route I walk along, even if it was shining in the distance, I did pick it up. Most of the trash congregates around the parking areas or dirt roads along Camp May Road. An exception was the steep, gullied area below the second guardrail--that was the trashiest. People must love throwing beer bottles and beer cans into a gully--I guess they feel virtuous heaving them out of sight! Either that or it’s some kind of sporting event--Steep Trash Toss. In truth, overall, there didn’t seem to be as much trash as I expected--perhaps woodland elves are out there picking it up--thank you little elves! Altogether, it may only amount to 2 large, black plastic bags when I go back up there tomorrow to carry it out. If not for the blue blanket that someone tossed in the woods, I probably could have fit it all in one bag.

The most interesting part of the day, though, was the discovery of what I’ll call the Candy Cane Route that someone is pioneering. It’s marked with diagonally striped red and white plastic flagging tape. Its other hallmarks are the axe notching of fallen logs across its path and some logs that have been sawed out of the way. It goes through a marshy, grassy area. In tick season, this will be prime territory but I brought none of the little buggers home today. I followed this route for a while but then had to give up and go back to making trash piles. One day I will follow it up as far as it goes. It basically parallels Camp May Road from FR2998 going uphill and, from the flagging, it looks like it may continue downhill on FR2998 but I couldn’t tell how far. I may check that out on the grandson hike tomorrow.

Happy Mum’s Day to all the Moms out there! Be sure to attend the Mother’s Day Concert tomorrow, Sunday, May 13, at 7 pm at Ashley Pond in Los Alamos. It features The Small Stars, a rock group from Austin, Texas. This is the kickoff concert for the 2007 Los Alamos County Summer Concert Series. The summer concerts, known informally as the Gordon’s Concerts after Russ Gordon who started them years ago and who is still the driving force behind them, are the premiere social event in Lost Almost’s summers. Would be a dead, dead town without them!!

Soggy

2007-05-08T20:37:00.001-06:00

I was burnt out on blogging after the voluminously verbose series I wrote on elk exclosures. Bandelier National Monument never got back to me regarding my inquiry on their elk exclosures but that’s OK because I have moved on and theirs were in pretty good condition anyhow.

Today I went to FR 2998 to do my jogging practice. On Hal Higdon’s website there is a plan for beginning runners. You walk for 10 minutes to warm up, then for the next 15 minutes you alternate jogging 30 seconds and walking 30 seconds, and then you walk for 5 minutes to cool down. I started at the intersection of Camp May and FR2998, intersected the Nail Trail and then went into Pajarito Canyon and back up. Craig Martin’s book, Los Alamos Trails, computes that to be 2.8 miles RT. Not quite my usual daily 4 but with the trip to Caballo Mountain on Friday (yes, I haven’t been writing but I’ve definitely been wandering!) and the trip to Cerro Rubio yesterday, I feel quite sure that the exercise gods are pleased. I used to run years ago but stopped as my knees protested it. The knees don't seem to mind the 30 seconds stints. Also, the higher intensity of intervals is supposed to be so good for a body and jogging is good to keep bones strong.

FR2998 looks like it can be driven almost to the Nail Trail except for a small, 3” diameter tree across the road. There is another more robust tree down but vehicles can drive around it. Right before the Nail Trail is a place to pull off into the woods and picnic . I saw one bicyclist today who was coming up the Nail Trail and heading toward Camp May Road.

I saw tons of yellow Wooton’s Senecio. We have to take grandson for a one way, downhill, car shuttle hike this weekend. It’s only 2.7 miles per Craig. The delight of it will be he can pick a flower or two (Wooton’s aren’t endangered are they?) and even collect a stone or two and turn over rocks galore without being in violation of any laws like in Bandelier.

I was so intent on my jogging practice that when I got to Pajarito Canyon, I forgot to stop and take a look although I made a mental note of the strong sound of running water. Instead, I turned around immediately and started uphill on my last 30 seconds jogging lap.

Clouds were all around and very dark clouds indeed to the east over the Sangre de Cristos but overhead was blue sky and sunshine--pure joy!

When I got back to my car, I put on my heavy Wells Lamont gloves and proceeded to pick up a completely full bag of trash and also some junk that wouldn’t fit into the trash bag and this in a very short section of Camp May Road. I am determined to finish the last half mile of picking up trash on the first 2 miles of Camp May Road that I told Los Alamos County I would do for Clean Up Los Alamos Day. As it seems to always do when I am set on picking up trash, it rained. Those dark clouds that I thought were safely stowed on top of the Sangres drifted overhead. Fortunately, thunder and lightning were in short supply so I persisted for a bit but then as I got wetter and the trash too, I decided to bag it and go home. When I drove through town, around 5pm, I saw it was raining much harder than it had been on Camp May Road. I’m going to try again tomorrow to finish that half mile. That means rain, folks!!

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 10

2007-04-09T21:17:00.000-06:00

Antecedents

Here’s more information on the abandoned looking elk exclosures in Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF) on American Springs Road (FR181), FR 2998 (off Camp May Road) and one off Camp May Road across from the Townsight Lift. (See previous posts on Elk Exclosure Explores.) First, a correction--there are actually eight of them not seven--it seems that I have missed one of them somewhere in my travels. The exclosures represent a collaborative effort between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and SFNF. Information from the research will be shared with Bandelier National Monument (BNM) and Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) once all data have been analyzed.

After the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, the forest service entered into a contract with LANL in 2001 to build the exclosures, with the provisos that forest service would construct the exclosures and the lab would maintain them during the contract period and conduct the research. The forest service paid for the cost of the exclosures. The research was done over five years by a graduate student at LANL and the study ended last summer but funds had dried up well before that--much as they have across the board for anything to do with improving our natural resources (pdf download from Natural Resources Defense Council website).

Since losing financial support, the researcher has essentially finished the project alone. The graduate student has maintained the exclosures for the last three years, with chainsaw, sledgehammer, and wire cutters, getting down and dirty, and sometimes down and out with personal injury. The forest service did go in and cut some of the dead and standing trees a couple of years ago.

As shown in my photographs (see Elk Exclosure Explores Parts 1-7), the exclosures are in areas that were highly burnt in 2000. The usual procedure for constructing such exclosures is to cut down all the dead and standing trees around the fence line but the researcher felt that this would change the vegetation pattern and change how elk respond thus affecting the interpretation of the data.

Because it is unique to have constructed elk exclosures in an area of a large scale fire like the Cerro Grande, SFNF, with the help of volunteers, may one day remove the unrepairable exclosures but salvage what materials they can to try to repair some of the less damaged ones to keep them standing as part of a network of exclosures in BNM and VCNP to study how best to manage wildlife habitat.

Rationale

The Cerro Grande Fire was hugely devastating and the post fire atmosphere was that of an environmental emergency. Something had to be done to study the changed environment and there were unprecedented opportunities to conduct environmental monitoring of recovery after a fire on a scale never done before. The graduate student will get a PhD this year. It will be interesting to learn the results of the research.

As a result of the fire, a vast amount of new elk habitat in SFNF opened up. Researchers and natural resource managers in the Jemez wanted to know how the fire would affect movement patterns of elk in the eastern Jemez and how elk might impact ensuing vegetation recovery in the burned area.

In the 1990’s, before the Cerro Grande fire, elk-vehicle accidents were increasing and an ongoing concern was monitoring if elk take up contaminants from lab land and carry them off site where they may become part of the human food chain.

The lab’s concerns are part of the larger picture that area land managers (BNM, LANL, USFS) were studying even before the Cerro Grande fire--elk herds that are not familiar with Zero Population Growth and the resultant negative effects of their over browsing on the ecosystem. All this is done in the context of fire--prescribed and wild. An earlier fire--the La Mesa Fire in 1977--created a large amount of winter elk habitat that is directly across the highway from LANL. This meant that Bandelier land managers were among the first in our area to monitor elk impacts on habitat. Too many elk are not unique to Los Alamos--wildlife officials in Colorado want licensed hunters to cull the elk population in Rocky Mountain National Park. Another idea is equally contentious--reintroducing predators to control the out of control elk herds.

"Ecosystems are not only more complex than we think, they're more complex than we can think."

