| Taos, NM |

‘ The mountains are calling and I must go’. – John Muir

This trip has turned out to be more than I even thought it could have been at the outset.

It’s the first time I have spent any substantive time in the ‘West’ and it’s been an ethereal experience. The scenery, as seen in the pictures you have hopefully been enjoying, is breathtaking; but there’s more to it than just that.

There’s a serenity I’ve found out here here, that I haven’t elsewhere in life. Not everywhere of course, the big cities are still the big cities.

But the ‘big’ cities are few, and in between you’ve got extraordinary vistas, wide open spaces, endless horizons, small towns and in most other places, not much else.

So between all the above loveliness and the fact I’ve been off work for going on two months, there’s a clarity that’s arising in my mind.

Not surprisingly, those sunlit rays of clarity burn the brightest when I’m on the trail.

Mainly because while some of these hikes have been a little busier, the vast majority have been ultra-quiet, and in a few cases completely devoid of any fellowship of humanity all together.

If you’re looking for an opportunity for deep thought, go on a hike for 10+ miles in which your only company for five hours or so turns out to be a few deer and a couple of wild turkeys. Zero people and very little in the way of any sound really whatsoever, save those of the forest and the wind. [Spruce Mountain, Prescott, AZ]

There’s a spiritual illumination to be found there.

Not as much as I want, not as much as I need and nowhere approaching enlightenment; but a nice start.

That said, let’s talk about the most recent journey into the wilderness.

The Sandia Wilderness.

If I’m ever to get into serious hiking and mountaineering – an idea I’m intrigued by – then I need to get in better shape; both aerobically and physically. Which is something I’ve been working on during my time away.

I’ve had some very solid hikes that have helped in that regard, but today’s would be a new test. For if everything went as planned I’d exceed numerous prior benchmarks.

From everything I’d read, this range looked like a great place to go for it, and indeed one review said ‘if you’re only going to do one hike in the Albuquerque are, this is the one’.

Sounds good to me.

—–

I initially parked along the side of the road, jamming between a bush and a big truck, which is one of the advantages of having a small car. But while I was gearing up, a few cars pulled out and I then moved up to the main lot.

A NPS ranger was up there dealing with scofflaws when I walked over to show him my park pass. I made a quip that he ‘must do pretty good business on the weekends’, and he responded in agreement while gesturing towards to an illegally parked SUV that he had recently booted!

I will never understand why people aren’t better able to work through the risk / reward ratio in these types of situations.

The fee for use of the lot and an extensive trail system is $3 / vehicle.

A parking ticket is $40.

A booted vehicle in the case of our illegally parked friend, I assume would be far more expensive and certainly at minimum, far more aggravation.

I know that nobody, including me, likes paying fees, taxes, etc.

But amongst all the seemingly never-ended and pernicious fees we all pay on an ongoing basis, $3 / vehicle / day going towards maintenance of our National Park system seems like it should be very far down the list of grievances.

Especially if you are the one enjoying the system!

Our green-suited Officer Friendly (and he was) had written at least a half dozen tickets that I saw among the 35 or so cars in the lot. And booted a car, which I still can’t get over.

Sigh…

But I digress.

—–

I started early enough that the temperature was in the low 70’s, and though it was full sun, full sun and 72 degrees is much better than full sun and 92 degrees.

Especially in the desert. Though ‘desert’ has a broad range of classifications.

This particular desert for example, was bursting with life.

Bunny ear and prickly pear cacti were flowering as were agave, aloe plants, and numerous other unidentifiable (by me) plants and shrubs. Salamanders skittered about, many birds went about their business and life was in full swing. Trees and tall bushes provided plenty of shade and though I didn’t see it, I heard what sounded to be a decent size stream midway though.

Water of course, being the key ingredient allowing this wilderness the ability to thrive.

Having had no exposure to this sort of biome before, I probably had a classical view of what a desert was – mostly barren and dead – prior to visiting the Southwest and that isn’t at all what I’ve mostly seen in this trip. There are certainly wasteland sorts of desert terrain, but even in seeing those, I’ve still seen life figuring it out. As it usually does.

As I climbed the terrain morphed into forests of spruce and fir as well as the odd sentinel-sized pine tree. In addition the wind picked up and that breeze made the hike, despite the sun, quite comfortable temperature wise.

What made the hike quite uncomfortable though was the grade coupled with the elevation. Individually these haven’t proved too much of a challenge in the past, but coupled together, they were a lung-buster for the first few miles for me today.

I found myself stopping way more than I wanted to, to huff and puff and though the trail never blew my house down, it set me back; and made me want for future days when my body more closely matches my ambitions.

The terrain on this hike also featured an inordinate amount of rocky trail.

While the pink granite was certainly pretty to look at, it wasn’t a whole lot of fun to negotiate through.

The masters of this trail had done a marvelous job carving it out of some pretty inhospitable terrain. But despite their valiant efforts, it was tough sledding. Doubly so when you consider the fair amount of snow on trail at the higher elevations.

Also – No matter the quality of your hiking boots, navigating through miles of trail carved through rockslides and their remnants, takes a toll on your feet; especially your heels and toes.

So all in all, it was a heck of a work out getting up the 6.5 miles to the top.

The views of the Albuquerque Valley along the way were stunning as were the commensurate views of the surrounding mountains, and once up there, I decided to elongate the trip by hiking the ridge line over to the tramway.

If you’re looking to take the path more travelled, you can hop on the tram and ride it for 15 minutes to the peak of a ridge at about 10,300 feet.

There you can disembark for some hiking trails at the top, a casual stroll for the views, or more common, I would assume, skiing during the season.

I’m not a skier, but we’re I to take up the sport, this would be an incredible place to start. The view is really something else.

So I milled with the tourists for a bit, gave my legs and my lungs a break and then started back down the mile’ish ridgeline towards the true summit.

I was getting worn down and that last 400 feet to the summit was tough. But the goal was to break records and though I’d already set one at 10,300, 10,692 was even higher, and thus better. No reason not to since I was already here.

What was strange about this summit though is the carnival like atmosphere at the top.

You see, you can drive up a five mile road to the peak. Many folks apparently do and many had that day. There’s also a gift shop, restrooms, a cafe and the rest of the usual tourist amenities. There’s also some enormous cell and radio towers up there, so the whole thing feels kind of anti-climactic after beating the hell out of yourself for 10 miles and 4,400 feet in elevation.

I snapped a couple of pictures and stretched out my legs, but I wasn’t comfortable at all and got out of dodge pretty quickly to start the 7 miles down.

The hike down is supposed to be easier than the hike up and it was here too, but it was still tough. Those rock fields seemed endless as did the miles as my body was running out of fuel.

And tough got very tough as I ran out of water with about four miles left. Not a good idea anywhere but an especially bad idea in the desert, in the sun.

So I draped a t-shirt over my head and neck as the sun beat down and the temperature climbed as the elevation decreased.

It helped but I wound up getting very dehydrated. More so than I probably have at any other point in life. I’ll spare you the unpleasant details on that.

But I made it.

Setting a slew of personal records in the process including total distance (17.2 miles), altitude (10,692 ft), elevation change (4,224 ft) and time on trail (7.75 hours).

Two days later I’m still feeling the longest, hardest hike I’ve done, but I wouldn’t trade an ounce of that pain for any of that experience.

Note: See my journal entry ‘Strangers’, for the tale of a great family I met at trail’s end.