Wandering Words

It had been FAR too long since I did much hiking. I've walked to work from the hotel a couple of times, and we did visit a waterfall out at the coast the other week, but between travel and Scrabble and other such fun, we really haven't had many opportunities. So it was awful nice to get out on Monday and head up the Gorge to enjoy some of the sights up there. We did the short walk off the old scenic highway to Latourell Falls, then pushed on Multnomah Falls and ate our picnic lunch in the chilly drizzle. I was pushing Matthew in the stroller up past the bridge overlooking the falls. He was having a blast seeing all the water, and was regularly shouting encouragement for me to "Go. Go! GO!" Coming down was even more fun because I was barreling down the trail with his stroller and anytime we'd hit a bump he'd go airborne. Yee-haw! I was really impressed with how well the stroller held up. We kept going up the Gorge to Yeon State Park, and hiked a mile or so up to Elowah Falls and back. This time he was in the backpack, and he had a good time there, too, although he was getting a little bit antsy by the end of the trip.

So after spending Monday tooling around, I wanted to get a longer hike in on my own on Tuesday. I got dropped off at the Newberry Road trailhead for the Wildwood Trail and followed it along Forest Park in towards Portland. I started at 9 a.m., a little later than I'd hoped to, and had the idea to go as far as I was able to. My stretch goal was to make the entire 30 mile trip back to the MAX stop and take that out to the west side. About 20+ miles into the trip I realized that I wasn't going to be up for another 10 miles, but thankfully my wife called at about that point and we arranged to meet up at the 25 mile point. She met me along the trail about a half mile from the car, and I got to put the little guy on my back for the last half mile up out of the ravine we were in. It was good to see them again, but my legs were getting pretty sore by then. Thankfully, I wasn't TOO sore getting up yesterday morning, so it didn't interfere with my training assignment at work up here. Ahh...life is good.

So, I have been hiking a good bit lately, I just haven't been posting to LJ about it. I guess I'll take it back to a couple of weeks ago and work forward from there.

( Details behind the cut )

We got hiking together again yesterday. We've been wanting to head out to the De-Na-Zin wilderness ever since we visited it's sister, the Bisti badlands, on the way back from our Utah trip last summer. We finally got there yesterday, and it was totally worth the trip. De-na-zin is much larger, and even more remote (12 miles on dirt roads off the highway rather then 3, with just a teeny-tiny sign letting you know where the one trailhead is). We were totally blown away be how amazing it is, though. The sheer variety of rocks colors and formations and shapes and sizes is just incredible. We saw oodlins of petrified wood laying all over the place, and a number of other fossils and cool minerals, too. We ended up hiking for almost 6 miles up and down hills and through arroyos. I was pretty glad I had the GPS with me, because it would have been awfully easy to get totally turned around otherwise. As it was, we all had a very fun time. Check out this little video of little guy dancing around in the desert:

I went to club last week, but I haven't even gotten around to analyzing the games yet. Meh. We went hiking a bit last weekend, and that was much more exciting. On Friday, we roamed around the Sandia foothills for a couple miles with our friend the Conrads (no relation). Then we headed northwest on Saturday to the Rio Puerco wasteland surrounding Cabezon Peak.



Playing with his camera.



View of Cabezon Peak from Ignacio Chavez SMA.



View of Cerro Parido from the road.



Little guy climbing around the sandstone formations.



Hiking man.

I headed for the hills again with the scouts today. We went on up to just north of Espanola, and took off up a sandy arroyo to visit Window Rock. Window Rock was a rather interesting geologic feature. Most of the arches and natural bridges I know of are in sedimentary rock, usually sandstone. This arch is in a thin basaltic ridge. It's really a neat looking spot.

As far as the hiking goes, though, we're all trying to get in shape for the 50 mile backpacking trip this summer, and the 10 miles we did today was a pretty good early conditioning hike. It wasn't terribly difficult. Other than a few uphill sections the terrain was pretty easy, but it had enough mileage to help the boys build up to tougher stuff later. Here's the trip overview and profile.

And a few pictures...






The only really negative thing about today is that despite never having had much trouble with allergies before, I seem to have developed something rather annoying this spring. I was sneezing some monster sneezes on a regular basis, and it totally feels allergic rather than a cold coming on. Blech.