Frank Egler, naturalist

Frosted, Flocked and Frozen

2007-04-07T17:05:00.000-06:00

Snow flurries off and on today--cold too--was below thirty this morning. Took a walk up Camp May Road to my two mile turnaround. Immediately noticed areas of white suspended in last year’s grasses. Someone tore up a Kleenex? Release of something sinister at LANL? Poplars molting early? Looking closely, could see spider webs were draped with snow crystals--resembling Thumbelina hammocks or Queen Anne’s lace. Ponderosas too were flocked with tiny white needle-like swizzle stick crystals. Dead and dormant vegetation from last year--all was flocked--the wider diameter the base matrix, the bigger the ice crystals. Across Los Alamos Canyon, the area of Quemazon Trail, a forest of flocked trees--living and dead. The dead flocked trees seen close up look like oversized Charlie Brown Christmas trees but transformed into a twiggy white loveliness.

Had intended today to pick up trash for the Clean Up Los Alamos Day effort on two hillsides to get those out of the way. Hillsides are the hardest because the footing is so unstable. But, the snow wouldn’t cooperate--when I was ready to get to work, it started coming down--wet. I waited ten minutes but no let up and went back home--grumpy. Can’t get trashy again until next Tuesday but then--guess what?--I found a conscript--a neighbor, who is ecstatic that no doggy do is involved and is willing to help with the last mile! Another secret weapon--I found a discarded crutch, in a grassy area below the road, which will come in quite handy to dig out trash from under bushes--no more diving into locusts, wild rose, and gambel oak headfirst and reaching blindly with my hands. I may have a new career--Trashmaster extraordinaire!! I must have given people pause as they saw me, apparently in tiptop shape, carrying my crutch down the hill!!

Had this thought on litter as I walked back down the one mile stretch I have cleared on Camp May Road--somehow the landscape seems purer now--it’s as though trash creates a kind of background static in the mind which interferes with appreciating how really beautiful nature is. Yesterday I saw a man at the Ocean sitting in his lawn chair, reading his paper. I like to think his scene was more peaceful because there’s less trash!

Not a Pretty Picture

2007-04-05T20:00:00.000-06:00

Clean Up Los Alamos Day

I signed up for Clean Up Los Alamos Day on April 14. My plan was to pick up and haul away trash on the first 2 miles of Camp May Road--by myself. I began to dawn on me this week that perhaps I’d better start early because one day wouldn’t be enough time. Boy, was I right!! I started on Tuesday and picked up a whole bag in just the first 1/8 mile in from West Jemez Road. That’s not counting the gigantic blown truck tire--I muttered to myself a lot on that one praying for someone to come along and help me stuff it into my trunk!.

Glutton for punishment that I am, I went back for more on Wednesday and got a whole bag from just one side of the road up to where skiers park for pickup--plus lots of rusted, decayed roadside detritus. (I honestly don’t even know what some of the junk was that I picked up but it’s all residing at the landfill now--I visit the landfill everyday with my car stuffed with trash!)

Then today I started early and told myself that I would make it to the Ocean, a popular teen hangout with great views of Los Alamos and lots and lots of beer cans. (I’m going to pick that trash up one day as a volunteer effort for the Santa Fe National Forest!) Well--I did make it to the Ocean--but only on one side of the road, although I finished the other side up to where the road starts climbing steeply. Altogether, I collected 4 bags today (free bags and disposal provided by Los Alamos County) plus lots of what I’ll call stupid trash--bent steel fence posts, a really weird looking 4-5 foot long rusted cylinder. (Lord, hope it wasn’t radioactive--it is Los Alamos after all!!!) I made a lot of little debris piles today below the guardrail starting at the first major uphill and tomorrow I will bag those up and try to forge on beyond the Ocean. Signing up for this by myself as a supposed one day event is laughable!!

The majority of the trash is beer bottles, beer cans, and plastic bottles. I don’t know if it’s because thirst addles your brain so much that you litter more or if the lighter litter all blew off somewhere else. All I know is it’s all stupid trash and people shouldn’t litter!!

It’s not too late if anyone wants to sign up to pick up trash in their corner of Los Alamos and as a perk, you get a picnic at Fuller Lodge from 1-3pm this Saturday, April 14! Call Vincent Valdez, Los Alamos County Recycling, 662-8383 to volunteer. (Yes, yes, right now I can hear your thundering feet as you run to your telephones!!!! : )

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 9

2007-03-31T17:01:00.000-06:00

Good News Not Just About Elk Exclosures

Mt. St. Helens Elk Exclosure Repair

Here’s a short blurb about a Mt. St. Helens elk exclosure fence repair that will take place June 2007. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is announcing this forest service volunteer project. It sounds like it is hard work as it involves:

packing 12 foot 4x4’s and fence wire to the exclosure and replacing weak posts and fence wire.

I wonder if Bandelier, Santa Fe National Forest, and the Valles Caldera National Preserve ever use volunteers to repair exclosures?

Does Lepidoptera Like Elk Exclosures

Within this website page , Bandelier National Monument Unfunded Research Needs, is a description of a proposed project, Ungulate Browsing and Prescribed Burning; Effects on Lepidoptera Diversity, no date, to be done using 10 elk exclosures that were constructed in Bandelier National Monument (BNM) in 1998 as part of a plan to monitor elk impacts upon vegetation and soils in BNM. The research was to describe how the diversity of lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) was affected by prescribed burning and heavy elk browsing on vegetation by comparing the abundance of moths and butterflies and the number of species inside the exclosures with the corresponding control plot outside the exclosure. Butterflies and moths were chosen for this study because they are sensitive to changes in the environment. The project was to have been completed in December 2000 but I could not find the research paper when I Googled the title. I wonder if the project was ever funded and completed.

NM Meadow Jumping Mouse Digs Livestock Exclosures

This abstract, within this pdf download Biological Invasions and Conservation Challenges in the Natural Resources, of a 2006 paper titled, Decline of montane populations of the threatened meadow jumping mouse (Zapus hudsonius luteus) in New Mexico, concludes that the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse--found only in 6 sites in the Jemez Mountains and 2 in the Sacramento Mountains--thrives only in areas where livestock grazing exclosures allow riparian vegetation to grow tall, unbrowsed by cattle.

Yellowstone Aspen Exclosures

A 2001 paper, (pdf download), Long-Term Aspen Exclosures in the Yellowstone Ecosystem, finds that exclosures help aspen stands to regenerate. There are 14 long term aspen exclosures in Yellowstone. The researcher observed that aspens stands within exclosures easily produced new growth taller than 6 1/2 feet, but outside the exclosures, few aspen stands regenerated because the shoots were browsed off repeatedly. The author concludes that aspen numbers in Yellowstone have declined mainly because of elk repeatedly browsing off new growth.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 8

2007-03-24T21:46:00.000-06:00

Volunteers of Outdoor Arizona Build and Repair Aspen Exclosures

Save the Aspen is a project of Volunteers of Outdoor Arizona (VOAz) started in May 2006 to help reverse the decline in aspen numbers due to fire suppression and elk browsing on the young shoots:

The Peaks and Mormon Lake Ranger Districts of Coconino National Forest (CNF) have constructed 34 Aspen exclosure fences (approximately 72,000 perimeter feet) to protect Aspen seedlings from elk browsing. The number and location of exclosures will insure that enough genetic diversity can be preserved to assure the long term health of Aspen. A majority of the fences are in need of major repairs. In addition, CNF would like to construct a few additional exclosures.

At their first Save the Aspen event on May 24-25, 2006, VOAz, in partnership with CNF personnel, did a repair on an exclosure that nature, animals, and people had substantially dismantled.

At their annual 2006 Memorial Day weekend work project at Hart Prairie Preserve , near Flagstaff, VOAz volunteers built an exclosure around a grove of rare Bebb Willows.

On September 8-10, 2006, VOAz volunteers constructed an 2100' exclosure fence. By this time, the crew was so skilled that they completed the weekend project by 5pm on Saturday and had Sunday to relax and enjoy the outdoors.

The Calendar of VOAz events already shows two exclosure building projects in May 2007 so their work continues.

Springtime in Los Alamos

2007-03-24T21:13:00.000-06:00

Yesterday--rainy, foggy autumn on American Springs Road. This morning--winter redux in town. This afternoon, again on American Springs Road, senecios bloomed on a sunny, rocky hillside--spring again.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 7--concluded

2007-03-21T21:18:00.000-06:00

Cerro Grande Unofficial Route Bandelier National Monument, Sandoval County, NM

2nd Exclosure

This exclosure is a little further uphill from the first one. It was built right over the old logging road. It has one terrific tree crash which caused the nearby corner to bend out of shape and pulled the corner post up, exposing the cement base. A tall skinny aspen leans over one side but I can’t remember any other wreckage. There are a very noticeable number of young aspens in the exclosure compared to outside the exclosure--not sure that I saw any outside the exclosure. I wondered if that’s because the elk can’t chew on the new shoots or if there were a lot of young aspens at the exclosure site to begin with. The usual people entryway and spare materials were seen--I’m not sure I would be able to put my head through the people entryway as it looked narrower than others I had seen.

