January 10-16
Oh boy, I’m really not doing a very good job keeping up on this blog. At least I have a good excuse! We have been hiking and exploring every day and reception has been spotty. I’ll get caught up, don’t worry!
Week nine was so super busy and so super amazing! We saw much, hiked much, and drove much. Adventure! Read on!
Monday: Today was a very significant day for me. A year ago today my divorce journey began. This has been a year of healing and learning and so much growth, capped off with an amazing adventure. I never would have chosen this journey, but it has taken me to amazing places that I will always cherish. To celebrate this momentous milestone, mom and I climbed a mountain! Well, it wasn’t technically a mountain, but a mountain pass. It was still well over a thousand feet of ascent to reach the pass. Starting from our Aguirre Spring campground, the hike there was unbelievable. The views stretched on for probably 50 miles or more. The mountainside was covered in beauty. The climb was challenging, just as I’d hoped it would be. It began to snow just as we reached Baylor Pass, so the hike back down was a bit blustery and cold. We didn’t mind too much. The snow dusting the withered foliage, cactuses, and the desert ground was simply magical. It wasn’t the adventure we’d expected, but it was a treasure of its own variety. You bet I didn’t miss the parallels to this past year of my life.
After that hike, we headed to White Sands National Park. That place is wiiiiiiiild! Mom and I both felt like we were on the moon! Thousands of white sand dunes, very little wildlife, strange looking plants. The moon. The sleds available for purchase in the visitor center were tempting, but I decided against shaking sand out of my clothes and shoes for the next year. We took a couple of short hikes, traversed some huge dunes, got windburn from the combo of strong winds and super fine sand, did our best Neil Armstrong impressions, then headed back to camp. The sky treated us to an absolutely spectacular sunset blazing through the Organ Mountains as we drove west. What a show! It was a cold night, so we made a warm dinner, and huddled in for a game of cribbage before going to bed.
Tuesday: Today was a pack-out-and-drive day. We said goodbye to one of the most gorgeous campsites yet and headed toward Albuquerque. We didn’t really have any tourist intentions in Albuquerque, but we did find a campground with a shower, which was quite an attraction in itself. We left home on a Wednesday, it was now Tuesday, and we hadn’t showered yet. Um, gross. So yeah, we were very excited to take showers! It was especially important since we were going to have dinner with family that night. We didn’t think it would be great to show up with greasy hair and hike stink. Our hosts: my mom’s uncle, aunt, and cousin on my grandma’s side. I had never met mom’s aunt or cousin and hadn’t seen her uncle in close to 20 years. The evening was delightful, filled with laughter and old memories.
Wednesday: Today saw us on the road again, making our way to Bandelier National Monument. The drive itself was an adventure. The route took us between huge red-soil cliffs near Jemez Springs, up into the snow-covered Valles Caldera National Preserve, and down into the history-rich Bandelier area. Finding a campsite was a bit of a journey as well. The campsite I had picked out was a no-go. It was a wild camping area just off the main road. If it hadn’t been snowy, I’m sure the spot would have been perfect. However, there was only one set of tire tracks in the snow, no cell phone reception, and no one else around. We decided to search for another option. The next spot was basically the same story. Yikes. So, we made the decision to continue down the mountain and ask for information at the Bandelier visitor center. When we chanced to drive through a tiny window of cell phone reception, mom found a campground within the Bandelier National Park that was open. Let’s give it a try! We pulled in, found the campground beautiful, clean, cleared of snow, and nearly empty. That was an easy yes! After we got set up in the Juniper Campground and took a few deep breaths to shake off the struggle of finding a place to sleep, we headed further down the mountain to check out the wonder of Bandelier National Monument.