We were trying to get out for a day hike yesterday, but after driving all the way up to the area along the Rio Chama above Abiquiu Reservoir, the weather turned sleety and windy/nasty, so we turned back for home without hiking. It wasn't all for naught, though; an ancillary purpose of the trip was to scout out where we were planning on camping and hiking with the Boy Scouts later that night. We stopped at the Perea Nature Trail in San Ysidro on the drive back home, though, and at least got a mile of perambulation in. Little guy has been getting quite an independent streak lately, and he ended up walking a significant portion of the mile on his own. He could have walked more, but he didn't take well to being told which direction we were heading and would have lingered the entire time at the wooden bridges strung across what had been marshes before our multi-year drought hit and dried everything up.

I headed back up Abiquiu way later last night with the scouts, and we reached our campsite just after the sun had completely set. We got camp set up in fairly short fashion, and it turned out to be a relatively pleasant campout right on the banks for the Rio Chama, although it was a wee bit chilly waking up this morning. I didn't end up sleeping particularly well, either, but I was feeling well enough once we got off to go hiking.

We backtracked a short way down the highway and checked in to go hiking at the Ghost Ranch Conference Center. We ended up doing the same trails that I did with the family last year, but for whatever reason I was a little more tired after doing it with the scouts. I had the GPS along for this trip, too, and I found that the total is a little more than 8 miles for the entire trip. We were originally shooting for a 10 mile trip so that they could count it as one toward their hiking merit badge, but it was a little later in the day than we were hoping so we opted to head for home. This was the first training/conditioning hike that we took the boys on in preparation for the 50 mile backpacking trip that we're planning for later this summer. Gotta love it. Anyway, we didn't end up losing any boys on the trip, and everyone seemed to have a good time, so it was definitely a success. I was surely glad to get home and get my shower, though...

So, my aunt and uncle are coming out to Utah in mid-August, and I have been talking to him about meeting up for some backpacking in southern Utah. It didn't take a whole lot of effort to get him excited about the idea. I've been daydreaming about where I'd like to go backpacking pretty much ever since. I've done a fair piece of day hiking all over southern Utah, but my backpacking experience has been fairly limited down there, mostly due to lack of hiking partners rather than lack of desire. The chance to spend a week (or two) romping around on multi-day treks is pretty darn cool. At any rate, I figured I'd throw a few of the places I've been dreaming about up on here...just for kicks...as well as a potential route for doing it all. I really don't think we'd do *all* of this, but even a few of them would be waaay awesome.

A 40 mile trek down Dark Canyon is definitely at the top of my list. I've heard incredible things about the scenery as well as the Anasazi ruins and just the general remoteness of the place. I want to go there.

One of the few place I *have* been backpacking before is Coyote Gulch, but that only makes me want to go back all the more. It's one of the more hauntingly beautiful places I've ever been, and I want to go back.

I've been down the approach to Buckskin Gulch before, but I didn't make it to some of the more impressive narrow sections. It's one of the deepest slots in North America--over 500 feet deep in spots--and I'd love to see the rest of it. This would be one of the first place to *not* go in a thunderstorm, though.

While we're down this way by the Paria Wilderness, I'd love to *finally* make it all the way out to the North Rim. It's been on my wish list for the longest time, but it's just a little too far out of the way (even by my out-of-the-way loving standards) to have made it out there before this. I'm dying to finally get out there, and if I make the trek, I'd just as soon finally try to hike the canyon (another thing high on my wish list).

So, here is one way that I could string all these together. Each of them is at least an overnight (2-3 day) trip on their own, though, and Dark Canyon is more like 3-4 nights. I'm thinking I wouldn't set too tight an itinerary for the trip, though, because there are all kinds of cool day hikes and side stops along the way that would be plenty fun, too. We'll see what ends up happening...in the meantime it's fun to dream!