I don’t want to look at any more elk exclosures for a long time. I will, however, try to find out more about these elk exclosures--any research reports generated by the exclosure studies, if the studies are still ongoing, how much the exclosures cost, are they ever torn down, and how often are they maintained.

To be continued.

BNM Cerro Grande Unofficial Route Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation BNM CGU

2nd Exclosure

BNM_CGU_003 13S 373295mE 3968141mN 9333 ft.
BNM_CGU_004 13S 373247mE 3968206mN 9322 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 7

2007-03-21T21:07:00.000-06:00

Cerro Grande Unofficial Route
Bandelier National Monument, Sandoval County, NM

1st Exclosure

Another exclosure in very good condition. It’s located on the Cerro Grande Unofficial Route--park on either side of SR4, before it dips into and out of Frijoles Canyon--there is a sign on the right, coming from Los Alamos, directing you to how many miles it is to the Cerro Grande Official Route. Then more or less go up the southern arm of Cerro Grande, keeping more to the west, sometimes following an old logging road. The exclosure is next to a tall, white weather station. I only noticed one skinny aspen that had fallen and was resting on the top of the fence. There are the usual Bandelier elk exclosure accouterments--people entry way, spare fence materials neatly placed inside the exclosure. I did note a few young aspens in the exclosure and none outside it.

BNM Cerro Grande Unofficial Route Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

BNM CGU 1st Exclosure

BNM_CGU_001 13S 373459mE 3967782mN 9170 ft.
BNM_CGU_002 13S 373396mE 3967817mN 9191 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 6

2007-03-21T18:15:00.000-06:00

Cerro Grande Official Route Bandelier National Monument, Sandoval County, NM

This elk exclosure is situated in a meadow to the right of the Cerro Grande Official Route which starts from the parking lot across from the Bandelier XC Ski Trails.

I did notice that some young aspens were growing inside one corner of the exclosure while no young aspens are found in the meadow outside of the exclosure--this was obvious enough for even me to detect.

It’s a shame that this exclosure, while being in mostly good shape, isn’t in better shape since hikers going up to Cerro Grande pass it all the time--it could be a good interpretation opportunity. Although I could see obvious signs that it has been repaired and taken care of and it’s in good enough shape to keep animals out, there are some bent corners and a post that is heaved up out of the ground.

BNM Cerro Grande Official Trail Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

BNM_CGO_001 13S 371922mE 3968357mN 9037 ft.
BNM_CGO_002 13S 371982mE 3968341mN 9042 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 5

2007-03-21T17:01:00.000-06:00

Scooter Peak Meadow
Bandelier National Monument, Sandoval County, NM

This exclosure is in the woods to the southwest of the pond in Scooter Peak Meadow and west of Dome Road. It’s in a flat area before you begin climbing Scooter Peak. The exclosure is fronted by a meadow which is soggy this time of year because the pond’s drainage crosses the meadow (I found it interesting that this pond drains into a western branch of Frijoles Canyon.). The exclosure is in very good condition although I’m not astute enough to tell the difference between the vegetation inside the exclosure to that outside of it. The only tree fallen on it was a skinny aspen that was held up by the fence. There was a people gate just like the ones at Apache Springs so this must be unique to exclosures in Bandelier National Monument. Near the people entry way, which was covered over with a scrap of fence unlike at Apache Springs where the entry ways were open, are some extra fencing materials. This seems to be another characteristic of Bandelier National Monument exclosures--makes sense. Whoever is in charge of this elk exclosure is taking very good care of it. Surely then the payoff is greater than purely aesthetic--it keeps animals out as it is designed to do.

BNM Scooter Peak Meadow Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

BNM_SPM_001 13S 370997mE 3967826mN 8983 ft.
BNM_SPM_002 13S 370944mE 3967804mN 8997 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 4--concluded

2007-03-21T16:20:00.000-06:00

FR2998 Santa Fe National Forest Espanola District, Los Alamos County, NM

3rd Exclosure

Go back down the side road that the 2nd exclosure is on, turn right on FR2998 and walk a short distance to this one on the right side of the forest road.

Wish I had good news to report but this one is mashed by large timber just like all the rest on this road. A pathetic aspect is that the gate is so mashed and mangled that it can’t be latched shut and padlocked so someone has inserted sticks across the gate to keep it shut but why bother since access is so easily gained into the exclosure anywhere one wants to enter since the fence is so thoroughly flattened. Quite a few of the cement bases of the fence posts has heaved up and exposed.

SFNF FR2998 Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

SFNF FR2998 3rd Exclosure

2998_005 13S 376810mE 3971358mN 8497 ft.
2998_006 13S 376850mE 3971361mN 8474 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 4--continued

2007-03-21T16:02:00.000-06:00

FR2998 Santa Fe National Forest Espanola District, Los Alamos County, NM

2nd Exclosure

To get to this one, go past the first exclosure, turn right at the first obvious side road to FR2998, walk up to the top (not long) and the exclosure is on your right, not far from where cool green pines are beckoning. This one is wrecked. I’m beginning to wonder if these exclosures were constructed as an emergency measure after the Cerro Grande Fire in an attempt to quickly get some information to figure out how to best protect the plants and animals. All of the forest service exclosures that I’ve seen are constructed in the burnt area and the forest service must have known the fencing was doomed. Was the time scale long enough to get valuable information before the dead trees started pounding the exclosures?

I didn’t see any aspens but gambel oak and burnt ponderosa abounded. A sign of hope are some young green ponderosas that were planted after the fire ripped through here.

The gate is shut but no matter because the fence beside it is crushed; there are many spots where the fencing is down to the ground. Especially notable is a true giant of the woods that basically took out most of one side of the exclosure. Cut logs around the perimeter of the fence, both inside and outside, make me wonder if they tried to cut down some of the dead trees to make a perimeter outline for the fence or proactively chopped them down before they fell. I saw wire on the ground around the perimeter of the fence--maybe fell from the top of the fence? Thankfully, neither the forest service or the national park service use barbed wire on these exclosures but these wires are a tripping hazard. Three or so of the fence posts have the concrete base heaved up--one post is laying on its side with the concrete base completely exposed. Once again, it looks like someone tried to prop the fence up with some sticks.

SFNF FR2998 Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

SFNF FR2998 2nd Exclosure

2998_003 13S 376610mE 3971113mN 8587 ft.
2998_004 13S 376580mE 3971107mN 8597 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 4

2007-03-21T15:24:00.000-06:00

FR2998 Santa Fe National Forest Espanola District, Los Alamos County, NM

1st Exclosure

This is the first one you come to on the right on FR2998, about a quarter mile off Camp May Road and up a gently inclined burnt hill. About six trees have crushed the fence--some nearly all the way to the ground and some skinny ones that are just resting on the top of the fence. One part of the fence almost looks like someone tried to prop it up with a few sticks. The gate is hanging open with the padlock locked. The corner post of the gate has the cement base undercut and exposed. Skinny young aspens, mature dead aspens, burnt dead ponderosas and gambel oak predominate both inside and outside of the exclosure. There are metal tags attached with twists of wire to some of the young aspens--sometimes 4 or more tags on one tree. One of the tiny tagged aspens had a thick silver aspen that had fallen right beside it --just catching the top branch of the stunted, sickly young aspen. A low gambel oak bush also had a number of metal tags affixed to it. Toward the center, a piece of rusty rebar was in the ground, minus any BarGard protector cap.