Wonder is an understatement. After stopping in at the visitor center to learn a bit about what we were about to see, mom and I took the short walk out to the main attraction and just about lost our minds. The valley in which the center of the park lies is filled, like seriously filled, with ruins of Ancient Pueblo dwellings. In the center of the canyon floor are four kivas (dug-out round houses) and a circular village composed of dozens of small rooms. This structure, once three to four stories high, was home to a few hundred people. These structures, built in the mid-1400s, are still entirely visible and totally amazing. Nearby, dug into the canyon walls, are the cavates (“cave-ates”). The canyon walls are composed of tuff, a super soft stone formed by cooled volcanic ash. As water and wind did their thing to the tuff, small pockmarks formed in the cliffs, growing with time. When the Ancient Pueblo People arrived in the canyon, the Swiss-cheese-like canyon walls were ready to be homes. These incredible people dug the cliff holes out to be larger and more useful, built stone houses in front of the cavates, and made the place their permanent home. Some of the cavates are large, some are small. Some are just as they were when the Ancient Pueblo People left the canyon in the 1600s and some have continued to erode beyond recognition. No matter the state of the dwellings, the preservation of history brought mom and me to awed silence. What a treasure to have this glimpse into the lives of the first human residents of this country! As we climbed around, into, and through these ancient homes, we were entirely fascinated. We explored the entire half-mile length of the cliff dwellings before heading back to camp at sunset. Dinner and a card game and reading finished out an amazing day. Thank you, Lord, for provision and guidance and human brilliance.
Thursday: Mom and I were so fascinated by the cliff dwellings that we had to go back for round two. Can you blame us? We set out from our campsite on the mile-and-a-half hike to the cliffs. The hike took us across the mesa that lies above the Ancient Pueblo dwellings, then zigzagging down the Swiss-cheese cliff. Getting there was pretty easy. Getting back to camp? That’s gonna be a different story. Today, we spent more time in the visitor's center, reading the literature, and studying the displays to better understand the marvel we were about to hike back into. That was a good plan. With more information, the cavates were even more amazing! We spent another couple of hours marveling, capped off beautifully when we met a park volunteer who gave us a private tour of the petroglyphs found in the monument. There are so many! And they are so well-preserved! What a treasure to be able to marvel at the artwork installed on these cliffs 500 years ago!
There is another highly suggested hike in the canyon and you know we took it. A relatively easy 4-mile out-and-back hike to the upper falls. The stream that runs through the canyon, which provided water for living and farming when the Ancient Pueblos lived there, still flows toward the Rio Grande. The gorge it has cut over the years rivals the beauty of the Grand Canyon (that’s right. I said it.) with its vivid sedimentary striping and dizzying depth. The geological formations along the trail to the falls were thrilling all on their own, then in combination with the glory of the falls, we were awestruck!
The climb back to camp was, as predicted, killer. In total, between the trek down to the cliffs, the hike out to the falls, and the climb back up to camp, we covered just over ten miles. The sunset welcomed us back to camp where we cozied in for the night.
Friday: This was a get-up-and-go morning because we had places to go and people to see. (just kidding. No people to see. Who needs a social life?) Neither of us was really ready to say goodbye to Bandelier, but we’d seen all it had to offer and knew there were new places that needed to be explored. Where to next? Gila National Forest on the western state line of New Mexico. We’d checked off almost everything else I wanted to see in New Mexico. Gila was our last stop. With a seven-hour drive from Bandelier to the national forest, we decided to break it down into two days. Our first day of driving took us three hours south to the Los Lunas area, where I’d picked out a free campground for our night. Unfortunately, when we drove into the “campground” we changed our minds pretty fast. Mom and I both had an uneasy feeling and just knew we didn’t want to stay. iOverlander (another adventure app I highly recommend) saved the day and we were back in business after a stressed but short search. Escondida Lake Park and Campground was the answer to our problem and it’s where we set up for a $10 night.
Saturday: Gila National Forest! Remember that story I told you about striking out on good campsite options when arriving at Bandelier? Yeah, well that kinda happened again. Except that this time, we ended up driving at least an extra hour. My Google Maps directions tried to bring us into Gila through the back way. Maybe it was the most mile-efficient, but the clerk at the neat general store we stopped at in the middle-of-nowhere New Mexico (The town was called Winston and they truly were 45+ minutes from anywhere else) told us that heading into Gila from her town would take us on challenging dirt roads. No thanks. I love a good tactical driving challenge, but not with the camper on the hitch and not for thirty or more miles. So, we turned around, found the freeway, and took the more practical entrance into the national forest. This route took us up to the jaw-dropping Emory Pass. Sitting at 8,228 feet above sea level, the pass is the easiest, and only way, the drive through the Black Range. The drive was challenging, with switch-backs galore and non-stop climbing, but my Honda Pilot handled it like a champ and I had a blast navigating the tight turns and unguarded canyons dropping away beside the road.