So we left early yesterday morning to head down to the Las Cruces area for some hiking where it's a little warmer than here. We made good enough time down, but little guy was still asleep when we got to the exit where we wanted to hike first, so we stayed on the highway all the way to the center of town and headed east to the Organ Mountains. He woke up right as we were pulling into the parking lot for the Dripping Springs trailhead. We stopped there on our trip down last Thanksgiving, but we were too late in the day to hike up the canyon. They don't let anyone go past 3p in the winter...spoil sports! Anyway, we were plenty early enough this time, so we loaded little guy into the pack and off we went. The trail goes up Ice Canyon to Dripping Springs. There is an old TB sanatorium and a deserted mountain resort tucked away in the little canyon, too. I'm sure it is MUCH nicer to be up in the canyon than down on the stinking hot Rio Grande in the summertime. As it was, the weather was warm, like in the high-50s, but just a wee bit chilly in the shade. The hike was a whole 3.3 miles round trip, so despite a moderate amount of climbing up, it wasn't too strenuous overall.

Here's a picture of the old mountain resort:


And despite making this face, he really did have fun on this hike:



SO, after we got back to the car, we got all loaded up to leave, and as soon as I backed up I knew I had a flat tire. Sure enough, the front driver side was dead as can be. SO, I changed it for the spare in the trunk and instead of heading back to the other hike we were planning on, we headed into town to replace the front tires (the passenger front was looking pretty bald, too, and was the same age so I figured it couldn't be too far behind). Although they got us changed out pretty quickly, we decided to just head to the hotel and check in since we wanted to get him to bed pretty early anyway. We got washed up and headed for an early dinner, then we were all in bed by around 7ish.

True to form, he woke us up this morning before 5 a.m.--this kid *really* needs to learn how to sleep in! I guess he's just on his way to getting a work schedule like mine (I get to work at 5:30 every day). Anyway, we futzed around for a while before heading down for our free breakfast at 7. We didn't want to get out too early because we knew it would be chilly out there still. We were rewarded with him falling asleep on our relatively short drive around the Organ Mountains to the Aguirre Spring Recreation Area. We scouted this area out last fall, too, but didn't even stop on our last trip. This time we set out on the Pine Tree Trail. The GPS lost us for a little while--I think it was the huge granite peaks surrounding us on three sides--but I think we did around 4.5 miles in the loop. The weather was kind of chilly at the start, but we were fine once we got moving (i.e. started climbing up, up, up). The mountain views were really amazing, though, and we had a fun hike--even if he got a little fussy toward the end.

He set himself on the ground after getting out of the car and proceeded to eat his Cheerios. It was just too cute!


Me and little guy on the trail


View to the northeast



We got off the trail and zoomed on back to the Interstate. As we were headed north, it was only around noon so we made the executive decision to try for the other hike we'd forgone the day before and got off at the Radium Springs exit. I just think that's a cool and rather depressing name for a town. We followed the highway along the Rio Grande until just after the immigration checkpoint, then headed up into the desert hills above Broad Canyon. By this point, it was the nice warm afternoon (in the low 60s or so), but there was a good stiff breeze blowing. We bounced out the rough dirt road for quite a ways, then parked just before it went down into the canyon and entered true 4WD status. We were trusting the hiking guide that this was an easy 4 mile hike, but we put in over 6.5 miles and didn't even go the full distance it recommended that we go. Whatever. It was a fun hike to some volcanic tuff slot canyons anyway. I'm sure glad we did this in the winter, though. It would be STINKIN HOT in the summertime.

Me and little guy in the tuff



A little further down Broad Canyon



I was tired when we got back to the car, and I think I got a sunburn (I know, I know...I shoulda put on the sunscreen). Lugging little guy for 10 miles today definitely took a little bit out of me. We bumped our way back to the pavement, followed the river up to Hatch, and jumped back on the interstate. It was a smooth ride home from there, and we settled back into home juuust fine. Ah...a shower after hiking is the perfect thing.

Just don't ask me about the Scrabble. We drove down last Thursday, stopping in at City of Rocks on the way. The rocks were kinda cool, but we were hoping to at least do a little bit of hiking to stretch our legs in the middle of the trip. It turned out to be more of a glorified campground, with a lame hiking trail down the middle, so we didn't make the effort. Maybe we should have since we had to go through Deming to get there. If there is a more desolate, boring area to drive through I haven't found it. And yes, I have driven across Nevada--thank you. N E Way, we pushed on through to Tucson after that, with the requisite stops to keep little guy moderately placated.