SFNF FR2998 Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

SFNF FR2998 1st Exclosure

2998_001 13S 376619mE 3971523mN 8559 ft.
2998_002 13S 376601mE 3971507mN 8635 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 3

2007-03-19T21:22:00.000-06:00

Across from Townsight Lift
Santa Fe National Forest Espanola District, Los Alamos County, NM

This elk exclosure is quite destroyed. It’s located at a bit under 9000’ elevation, just off the parking lot across from the Pajarito Ski Area Townsight Lift. The dead aspens here are quite wide in diameter and did an excellent job of mashing and mangling this exclosure. Still attached to what fencing is upright are metal signs which read “AMERICAN 1-877-933-6336 AMERICANFENCE.COM”. Several of the trees had metal tags on them but I don’t know what the numbers mean. The usual rebar stake capped with a BarGard was in the exclosure. The gate was missing entirely. Something that looked gate-like was laying in the snow near the elk exclosure but it looked the wrong size--too wide for the opening. One fence pole that was laying on its side had its sizable cement base visible. The destruction is so overwhelming that all I can do is give a sample photo or two but it doesn’t do it justice.

So far, the conditions of the elk exclosures located on forest service land are uniformly deplorable. In fairness, they are in the burnt area (Cerro Grande Fire 2000) and what else would I expect. The best one was off of FR181, situated in skinny aspens. What I can’t understand, though, is why these mangled metal monuments (one hiker has compared them to Stonehenge, calling them Metalhenge) are left standing even when they are essentially destroyed. I realize that the forest service is not flush with money and removal of these essentially harmless but atrociously ugly eyesores are not of the highest priority and would cost lots of money and manpower. But, the forest service has a high standard that it applies to people who lease land in the forest, asking for a large deposit to ensure that the land is left in pristine condition at the end of the lessee’s term. Shouldn’t the same high standards apply to the forest service?

SFNF Across from Townsight Lift Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

UNK_RD_001 13S 375893mE 3972687mN 8926 ft.
UNK_RD_002 13S 375922mE 3972689mN 8890 ft.

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 2

2007-03-18T20:57:00.000-06:00

FR181 (American Springs Road), Santa Fe National Forest Espanola District, Los Alamos County, NM

I went here on Thursday, March 15, 2007. From the American Springs Road are far ranging views of the Sangre de Cristos, Pajarito Mountain, and Cerro Grande. What’s most intriguing is seeing how everything drains into Water Canyon as the land comes sweeping down off the heights into a wide mouth funnel of grassy meadows heavily salted with burnt trees.

The first of three elk exclosures alongside this road, situated across from American Springs, is an absolute mess of downed trees. I counted 5 or more. There are a lot of tall trees, living and dead surrounding the exclosure.

Instead of a people entry way like the exclosures along the Apache Springs Trail, all 3 of the exclosures along this road have fence gates with latches that are padlocked shut except for the second exclosure, the gate of which was hanging wide open.

The second exclosure had a lot of gambel oak in the area and was less heavily treed--most of the standing trees were burnt--but it still had a fair amount of heavy lumber crash down on it.

Two of the exclosures had a rebar stake, with a BarGard protector cap, stuck in the ground. A tree with a metal tag was near one of the stakes. One exclosure had a second rebar stake with the BarGard cap missing. In the center of the third exclosure, I could see something shiny in the middle at ground level but it was too far away for me to see what it was. These rebar stakes are different from the silver colored flat stakes in the Apache Springs elk exclosures and have no identifying information on them.

The third exclosure was in very good condition probably because it was surrounded by skinny aspens instead of telephone pole thick ponderosas so the trees that fell on this one didn’t bring the fencing down.

I found the smallest hint of the time scale for elk exclosures from this website which shows a photo of an elk exclosure that has been in Upper Beaver Meadows, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, since 1962.

SFNF FR181 (American Springs Road) Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

SFNF FR181 1st Exclosure

181_001 13S 375246mE 3966846mN 8245 ft.
181_002 13S 375244mE 3966882mN 8281 ft.

SFNF FR181 2nd Exclosure

181_003 13S 375314mE 3967877mN 8249 ft.
181_004 13S 375335mE 3967872mN 8261 ft.

SFNF FR181 3rd Exclosure

181_005 13S 375889mE 3968020mN 8245 ft.
181_006 13S 375882mE 3967995mN 8279 ft.

Little Red Beetle That Could

2007-03-16T22:08:00.000-06:00

On my Wednesday jaunt on FR181 (American Springs Road), I was passed by a woman slowly driving a showroom bright, red VW Beetle. I thought to myself that she was very brave. I didn’t see the little car again until I rounded the corner where the road goes down a long, north facing slope to cross Water Canyon. The car was stopped halfway down--the woman stood beside the car peering at the deep muddy tire ruts and the slushy ribbons of snow. The lady admitted that she regretted not turning around when she could at the top of the hill and now wondered if she could make it to the dry area at the bottom to turn around. She was getting nervous about getting stuck in the mud. Almost in passing, she mentioned that she had gotten stuck earlier this winter and didn’t want it to happen again. I laughingly warned her that I didn’t have a cell phone to call for help and she admitted that she didn’t have one either. Since her VW Beetle was parked smack in the middle of the road, I in my first born fashion suggested that she turn on her emergency flashers which she thought was funny since there was no traffic for miles--just her. Then we walked down to check out the turnaround spot. It looked very doable--assuming she could make it down the hill and not go over the edge into Water Canyon. She walked back to her car and I waited down below. When I heard her wheels spinning, I walked back up and saw the right front one was getting caught on a high spot in the snow. After she straightened her wheels, she deftly kept to the tire tracks in the mud and kept as far from the canyon-side of the road as possible. At the bottom, she pulled forward a little too far into the soft mud at the edge of the road to turn around and spun her wheels again but that was a whole lot better than backing the car into Water Canyon! Before she headed uphill, I asked if she did adventure hikes as well as adventure drives. She admitted that usually she hikes but just wanted to “see what was in here”. She looked to be in her 30’s. I watched her progress up the sloshy hill and only continued my walk when the car rounded the bend. That’s the last I saw of this adventurous lady and the little red Beetle that could!

Elk Exclosure Explores Part 1

2007-03-14T16:57:00.000-06:00

Apache Springs Trail
Bandelier National Monument, Los Alamos County, NM

On Monday afternoon, I checked out two elk exclosures that are right alongside this trail. Snow was deeper than I thought--over a foot in some spots and I didn’t think to wear gaiters or waterproof Merrell’s so my shoes and socks got soaked. Also, I brought my ski poles that I tore the basket off (so they don’t catch on bushes when I hike the rest of the year) and that was another mistake because the poles sunk so deep that it was like doing the Deer Dance going down the trail. Perhaps I am rushing springtime! On the way back, thoroughly sick of sinking in rotten snow that had been churned up by elk, I stuck to the dried out woods but then overshot where to go down and had to posthole downhill in a mire of soggy snow and fallen burnt trees. Yes, that canary yellow eTrex makes a stylish fashion statement on my backpack! On the bright side, getting slightly off track makes it seem like a whole new hike!

The first elk exclosure had two places where large trees had crashed down onto the fence.

I don’t remember seeing any signs that elk had entered the exclosure even though one portion was broken down to ground level. Elk do walk right around the periphery of the exclosure because I saw their tracks.

At the back of this first exclosure were some steel pipes and some fence wire--perhaps extra supplies for repairs that were obviously never done.

The second exclosure was in really excellent condition but what was inside the exclosure looked just like what was outside the exclosure--skinny aspens with bite marks up the trunk, gambel oak, and lots of New Mexico locust--my arms and legs got torn by those as I walked the perimeter in the deep snow! Since the aspen bark inside and outside the exclosure was chewed to the same extent, I surmise that this exclosure is a more recent one and also because it is in such shipshape condition--nice and tight. I noticed that some of the trees have oval metal tags attached but they were too far away to read the tags and didn’t go inside the exclosure. Also, there were several metal stakes driven into the ground near the exclosure perimeter that were engraved with letters and numbers. The first exclosure also had a metal stake but I failed to notice if there were tags on the trees.

Both exclosures had people entryways at the back, hidden from trail view, which I found interesting as I had never before circumnavigated around an elk exclosure and so had missed this detail.

I don't really know much at all about elk exclosures. Seeing these two made me wonder what's the time scale over which the elk exclosure studies are conducted--a season--a few years--twenty--a lifetime? And are they ever repaired or decommissioned? Other hikers have wondered: Why don’t exclosures have a plaque with contact information so people can report when they are damaged? In addition, why isn’t there contact information so the curious public can find out what the study is about and who’s doing it? Do taxpayer dollars fund these studies and is there ever a provision to remove the exclosure when it becomes so damaged as to allow animals inside and thus be useless? Exclosures are not biodegradable, being made of metal, and they seem to remain in place for years with trees fallen in on them, bent and broken and twisted, looking like forlorn and wasted monuments that mysteriously dot the woods around Los Alamos. I've decided to photograph the condition of a few that I see again and again on hikes. I also Googled elk exclosures in hopes of understanding more. I have to sift through the information that I downloaded. Maybe Bandelier, the Valles Caldera National Preserve, and the Santa Fe National Forest Service would also be sources of information.