After we’d had our eyeful of the view from the Emory Pass Vista, we headed down the other side of the mountains into the heart of the national forest. Intending to camp at one of the established campgrounds. Or not. The first one was closed for the season. The second one was closed for the season. Several miles down the road, the third one was closed for the season. We had no cell phone reception, no map aside from what we could still check on our already-open Google navigation, and no idea what else existed for possibilities before we got to the other side of the forest. One neat aspect of national forests is that adventurers can set up anywhere, so long as they are not impeding traffic. One neat aspect of surrendering adventures to the loving and providing God of creation is that He does just that; He provides. Just as we arrived at the third and final campground, having seen on the sign a quarter mile back that it was closed, we spotted a clearing to the right side of the road that had a level area and a fire ring. It looked a lot like our campsite. It was our campsite. The gravel drive down to the clearing was super rutted and a little risky, but I navigated it like some kind of pro, and the place turned out to be beyond perfect. We set up camp, gathered firewood like the woodswomen we are, and explored the route of the nearby creek before starting the fire. The cozy warmth of the campfire kept us comfortable as we chatted and stared into the flames while the sun set and the full moon rose over the mountains surrounding our little hollow. Am I making this sound like the perfect storybook ending to an adventurous day? Good. It was. What a blessing. Goodnight!
Sunday: Hike day. Woofda. First things first, I need you to know that we woke to frost on the inside of the camper windows and ice in our water bottles. And we survived. I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m trying to get away from the winter here, not get better acquainted with it. So much for that. Sarcasm aside, I kinda love this winter camping thing. Not because it’s comfy, not because it’s easy, and certainly not because I’m actually enjoying it in the moment. I love it because it’s making me stronger and tougher. I HATE being cold. In the past, if I was chilly while trying to fall asleep, I’d pile on three more blankets. When I was home alone, I’d crank the thermostat up just to be a little overheated. Cold is the worst and I’ll do just about anything to avoid it. Yet, here I am, waking up in the middle of the night because my face is too cold. I’m growing and stretching and changing and getting stronger. I love that so much. So, this morning, I made oatmeal while wearing my parka then stood outside to eat it, letting the tiny heat of the sun warm me up. This is adventure and that's exactly what I asked for.
Okay, hike day. Since we had no reception anywhere near camp, we drove back up the mountain to Emory Pass to check out our hiking apps and find ourselves the perfect adventure. That we did. It just so happened that a fantastic hike trailheaded from just below Emory Pass. Deal. As we approached the starting place, another hiker told us that he’d just completed the trip and warned us that we would be “post-holing” most of the way. We would be what? Basically, he said, it's snowy and tough to traverse. Eh, we got this. We set out and quickly discovered that we might not got this. The snow was deep and had only one set of footprints in it. After a tenth of a mile (with fifty-nine tenths to go) and 50 feet of elevation gain (with over a thousand ahead of us), we were gasping for air and questioning this endeavor. Well, we were this far into it, so why not continue? Before we’d reached the half-mile mark, mom and I both declared that this was, without a doubt, the most challenging hike either of us had ever been on. We knew we couldn’t make it to the summit which was still more than two miles away, but we didn’t want to quit quite yet. So we did what any logical hiker should do. We looked up, chose a mountain peak directly above us, and scrambled up the very steep slope to claim our own victory. It was worth it. It was victorious. It was breathtaking (probably mostly because we were 8,856 feet above sea level). We took in the view. We decided we could climb up one peak higher. We did. We found our way back to the actual trail. We stumbled our way through the snow, which was at spots more than 20 inches deep. We arrived back at the car with just over three miles hiked and just under 1,000 feet ascended. We were tired, we were sore, we were soggy from wet and snow, and we were proud of ourselves because we did it! After a disappointing search revealed that burgers were too far away to be a practical reward for our efforts, we planned the next day’s hike while watching the sunset over Gila National Forest. I’m not sure a day could get more perfect. (Maybe a burger would have made it truly perfect.)
Wow, recording this all a couple of weeks (and posting it a couple of months) after it happened is amazing. Look at all those adventures we went on! Look at all those hikes we conquered! Look at all that we learned! Truly an unbelievable week. There is so much more to see still. Buckle up!
Until next time!