Friday was our day to play together. We got out early and headed east to Saguaro National Park (the east unit...duh!). Little guy fell asleep on the drive there, so we mostly did the scenic loop drive. We stopped for a bit at the Mica View picnic area, and I took a two mile hike through the cacti while she drove around to meet me on the other end. He had woken up in the interim, so they met me near the end of the trail. From there, we drove through town and picked up a picnic lunch, then drove west of town and ate it at a picnic area in the desert. We were once again *really* glad to be in Arizona in January. The weather was great--mid-60s and sunny. But this WAS *January*. We stopped next at the Desert Museum. It was awesome. It's a cross between a zoo, a natural history museum, and a botanical garden. We had a lot of fun wandering through, and definitely weren't able to see it all in the time we were there. I'll be glad when little guy is old enough to enjoy places like that. From there, we took a scenic drive through the west unit of Saguaro NP before heading back into town to call it a day.

On Saturday I played seven games of Scrabble. I haven't finished analyzing them yet, but let's just say that I was somewhat disappointed with a 3-4 record.

We made the drive back today. Although it was cloudy and raining lightly through a lot of the drive, the temperatures were in the 40s and 50s so the weather wasn't any kind of hindrance. We made sure to double check the forecast before setting out, because if it was threatening any worse we were going to drive the long snore through Deming again, but it was good enough that we decided to head for the hills like we'd planned to do. We got off the interstate in Lordsburg and headed up, up, up to Silver City. I must say that it wasn't quite what I expected it to be, but it seemed like a nice enough town. We stopped off by old Fort Bayard, and hiked out the Wood Haul Road to see the champion alligator juniper tree. I must say that I've never seen a juniper over 60 feet tall before. That was pretty darn cool. We got back to the car after a 3 1/2 mile hike and tripped back over the mountain pass. It was absolutely *gorgeous* up there, and left us dying to get back and hike in that area sometime soon (well, maybe after winter ends...). It beats the boring desert any day of the week. We hit the interstate again just before Truth or Consequences and rolled on home without any incident. Whew!

So I went hiking again on Saturday. The baby was cranky and the wife wasn't feeling well, so I flew solo this time. In my pulling stuff together I specifically told myself to grab the camera, but I somehow forgot it anyway. I also neglected to bring my hiking boots and didn't fill up the rather low gas tank. Don't try this at home, folks. Thankfully, I was fortunate on all counts and the trip turned out fine anyway.

I headed north on 550 and then west into the nothing out around Cabezon Peak. I found a promising enough patch to pull off to the side of the dirt road by the La Lena Wilderness Study Area and headed up the mesa just to the west of me. I wandered down the mesa top in a general southerly direction until I got to an edge with an excellent view of the valley below with Cabezon looming in the near distance (about 5 miles off). I noticed a smaller mesa, essentially a promontory of the one I was currently on, that wasn't terribly far away and looked climbable, so I opted to head for that. There weren't any trails in the area anyway, so one destination was about as good as another. I made my way down off the main mesa and across the drainage to the smaller one.

Not surprisingly, neither the scramble down nor the scramble up the small mesa were quite as easy as they'd looked from farther off, but I made it up well enough. The major complicating factor was the half inch or so of snow on all the north facing slopes. Inconveniently enough, the noth slopes tended to be the more gentle, accessible ones from an ease-of-climbing perspective. Ah well.

The small mesa proved to be an excellent vantage point from which to survey the surrounding countryside. Cabezon loomed large to the east, and there was a neat view of Sandia in the distance just to the left of Cabezon (here's where a camera would have come in REALLY handy). The mesa had a sheer drop of a few hundred feet to the Rio Puerco Valley below, so the views were pretty well unobstructed north, south, and east. I was able to see a number of the other volcanic necks in the area, and the Jemez mountains loomed like a wall to the north. I noticed that the rock had a fair number of deep chasms in it, almost like the mesa was crumbling before my eyes, so I kept well enough back from the eastern edge (not like my acrophobia wanted to get much closer anyway!).

After getting my fill of the view I climbed down again and retraced my steps to the saddle in between the two mesas. I scrambled down the down the south side--a fairly steep slope of mud and loose dirt. It would have been hell to climb back up it, but since there wasn't any snow to slip on it made for a fun romp down the slope. You can see this section pretty clearly on the hike profile...it's the really steep drop about halfway into the hike.