BNM Apache Springs Trail Elk Exclosure Waypoints (NAD83/WGS84):

GPS Name Zone & Easting Northing Elevation

BNM AS 1st Exclosure

BNM_AS_001 13S 375612mE 3966289mN 8276 ft.
BNM_AS_002 13S 375175mE 3965818mN 8344 ft.

BNM AS 2nd Exclosure

BNM_AS_003 13S 375160mE 3965867mN 8326 ft.
BNM_AS_004 13S 375664mE 3966263mN 8250 ft.

Just Because

2007-03-12T20:39:00.000-06:00

This is something I wrote last year about my evening walks. It must have been written in the summer. I just found it the other day:

I was full of appreciation for life and people. Other than the sky and the night air, I didn’t really sit down and appreciate nature as such but just having the freedom to be out there walking was wonderful. Just now I thought that this leaves out those who because of infirmity or disability can’t go out and walk or hike at all--ever. We who can walk should be so very grateful.

Also, is nature really uncomplicated or is it just uncomplicated compared to daily life--hearing news of terrorist bombings, rising gas prices, impending bird flu, roofs that leak, toilets that run, dust bunnies that multiply, worries about health, getting along with family, having enough time to do everything one wants to do in a day, etc. Maybe being in nature is restorative like meditation because it gives us a chance to get outside of our daily life with all its worries, cares and concerns and stop that infernal monkey mind.

Sometimes, like today, there just isn’t enough time to take an exercise walk/hike during the day and I just have to be happy with what I can do--walk in the night air. Besides, who knows what nature will be doing when I go out to walk tonight--what is the moon’s phase, will the skies be clear and the stars out or will it be overcast, maybe even raining, how cool will it be and how will I dress tonight, will I see a deer, skunk, or coyote out wandering the city streets, will the sprinklers at East Park be on and spray me as I walk by, will I see some of the really eerie, greenish lights I saw once over the airport or strange astronomical phenomena like shooting stars, are mosquitos out yet and biting, and what people activity will I observe. Or who knows?

Jack O'Lantern Ridge

2007-03-11T21:23:00.000-06:00

Rename This Mountain

OK, here’s a photo of a ridge that I look at all winter from Los Alamos. This photo was taken recently from the Perimeter Trail in North Community. I variously think of it as Jack O’Lantern Ridge, Baleful Mountain, Malevolent Mountain, Weeping Owl Ridge. Just tonight I thought I saw some resemblance to me when I’m mad! One hiker told me that this is Thompson Ridge, another that Glorieta Baldy is on that ridge. Once, long ago when I hiked up to Glorieta Baldy with a group, I believe we stood above the rockslides that form the sad “eyes” of this ridge. I looked up Thompson Ridge and Glorieta Baldy in Guide to the New Mexico Mountains by Herbert E. Ungnade and page 75 mentions Thompson Peak,10, 554', and Glorieta Baldy, 10,199’. Glorieta Baldy has a fire lookout built in 1940 that’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

I looked at photos of Thompson Peak and Glorieta Baldy on New Mexico Peak Profiles and they don’t look anything like this brooding visage facing Los Alamos. Perhaps they are taken from the Las Vegas, New Mexico side? Maybe someone has a more optimistic name for this mountain mass which, incidentally, is scarily up close and personal from the Santa Fe Relief Route, NM 599.

Elk Poop Trail

2007-03-11T16:09:00.000-06:00

Today we hiked with our almost 6 year old grandson on the Elk Poop Trail, formerly known as Tyuonyi Overlook Trail in Bandelier National Monument. Grandson renamed the trail due to the abundance of elk droppings. We saw deer tracks but no animals--just lots of different scat. Grandson asked what “ponderosa” meant. We didn’t know so I looked it up at home on Google Translate--it means weighty which accurately describes the majestic trees. He was excited about seeing the two ruins along this trail--a small house block and a kiva-like ceremonial structure--but a little disappointed in not being allowed to haul off any rock specimens. We decided that we’ll join the Los Alamos Geological Society because they go on field trips that allow collecting of minerals and rocks. I pointed out the female and male junipers--the females make the berry-like cones that produce the seeds and the junipers produce pollen--tons of it. The pollen laden male junipers look rusty orange and when you hit the branch--whoosh goes the pollen! When we got to the overlook, we spied on people below with binoculars, blew bubbles, and had water and snacks and enjoyed the baby blue skies and billowy clouds and plotted out future grandson hikes. Driving back home, I asked grandson what he learned on the hike and he said “Not to step on ants!” On the hike, Grandma had dissuaded him from sending ants to eternity.

Only a Tame Explore

2007-03-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

If I were a news reporter, I’d be fired for not adhering to deadline. Here it is Thursday and I am just now bloggng happenings of Saturday past. Spouse and I walked the section of Perimeter Trail between the Mitchell Trail and the north branch of Pueblo Canyon. Roundtrip, that section is only 2 miles per my eTrex. Trail conditions alternated between mud and snow and ice--the south half was basically snow free but plenty muddy and the north half had generous portions of snow and ice.

This time of year, the Perimeter Trail is mainly monochromatic--lots of brown from leftover dead vegetation from last year. Look really closely--there is some variation in the palette--orange gambel oak predominates, spots of reddish oregon grape, mats of rusty green kinnikinick, holiday red rose hips, young, green ponderosas planted after the Cerro Grande fire are seen here and there but aren’t yet big enough to stand out above the other vegetation. There are splendid scenes of the snowcapped Sangre de Cristos to the east and nearer in of North Community being rebuilt--I saw a new house that’s painted lavender with a purple roof and another with bright blue canopies over the windows.

After the brief hike with spouse, I went back home to regear--loading myself down with my ski poles, small backpack, water, binoculars, digital camera, eTrex GPS, and Sony Microcassette-Corder, intending to go back to the same section of Perimeter Trail and take a few photos and get some more miles.

For some reason, instead of taking the Perimeter Trail to the left, I followed the Mitchell Trail to the right (they both start at the same trailhead) but instead of continuing on it, I turned left onto the dirt access road that goes up to the huge, low slung, green water tank built after the Cerro Grande fire. I continued past the water tank, following human and dog footprints in the mud and snow on sometimes road, sometimes trail. I remember walking back this way when it was all treed before the fire. It was always confusing knowing where I was. I’ve heard this from others who roamed in the deep dark woods before the fire--you didn’t know where you were unless you found a high point with an opening. It was more mysterious in those pre-fire, pre-GPS days but, now, the skeleton of the whole land is laid out before me and I find it beautiful.

Continuing gently uphill, I soon came upon a section where dead trees had crisscrossed over the path and saw footprints where people and dogs went around the mess. There was no wind Saturday which was good since there were lots of dead, burnt trees in various states of uprightness. I soon reached a place where I would have to go down into and out of a small side drainage of Rendija Canyon. I decided not to go any further as it was late afternoon. I looked around with binoculars at the surrounding toasted mountains. I tried to figure out where I could go up--cliffs that I shouldn’t even think about it and ridges with possibilities. Even though there was a lot of melt-off all around me, I was standing on top of blindingly white snow, so compacted it held me up completely. Across Rendija Canyon, I could see where the impossibly steep Mitchell Trail snakes up an unnamed ridge, on its way to Guaje Ridge. Seeing the breathlessly impossible steepness of this trail makes me really appreciate the chutzpah of David Mitchell who built the trail as an Eagle Scout project--he dreamed big. The Mitchell Trail and the Guaje Ridge Trail are both ways to get deep into the heart of these burnt mountains.

It was getting to be late afternoon so I headed back toward the water tank. When I reached the intersection, I took a short jaunt on the Perimeter Trail, going over the same snowy and icy parts that I went on earlier. After a while, I turned around. I was walking back in the shadow of Burnt Mountain (also called LA Mountain), studying how the houses down below were sparkling in the sunlight. As I walked out of the shadow, everything took on the warm glow of sunset--grass--gleaming blond--snow--golden tinged.

Later at home I studied the Guaje Mountain 7.5 minute quadrangle topo map, trying to understand the Rendija Canyon drainage--Rendija Canyon heads in two separate, parallel canyons on either side of an unnamed ridge. They come together as one and further downstream pick up an unamed tributary that drains a part of Guaje Ridge, another unamed tributary joins Rendija further down, coming down alongside Upper Guaje Road. Rendija then picks up the Cabra Canyon drainage that runs below Guaje Mountain. Despite these tributaries, normally, there is not much if any water running in Rendija but one time, before the fire, when I ran my bread and butter route behind Arizona Street, Rendija was truly a roaring, raging, rushing, foaming river. Rendija’s sovereignty ends when it feeds into Guaje Canyon’s drainage.

I also see on the map that if I were to go up the ridge that Burnt Mountain is on, to the south of Rendija Canyon, I might eventually get to Pipeline Road which is another key to the kingdom, passing various unnamed mountains in the Sierra de los Valles. This would be a hard, long, up and down route above the north branch of Pueblo Canyon. One time, I did go up another ridge that starts behind the cemetery near the mess of construction equipment where the old shooting range used to be. I could clearly see that ridge on my small explore Saturday and saw my turnaround point--at the long downhill to avoid a long uphill on my way back. If I had perservered, I would have made it to the Guaje Ridge Trail--it is all about connections in these mountains. I look at the map with longing and yearning for trips that I would like to do but I know it would be very slow progress through the burnt area. Maybe I can take it in small bites--a unamed mountain here, an unnamed ridge or drainage there. I’d like to get to know Los Alamos’s backdoor mountains much better than I do now.

Even if these explores remain only dream hikes, Los Alamos happens to be the best area I’ve ever lived in for hiking, exploring, walking, getting out in the woods. I’ve lived in Ohio, Maryland, Florida, and Michigan but it wasn’t until I came to New Mexico that I began to think of myself as a hiker. When we first moved here, we sublet a quad in North Community in the winter of 1985 . I so desperately wanted to explore and learn my surroundings that I remember walking that winter in knee deep snow on the Upper Guaje Road to a high place with great views of Los Alamos.

I really don’t know what it is about this land that attracts me so much. I thought about it. It’s a land with a sense of aloneness and quiet, which can be lonely too. It’s a feeling of unity with the surroundings--a melding flow--there is no confusion. It’s like no one else is around or exists or at least, they exist very far away and apart. It’s a timelessness, even though I’m aware of time and even of people. The land wraps around you, inside you, and gives a state of just being--like walking in a dream.

What You See Is What You Get

2007-03-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Continuation of Monday’s fulminations on Blogger’s post editors (Whoa!! Is Me): I’ve figured out that continuing to learn a smattering of HTML here and there will still be useful. The Compose post editor is a WYSIWYG editor--What You See Is What You Get--and it’s intuitive but limited as to what it can do--can change the font type, size, and color; can bold and italicize the text; can easily create links; can align the text right, left, center, and justify all, can add numbered lists and bullet lists; and can spell check. But, if I want to do something other than that simple, but ample, menu, by knowing a bit of HTML, I could go into Edit Html, and really screw things up!

How Not to Introduce Someone to Snowshoeing

2007-03-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I bought MSR Lightning Ascent 25” Snowshoes (mine are green) at REI in Albuquerque. I also bought some 4” tails for my MSR Classic Denali (mine are black) snowshoes as well as REI Ridgecrest Mitts (these are similar). I bought the gauntlet mitts because in really cold conditions, the circulation in my fingertips shuts down and I’m hoping the mitts will help them revive faster. I bought the 4” tails for the Classic Denali’s because in the deep snows we’ve had this year, I’ve tended to sink sometimes--you’re snowshoeing along and then all the sudden, either one leg is shorter than the other or you wind up kneeling on your knees. The Denali’s are only 22” long without the tails and I’m hoping the extra length will help hold me up. The new snowshoes are an experiment so I can try a slightly different design and also so I can take other people snowshoeing. They have a different design than the Denali’s--the Denali’s are more rectangular while the Lightning Ascents are more tapered and slightly tear drop shaped. The Lightning Ascent’s also have this weird little lever at the back that you’re supposed to push up for ascending very steep hills--it supposedly takes the strain off your calf muscles--I’ll try that out one day on Pajarito Mountain.

Just this morning, I went to the Shelf on the Edge of the World (January 24, 2007 post) road, off Camp May Road across from the Townsight Lift, to introduce a neighbor to snowshoeing. We wanted to go today before all the snow melts away. She was an incredible trooper about the springtime snowshoeing conditions. I admit that I have only had 2 years of snowshoeing since I bought the Denali’s in Winter 2004/2005. Winter 2005/2006 was a complete and total hopeless vast drought of a wasteland--except for it made for great hiking all winter. So, perhaps you could say I have had enough experience to realize that the conditions would not be good today for a first timer but I honestly thought the snow would be crusted. It wasn’t--it was mushily soft--I have never sank in so much on a snowshoe before!

We got our snowshoes on, took our ski poles in hand and innocently started snowshoeing down the road, out toward the view. I didn’t use the tails on the Denali’s because my neighbor is small. I had the 25” Ascent’s and I sank in just as much. We alternated between short sections of snow that held us up and snow in which we’d sink up to our knees step after step. We each fell. Once when my neighbor fell, I went around to the back of her left snowshoe and was pulling chunks of ice out from around it to free it when suddenly, the snowshoe loosened out of the grip of the ice and came flying toward my face, foot still attached! Neither of us expected that but no harm, no foul--now I know to beware of flying snowshoes!

Another anomaly that we witnessed was cratering. I had heard of cratering in the springtime but never experienced it. We’d step forward and then a circle of snow a yard in diameter would crack around the edges and sink, us on it!

Regardless of the sinking--we laughed a lot--we both enjoyed the view at the Shelf on the Edge of the World overlook. We could see dark clouds over the Sangre’s. Throughout the snowshoe, it was alternately sunny and then overcast--spitting snow and then no snow--we got a lot of practice taking off windbreakers and gloves to ventilate.

Here’s my take on the Lightning Ascent’s: I’m not completely sure if I like them better than the Denali’s. The Denali’s have 3 straps across the top of the foot while the Lightning Ascent only has 2. I noticed that the Ascent’s binding was gaping in the middle because there was no 3rd strap. I had hoped to take them up some steep stuff tomorrow like Pajarito Mountain to see how they behave but sinking on the steep may make standing upright impossible--hmmm.

I really like the idea of having a second pair of snowshoes because than I can try to conscript others to snowshoe with me. But I’d better not take first timers out in springtime conditions--not optimal! I told my neighbor that normally the idea is that you stay up on top of the snow and I hoped she’d consider snowshoeing again one day under better conditions.

Here's some people who did springtime snowshoeing the right way!

Whoa!! Is Me

2007-03-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Last night, I spent way too much time on what should have been a very simple blog except that when I published it, none of the links would work even though they were properly underlined. I searched the Blogger Help Group up and down and finally found a post that gave me a few clues (tried to find it again this morning but couldn't--shoulda saved it). I went back through all my links in the post, Minor Awakenings, and retyped the quotation marks around the web addresses and after several tries, viola, links were working. It may have had something to do with funny fonts and backward quotation marks around the web addresses--who knows.

Then, it being already past my time to get ready to go to bed, I decided it was a good idea to check every link in my blog to see if they all worked--they did. Today in my surfing I found that there are automatic link checkers, W3C for one but I tried W3C and it apparently isn't allowed to automatically check the links in Blogger--something about robots exclusion rule and server does not allow head requests--where is Google Translate when I really need it. To top the evening off, there being not a shred of logic in my brain near bedtime, I felt drawn, nay, compelled, to go through my entire blog and italicize all quotes. At this point, I could just see my life dripping away, down, down, down, into the loophole of anal retentiveness.

Today, and there is definitely some karmic komedy in all of this, and I’m not even going to try to retrace all my steps (in hopes of getting off the computer one day) in how I came to learn all this (besides which, I just cleared my History in Safari) but I eventually found a Blogger Browser Matrix. It turns out that the browser I always use, Safari, is missing a lot of what comprises the post editor in Blogger--Edit Html and Compose buttons. The Matrix says that Safari support is coming, eventually. That was enough to send me gratefully running into the arms of Firefox, which fully supports Blogger's editing features. I signed into my blog in Firefox--I can now relax my efforts to learn HTML piecemeal--although, it was kind of fun in all its mindbendingness--I'm gonna miss it. But, man, it's all there--using Compose--I highlight the text that I want to make into a link, click the link button , paste the web address into the Enter a URL box that appears, and there is the link through the magic of Blogger's post editor!!