I made my way around the steep cliffs on the south and west sides of the mesa (avoiding all the gifts the cows had left me). I was aiming to go all the way around the mesa to the shallower drainages that would allow me to cross back to the road on the other side, but I found a lower section in the cliffs that looked like they would allow me access to the mesa top, so I took my chances and picked around until I found an access point. Again, it was a little steeper than it had appeared from farther off, but after a bit of scrambling (good thing I didn't have the baby on my back!) I made it up just fine. Crossing the mesa was simple enough, but scrambling back down the other side was a little more interesting. I happened to pick a drainage that was more steep and narrow than the one I climbed up intially, and I had a few 4'-5' drops that I hopped down before finally reaching the bottom of the wash and following it out to the road. When I got back to the car I noted that my tracks were still the only ones on that road, and it appeared to have been at least a day or two since anyone had gone any further up the same road. Not a very busy destination, to say that least.






I thought this was kinda cool. I found that my GPS/mapping software allows me to post and share maps online. Instead of doing the screen scrapes like I've been doing (that's where those last two pics came from), I can just post them through the software and send a handy-dandy like. Maybe if I get *real* ambitious, I can just make a tinyurl for them. We'll see about that...

http://mapshare.delorme.com/Consumer/V.aspx?p=z1rjmc70

So I had a chance to get out and hike a couple of times this weekend. It was lots of fun.

On Friday, we decided to just head someplace close, so we headed up the road to the Ojitos Wilderness Study Area. It was a good opportunity to get out and play with my other cool Christmas present, a new GPS unit. After the hike, I pieced this map together with the software that came with it:



We didn't quite follow the route they described in the hiking guide; this one was a little shorter with more ups and downs. We had a lot of fun, though, tramping up and down the canyons and through the badlands. Little guy had a good time, too, and wasn't too bothered by the chilly weather. Here's a pic of us near the start of the hike:




We were feeling a little more ambitious on Saturday, so we got out fairly early and headed north on US 550. We left with the intention of heading out to the De-Na-Zin Wilderness area, but when we saw how much snow was on the ground once we got past Cuba, we decided that a trackless wilderness area wasn't quite as appealing. Plus we really wanted to see Chaco Canyon with the snow on the ruins, so we turned off early and headed out to there. The dirt roads were actually in pretty good shape in the morning because they were still packed and frozen (it was a good bit muddier coming out later in the day). As we were expecting, the park was nearly deserted.






After a little wandering through Pueblo Bonito (seen in those last two pictures), we decided to head out on the trail to Penasco Blanco because our last visit there had been cut short by the arrival of a summer thunderstorm. There was a bit of ice and snow on the trail, interspersed with muddy spots where that had melted off, but we were progressing quite well along the trail until we got to the point where we needed to cross the arroyo. It looked muddy and iced over, but I was probing around trying to find a decent spot to cross. All of a sudden, the crust of ice gave way and I found myself up to my knees in quicksand. Yummy. After a few exciting moments, I got myself out (baby backpack and all), and we turned around and headed the three miles back to the car without getting to the ruins. Ah well. At least I had good boots and wool socks on. Here's a picture of me on the trail on the way back:



Note the wet and muddy legs. Gotta love it. Matthew didn't seem too phased by the whole ordeal, other than getting a little hungry before we got back to the car (I kinda wanted to get back and get the soggy boots off, however).




Thankfully, it all had a happy ending. We got back safe and sound and headed for home. The shower after getting home felt *really* good.

So we took off to El Malpais National Monument today. It's nice because it's only an hour or so away, and it isn't up in the mountains. This being December, mountains are not exactly recommended. It was chilly and breezy nonetheless, and uncharacteristically cloudy for New Mexico. We headed to the east side of the lava flows today and hung out by La Ventana Arch. We've driven by it a number of times before, but never stopped to look at it. We hiked the quarter mile up from the parking area and snapped a shot or two, then drove south along the sandstone bluffs known as The Narrows (because it's where the bluffs lap right up against the black lava flows). We parked at the picnic area and hiked back along the Narrows Rim trail. After 3.5 miles, we were looking down on La Ventana Arch again. The view is worth so much more when you work for it. Despite the chill and winds, little guy was in good spirits the whole day (much better than our stint at White Sands after Thanksgiving).