Italics have never been easier, let me tell you--just highlight the text that you want italicized, and presto, chango, italics!! If you overshoot and something turns into italics that you don't want italicized--highlight that text, press the italics button again and it changes back to plain old text. Yes, I did overdo italics in this blog post but it was fun!!!!

Minor Awakenings

2007-03-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tonight I Googled “what’s a blog” because I’m always wondering in what direction mine should go or even if it should go! : ) I clicked on this result from Wikipedia and found out that a blog is anything that you devise it to be. One very fascinating blog variant is called Tumblelog :

A tumblelog is a variation of a blog, that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, this format is frequently used to share the author's creations, discoveries, or experiences without providing a commentary.

I was somewhat shocked, though, when I noticed that there is something called a vlog which is a blog that contains video. When I named my archive “Eclectic Attic: My Very Verbose Vlog”, I was making a play on words by continuing the string of V’s--it sounded funny and seemed to fit. I have changed it back to Blog because I don’t want to falsely advertise a Vlog that never existed!

Another awakening this weekend was provided by our daughter. She finally saw my blog and laughed about the Mr. Ree nom de plume and informed me that she and the next door neighbor used to play a board game called Mr. Ree!

Walking My Shadow

2007-03-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

I’m not going all Jungian on you now--it’s just that I got such a late start on walking my four miles on Camp May Road that my shadow was many yards long on the way down. It was breezy and cold--breeze wasn’t as bad as it could be--didn’t take my breath away! Hearkening back to Slippery Walking on Camp May Road, February 14, 2007, I finally figured out what it was that I thought was ashes on the road after a vehicle slid into the guardrail--shattered, dark-tinted auto glass. The pieces have now migrated to the side of the road and glint like obsidian.

Walking Camp May Road is not a particularly glamorous way to get exercise--it’s pretty pedestrian (pardon the pun!) and probably dangerous--some cars drive like it’s a proving ground--but the uphill parts do give me some serious exercise and gazing at the views is good for the soul. On the way down, I could see Santa Fe Baldy looking all frosted and flocked from the fresh snow yesterday and the almost full moon already up.

Camp May Road is my current “bread and butter” route because it’s close enough to home and, when time is short, like today’s late start, I can get the job done and go on with my life. When I used to jog, I had bread and butter routes all over the county--Los Alamos has such a supreme selection of trails! There is hope that I will again be walking on trails one day soon because I could see that melt off is occurring in the woods, exposing exciting amounts of BARE GROUND!!!! I also saw that vehicles are braving the logging roads off of Camp May Road.

I’ve been thinking that since I don’t know beans about blogging--strictly a seat of the pants blundering blogger-- that I would start reading other blogs to see if I can figure out how to do this. I found two local ones: The Bomb Town News Observer, “ONE MAN'S POINT OF VIEW ABOUT LIFE IN LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, AND OTHER THINGS”. That blog linked to Los Alamos Bikes, “A Forum for the Cycling Community of Los Alamos, New Mexico”.

There is another blog called Life in Los Alamos but it is in Japanese. I went to Google Translate and, using their “Japanese to English BETA” version, was able to "translate" the blog but it’s still not easy to understand because automatic translators are very imperfect in rendering syntax, tending to be laughingly literal! The blog does seem to be local because in one of the entries there is a photo of a Los Alamos Monitor newspaper spread out to dry. I can make out from “Google Translate” that the carrier delivers the newspaper by throwing it out the car window and this time it landed in snow!

[Note: Links to these three blogs are listed to right under “Links”]

Who Knew Italicization Could Be Such Fun

2007-02-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

I successfully italicized the title of Usner’s and DeBuy’s book in Looking In From the Fringes. Here’s the magic HTML code: <I>TEXT</I> I must have typed it wrong the other night. I am pleased at this tiny accomplishment!! : )

Blogging Blues with Homage to Cranes

2007-02-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

I spent so much time Friday night trying to caption the photos throughout my blog that I am rather bummed out about blogging at all. I am frustrated that I don’t know HTML and can’t make the captions be where I want them to be. I did the captions in a very cumbersome manner--endless typing of the line break symbol <br/> between photos and text, then publishing the blog to check the results, then adding or subtracting more line break HTML symbols (the only HTML that I know!) to try to make the spaces between the photos more even and the captions reasonably even with the top of the photo and there not be too much space between the photos and the text, and publishing it again and again until it looked somewhat like I wanted it to but never really achieving the clean look that I wanted. The procedure was very inelegant, I’m sorry that I even added captions at all, and there must be a better way.

Even in tonight’s post, I wanted to italicize the title of a book (I know that book titles should be underlined ) and I looked up the HTML symbol for italicizing but I didn’t do it right because Blogger said that it was an invalid tag, not closed, left hanging or something like that.

Also, I am writing too many long posts and I would like to go back to shorter posts and not try to synopsize movies and public talks--too much head wringing about what to leave in and what to leave out and did I even get the facts straight. This makes me really appreciate the job of newspaper reporters!

On a brighter note, spouse and I took a walk this afternoon in the Juniper Campground area. We heard the sound of cranes and there they were, flying overhead, squawking their gloriously unmistakable sound and changing their formation like streamers blowing in the wind. Spring is officially here!

Looking in from the Fringes

2007-02-25T21:19:00.000-07:00

Valle Grande and East Fork of the Jemez from Pajarito Mountain in late autumn

Last Thursday night I attended the Authors Speak Series at Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos. The guest speaker was William deBuys, who recently co-authored, with photographer Don Usner, Valles Caldera: A Vision for New Mexico's National Preserve. (MPL has a copy in their collection.) The talk began with the slightest snafu: Mr. deBuys had planned to use a digital projector to continuously show Mr. Usner’s photographs of the Valles Caldera but, after gentle fumbling with buttons, switches, and cables to encourage the laptop computer to talk to the digital projector, including the assistance of library people, the Los Alamos Monitor photographer and some retired labbies, it was decided to peacefully surrender that portion of the evening.

William deBuys was a member of the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) trust from January 2001 to January 2005. He humorously described how the first trust was appointed by Clinton via press release, whereas Bush’s administration now draws up a heavily official letter of appointment. DeBuys says that the purchase in 2000 came about because there was a budget surplus and the American people were flush and could afford to buy the property. Then, he wryly added, we wouldn’t have to worry about that any more!

The idea was that the preserve would become financially self sufficient in 15 years. DeBuys firmly believes that the experiment has failed and the preserve will never become self sufficient due to the extraordinary costs of what he calls “federal overhead” or all the extra costs that the preserve faces due to federal laws that no private ranch has to abide by (environmental impact statements, stewardship of the land, safety of employees and the public, maintaining relations with the surrounding communities and the Indian Pueblos). An audience member observed that the Los Alamos National Lab is in a similar position in not being able to compete with private enterprise due to large cost of the federal overhead.

According to Mr. deBuys, the Valles Caldera Coalition, originally the Baca Coalition, a private group that demonstrated support for the purchase of the Baca and now functions as an independent “watchdog” over the preserve, will soon issue a score card for the VCNP and “the grades are not very good” although the grades were highest on land stewardship.

There were several audience questions wondering if the Drive and Discover open house held last summer will be held again this year. One man commented that after that event, he signed up for hunting in the fall and that it was the best hunting he had ever done in several states, including California and Arizona. The Drive and Discover Day was a one day event that allowed the public to drive their own personal vehicles onto the preserve and resulted in a traffic gridlock like never before seen or heard in the Jemez Mountains!! It was also unprecedented because most events available to the public on the preserve, or at least the ones that I have gone on, are closely choreographed in that you take a van to a trailhead and walk on an old logging road, not a trail, and the idea is that you stay on that road and there is no spontaneity and you get back on time--you’re told how much time you can be on the property--to catch a van back to where your car is parked--The End. Now, obviously, we can’t all be running around out there in our own personal cars as was evidenced on the Drive and Discover day but maybe there is a better way to allow people access to the place while still preserving and protecting it.