Looking out over the Malpais



La Ventana Arch



Grinning little guy

	Matthew and I on the Tyuonyi Overlook Trail Hiking along on the trail (Oct. 27th)
	There *are* waterfalls in New Mexico! A view of the Upper Falls on the Rito de los Frijoles (and some fall color to boot! (Oct. 27th)
	Down Frijoles Canyon to the Rio Grande A view down Frijoles Canyon near Upper Falls. The Rio Grande is flowing just in front of that ridge in the background. (Oct. 27th)
	Family portrait in the fall color On the trail between the Upper and Lower Falls in Frijoles Canyon. (Oct. 27th)
	Matthew in the Rito de los Frijoles Ooo...water! Lemme at it! (Oct. 27th)

So we headed out to Ghost Ranch last Friday to do a bit of hiking. As we drove up through Espanola and Abiquiu, the sky looked more and more threatening--we saw that it was definitely raining up the Rio Chama from the Abiquiu Reservoir. We decided to tough it out and go hiking anyway, even if we got wet. As it turned out, we never saw more than a few drops and a good bit of wind as the weather went all around us, but we were more than rewarded by some incredible vistas of the weather here in New Mexico. This place is so amazingly beautiful! It's no small wonder that Virginia O'Keefe was so fond of Ghost Ranch. Check out the fifth and sixth pictures down for some shots of her beloved Cerro Pedernal. We first hiked up to Chimney Rock (the first five shots), then made the trek up to the top of Kitchen Mesa (the rest of the pictures).

Here are some more pictures from our trip last month...sorry I never got ambitious enough to post them sooner...or annotate them more.

	Big hole Those specks on the road are actually *huge* dump trucks crawling up the Bingham Copper Mine.
	Matthew and Uncle Alan at the Salt Lake Temple We spent some time with Carolyn's family at Temple Square.
	Family portrait at the Salt Lake temple They had the grounds of the Salt Lake Temple open to go in and take pictures.
	Alan at the MTC The raison d'être of the trip.
	Saying bye to Uncle Alan Matthew spending time with Alan before he enters the MTC.
	Valley of the Goblins Always fun to go play with the goblins...
	Family Portrait in Chute Canyon Our trip back to the San Rafael Swell, all the way down the Behind-the-Reef Road.
	Grinning in the Backpack Little guy having a fun time on our hike in Chute Canyon.
	Sun Going Down at Bullfrog Marina We got to Lake Powell later in the day and got to enjoy the light on the redrock.
	Whew...out of the Pack! Taking a break on our hike down Maidenwater Canyon.
	Looking down at the San Juan River The (cloudy) view from Muley Point, down to the San Juan River. It's NOWHERE near as impressive an experience to see the picture as it is to see the cliffs in person.
	Ruins on the Rocks The handiwork of some of the incredible masons whose ruins are preserved at Hovenweep National Monument.
	Bisti Badlands Some of the funkiest sculptures Mother Nature could come up with (along with lots of fossils and petrified wood) at the Bisti Badlands in NW New Mexico.
	Ooooh! Camera! Matthew's customary position for most of the trip. What a trooper!

So we headed off from home early on Saturday the 28th. We zipped up Hwy 550 all the way to Durango, then headed west to Mesa Verde. The original intent had been to head straight up to the Provo/Salt Lake area, but plans changed, so we decided to take the more scenic route. We didn't have a definite plan for the park, but after enjoying the scenic drive in, I waited in line to see which of the large ruins we could tour. We opted to head out to the less-hectic Wetherill Mesa, with the idea that it was close enough that we could make it back to the park during some season other than the crazy busy summertime for the other tours. I think it was the right idea.
	Matching Outfits at Mesa Verde We ended up wearing matching outfits on our first day of the trip.
When we got out to Wetherill Mesa (after another 30 min+ scenic drive), we had a picnic lunch and waited for our assigned tour time. The weather was turning decidedly cloudy, but we weren't particularly worried about getting wet. A lot of the area was still recovering from the devastating wildfires that tore through there a few years ago. A ranger showed up with a horse that she rode to patrol the trails. We went over and let Matthew pet the horse (with the ranger's permission, of course). He loved it! Our tour time finally came, and we took the tram out to the trailhead, then walked the half mile or so down to the alcove where the Long House ruins were located.
	Long House The Long House ruins on Wetherill Mesa at Mesa Verde.
As our group took the tour through the ruins, the menacing clouds and faroff thunder moved closer, and it started to rain just as we started back up the trail to the tram stop.
	Yay! Rain! The start of a thunderstorm on the way back up the Long House Trail.
We had thought about taking the rest of the tram tour and spending some more time there, but the rain continued and got harder, so we opted to get back on the road. We ended up spending a little more time in the park, though, because the heavy, steady rain caused numerous rockfalls on the park entrance road. They had the road closed for a half hour or so until the fall activity stopped and they could get the roads cleared. After that, we enjoyed more heavy rain on and off all the way through to Monticello, UT. It's somewhat ironic seeing so much rainfall in the Four Corners region, but we were to see a good bit more on the trip. We knew it was the rainy season, though, so we shouldn't have been too surprised. The rain cleared as we headed north through the redrock on US-191. It was warm and slightly muggy as we got to Moab. We opted to go out to dinner first, then checked into our hotel. We were worried that we might be reaching the limits with Matthew and didn't want him to melt down on us at dinner. He was tired, but it worked out just fine. We woke early the next day and got on the road by 7. We headed north to I-70, then west to ranch exit 129. We had been somewhat apprehensive about this plan after seeing all the rain the day before, but the San Rafael Swell didn't seem to have seen as much precipitation. We got on the improved dirt road heading straight into the northern reaches of the swell, and took it for 50 miles up to the tiny town of Cleveland. We spent the first 20 miles or so weaving between sandstone towers, over dry mesas, and down sandy washes to reach the San Rafael River. The road crosses over the new bridge, but the historic one lane swinging bridge installed by the CCC is still standing and is fine for foot traffic.
	The San Rafael Bridge The swinging bridge over the San Rafael River just before heading up Buckhorn Wash.
On the opposite side of the bridge, the road enters the high sandstone walls of Buckhorn Wash, and follows the wash for the next 10 miles. Along the way, it passes the beautifully artistic Buckhorn Pictograph panel, where we stopped to enjoy the paintings.
	Piggyback at the Pictographs A piggyback ride while looking at the Buckhorn Pictograph panel.
	Smiler Our intrepid adventurer during our stop at the Buckhorn Pictographs.
	The Buckhorn Pictographs A small portion of the Buckhorn Pictograph panel.
A little further up the road, we saw the inscription of the outlaw Matt Warner, the followed some instructions to find the location of a fossil dinosaur footprint just off the road.
	Sitting in the Footprint Matthew sitting inside a dinosaur footprint along Buckhorn Wash.
We took a short hike up a side canyon, then followed the road up out of the Wash and headed south to visited the Wedge Overlook.
	Little Grand Canyon The Little Grand Canyon of the San Rafael River as seen from the Wedge Overlook.
	Mmmm...hat The family at the Wedge Overlook.
After another 20 miles or so, we finally reached pavement again and headed north into Price. We got back onto the US highways and made good time down through Spanish Fork Canyon. We met up with I-15 and headed straight up to Salt Lake, where we checked into our hotel on the east side of the city, near the U of U. After cleaning up and changing, we headed over to West Valley to spend the evening Aunt Kaye and the clan. Most of the cousins showed up brought all their kids along, so Matthew just blended into the bunch. It was good to see everyone again since it had been a while. We left while Matthew was still happy and got back to the hotel to get some rest.
	Chasing the blue ball Matthew playing with a ball in Kaye's backyard.