Another audience member spoke of the really interesting exhibits on the science research being done at the caldera that were shown around the horse barn at the Drive and Discover event and asked that it be displayed somewhere for the public to view on a regular basis. The idea of putting the science research on the official VCNP website to share with the public was broached. DeBuys said the issue of the website was a sensitive one because the website has been very inconsistent in its performance. I find the website disappointing because so much of it is still under construction and it hasn’t lived up to its potential as a means to communicate with the public. As an example, I was told several years back that dynamic maps would one day be on the website whereby you could click on a location on the map and photos of the area would be displayed. That has never happened.

One person suggested that rather than letting people drive their private vehicles in if there is another open house, people could be bussed onto the preserve like the Los Alamos Historical Society did for a tour back when it was the privately owned Baca Land and Cattle Company.

Some people commented that the VCNP remained too restricted in access, especially in comparison to the national forest. DeBuys tried to explain that part of the slowness in getting people on the preserve to hike has been the time consuming, expensive process of archeological clearance for the trails. As an example of the rich archeological resources of the VCNP, he talked about the Cerros del Medio obsidian quarries which are huge in area and of such a depth of worked obsidian that indicates they have been used for thousands of years. A man asked why people were allowed to go freely into the national forests which abound with archeological sites. Mr. deBuys’s answer didn’t make complete sense to me. He explained that national forest was created (1905) before the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) (1969) and is therefore grandfathered in. This doesn’t make sense because NEPA applies to the national forest as well. I may not be doing justice to his answer or perhaps his answer was incomplete in the context of the brief talk. I once asked a preserve archeologists why the hunters are allowed to roam freely over the preserve but not the hikers. She told me that the hunters are given a very strict orientation about not picking up artifacts. Why can’t they do the same for hikers?

While listening to Mr. deBuys and the audience questions and comments, I thought of Don Usner’s quote that he had always wanted the opportunity to go beyond the fence. This was the feeling of the audience last night and my feelings too. It is all public land anyway so why not allow some increased freedom to go into and out of the land, even if only at the very fringes via non-motorized travel. This could start by putting a people gate on the barbed wire VCNP boundary fence that is so nastily slung across Valle Canyon and allow people to walk up to Valle Pass and then either up Pajarito Mountain or Cerro Grande or,to even walk out to the very edge of the Valle Grande.

Mr. deBuys closed out the evening by reading from a chapter in his new book, The Walk (on the webpage, click on “The Walk” for a book description), which will be published Spring 2007. He read about having to take his infirm mare, Geranium, out into the woods to shoot her and end her suffering and how he goes back to where he left her body to observe over weeks the “reduction” of Geranium and relates the mysteries of the forest to life.

The evening ended on an amusing note when an audience member wondered if William deBuys was the same as the KSFR public radio news director Bill Dupuy. Mr. deBuys laughed and said that he has often told KSFR that they have stolen his identity!

Chained to Computer

2007-02-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a meeting of the Los Alamos Mountaineers Club to see a lecture on the 40th Anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Vinson in Antarctica, by Eiichi Fukushima, a member of the first ascent team. I took notes, intending to write a few (ha!!) words on the lecture but when I got home, the first thing I did was look up “Sam’s Col” because Fukushima climbed it several times while waiting for the 40th Anniversary expedition to begin from base camp in December 2006. Sam’s Col was the route used on the first ascent of Mount Vinson. Lo and behold, I found this wonderful trip report,
40th Anniversary of the 1st Ascent of Mt. Vinson: A Trip Report, which will explain things so much better than I ever could plus it has great photos.

Here is a slightly different take on the team members of the 40th Anniversary Expedition, probably written by someone very young!! (Page down to December 17 entry.)

Of the original 10 who did the first ascent of Mount Vinson, 6 are alive and 4 went on the 40th Anniversary attempt. I admit to being a bit confused on this next point but I believe that Eiichi said that two of the four felt ill enough on the expedition that they did not even attempt the summit. The two who did attempt it were turned around by the guide, Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE), after 10 hours. Fukushima speculates that the guide was being extra careful because of earlier having to rescue a party of climbers and perhaps also because of the age of the two.

Fukushima commented how luxurious the 2 man tents with plywood floors and innerspring mattresses were at Patriot Hills, where the group flew into from Punta Arenas, Chile before flying out to base camp.

Fukushima showed photos of what he called the pooping toilet and the peeing toilet used at Patriot Hills. The pooping toilet looked like a wooden seat with a lid on a raised, maybe snow, platform and it had a snow block wall built up around it and a gorgeous view of mountains. The peeing toilet, two actually, were right next to the pooping one and they looked like sewer manhole covers placed flat upon the ground. Fukushima commented that this particular guide company takes great pains to keep Patriot Hills very clean.

Very interesting was the fact that one of the team members used a Kelty external frame pack and an ice ax that were used on the original expedition. Speaks well for Kelty packs!! Also, some of the team members wore Eddie Bauer down parkas and pants from 40 years ago when, as Fukushima said, Eddie Bauer made really good outdoor gear.

The team carried a plaque to place on Mount Vinson in honor of their comrades who were no longer with them but since they were turned back, the guide placed the plaque up there.

One amusing question from an audience member played on the submariners from India who were at Antarctica as a bonding exercise. This wag suggested, very tongue in cheek, that perhaps such an exercise for LANL security would improve the security at Los Alamos! The audience laughed a lot!

Fukushima showed a very interesting photo of someone kiting to the South Pole on skis. Now that’s an idea that I could have perhaps used in the Valles Caldera National Preserve on my windy snowshoe!!

It was interesting to learn that western China and Antarctica have the most left of a dwindling resource--unclimbed peaks!! However, 90% of people going to climb in Antarctica are climbing Mount Vinson. Unbelievably, some people going to Antarctica are only coming down for a day trip! They must be rich as Fukushima said that ordinarily the trip to climb Mount Vinson, led by ALE, would have been very expensive but the guide company gave the four the trip for free!!

Fukushima says that he didn’t train hard for the expedition. He is nearing his seventies but he did go to Seattle, he lives in Albuquerque now, and climbed Baker. He did this because he hadn’t been on ice for a long time and knew he would encounter ice in Antarctica. He said that the glacier ice in the Pacific Northwest is very broken up. A lot of the ice the expedition encountered was at Patriot Hills while the team waited 2 weeks to be flown back to Punta Arenas. Eiichi enjoyed exploring the blue ice between the base and the Patriot Hills mountains. This same blue ice is the runway for planes to land on.

After the talk, I spoke briefly with a woman that I had seen at the Valles Caldera Monday. I had enviously watched this very fit individual take off fast on Redfeather snowshoes toward the History Grove and then saw no more of her. She says that she snowshoed all the way to the Cerros del Abrigo yurt and got back to the Welcome Center at 1:30 pm--phenomenal!! The yurt was open so she went on in and sat for a while. She mentioned that she had problems with iceballs forming on her snowshoes. Yet, she still made fabulous time!!

Going off subject now and referring back to my last two blogs, I have to be truthful and say that after my brave words about going back up to the Jemez to enjoy the snow before it disappears, I haven’t been back up there since Monday’s VCNP snowshoe. Tuesday was stay at home and catch up day, with an exercise walk in the evening. Yesterday, I made it out during the day but only for some around town chores and exercised again in the evening on my way to the lecture. The stars were so brilliant and the silver moon sliver made it all so captivating. I could see the Pleiades which I recently learned are also called Suburu in Japanese! Now that explains the Pleiades symbol on all those Suburu’s running around town!! I like that name better now that I know what it means.

I have to make another admittance: The last 2 nights, there were absolutely no ice patches at all to worry about slipping on and I enjoyed that so much. I tend to hold my breath if I go over an icy patch and that’s not relaxing. I am surprised at how fast the snow is melting in town. The driveway is completely clear--the first time in months! Perhaps, snow shoveling is OVER!!! I could get used to this--bare ground, warmth, less clothing. I will--but then the longing for winter, for snow, for cold weather will set in as it always does. Ah, but for now, let’s detail some other advantages to the warmer weather--the washing machine drain won’t spurt all over because of ice plugs that form in the stupidly unheated location and, most importantly of all, the toilet seat is warmer! The true story is that I love the change of seasons--I am always eager to see the new season come and, at the end, just as eager to see it go. The least favorite season for me, though, is the summer. I die when we get heat waves. In the 80’s, Los Alamos was naturally air conditioned in the summer. It cooled down in the evenings from the katabatic breezes. Now, due to global warming (yes, it’s official!!), the temperatures stay more even throughout the day and night--there are not big differences between the daytime highs and the nighttime lows in the summer and I suffer for that!!!