After hiking for much of the day on Friday, I was torn about whether to go hiking again on Saturday. I didn't want to spend all day away from the family again, but since I've been so lax about getting hiking for so long, I really wanted to take every opportunity I could to get out. It felt like a moot point as I had no desire to get out of bed early on Saturday. I ended up sleeping in until 8:30 or so, which doesn't seem so bad until you consider that I get up between 5 and 5:30 on most days. We hung out around the house and played with baby, then went to a farmer's market and did some shopping together. Around noon, I decided to try for an afternoon hike, and headed out the door in the direction of Santa Fe. I got up to the Santa Fe Ski Area and headed on the trail as a lot of other folks were headed back to their cars. There was an ominous grey cloud hovering over much of the sky, but I decided to head out anyway. I struck up the trail (which always seems steeper than it is, likely because you start at 10,000 feet and it always hits me), and made a right turn off the numbered trail at the wilderness boundary in the direction of Deception Peak. I followed the unofficial trail along the fence line for another mile or so to an overlook that looked down on the valley we clawed up to get to Nambe Lake. While I was sitting there enjoying the view and munching on a snack, the thick grey clouds closed in even more and started making noise. Then it started to rain. It wasn't a heavy rain, or even particularly close thunder, but I knew that I was only halfway to the peak and things were going to get a whole lot more exposed. Up to that point, the trail had been going through a spruce and fir forest, so I would have good cover the whole way back down. I decided that turning around would be the prudent thing to do, and resolved to return some other *morning* to finish the hike. I really should know better than to try an afternoon hike in New Mexico during the monsoons...

So, I didn't go to work last Friday. I went hiking instead. I knew that the baby had been sick, so we didn't even try a family hike (although I *did* get her permission to go hiking on my own first, thank you very much). I actually got everything ready the night before and was out the door by around 5:30ish. I drove down to the town of Manzano, then up into the hills from there before stopping at the Ox Canyon trailhead. It was nice and cool still as I got going on the trail. The trail climbed up the canyon steadily, with a few large, looping switchbacks. It stayed mostly under the cover of a fairly thick forest, although there were a few open meadows filled with a large variety of wildflowers. It was actually a glorious time to be hiking, with a great display of yellows, reds, and blues all over the place. I made my way up to the Crest Trail after a few miles and stopped for a snack. The Crest Trail was much more open, but instead of being a narrow and treeless crest, it was more of a wide open meadow with a steep drop-off on the west side that afforded expansive views of the Rio Grande valley. Every so often I would get views of the rolling plains to the east, too. The weather, although slightly hazy, still afforded vistas at least 50 miles or so, which was very nice. Eventually, I passed the intersection with the Kayser Trail, which came up the eponymous canyon. I continued on to Manzano Peak, however, which opened to the highest point in the range with about a 270-degree view (every direction but north, pretty much). I had my lunch and soaked up the view before beginning my descent. I backtracked to Kayser Canyon and worked my way down before coming out on a rough four-wheel drive track. I followed that for almost a mile, then walked back along a stinking hot National Forest road for a mile and a half before reaching my car. It was along that road that I saw my only other people of the day. A grand total of three vehicles passed me as I was walking along the dirt road. One of those was a ranger and another was a road grader smoothing out the road. I didn't see a soul the whole time I was on the trails. It was a good hike for the solitude and time to think. I've had a lot going through my head lately, and it helped to just hike and let things settle for a bit.

So we went hiking again this past weekend. We got off early and headed up to the Santa Fe ski area in time to get on the trail by 8 a.m.. The Winsor trail rises fast from the ski area to a saddle where it enters the Pecos Wilderness. From the saddle, it gradually descends along the north side of the ridge separating it from the ski area. We could have continued on that trail to the large, open meadow called La Vega, but instead we chose to turn south at the Rio Nambe and climb the steep mile up to the headwaters of the river. We made it up to the beautiful, still Nambe Lake, surrounded by snowy crags, and had our picnic lunch. Although the hike isn't quite easy by any means, I was feeling it a little more than I normally would have because I'm kind of out of shape and I was carrying little guy on my back. After we joined up with the Winsor Trail again I traded the heavy baby for the lighter day pack, and she carried him back up to the saddle and down to the trailhead. I was feeling pretty wiped for a 6 mile hike, although that was exacerbated by the altitude (the trailhead was at 10,200...up to 11,400 at the lake). I don't do altitude all that well. It was still a fun time, but I was glad to get home and take it easy for the rest of the day.



Hiking along with little guy on the back.


The Rio Nambe on it's way down the mountain.


Nambe Lake surrounded by the mountains.


Our family picture (learning how to use the timer function...)

	Ready to hike Matthew in his new carrier before our hike up Atalaya Mountain.
	Looking down on Old Town Santa Fe Part of the view from the top of Atalaya Mountain, looking toward the Old Town section of Santa Fe.
	At the top of Atalaya Mountain Taking a break at the top of Atalaya Mountain before we take the hike back down.

A couple views of our hike today.