Now this was quite a treat. There I was at over nine thousand feet in the freaking wilderness, somewhere between Tres Piedras and the Brazos Cliffs, walking toward a marsh. Well, a creek, but spread out wide and marshy. An actual wetland shimmering in the sun. No birds or elk, though, surprising only if we [...]
wilderness
Back country south or west of Hopewell Lake (who knows?)
The road my friend and I took to get here, a crashing tumble off a rocky mountain and just possibly the roughest road I’ve ever seen, bears no relation to the gentle thing you see above. Even that turned impassable just around the bend, where far below in a gorgeous mountain valley,* two cowboys on [...]
Gratefully we sneeze
Look around you, it’s happening right now. Everything in this image is a gift, the asters and the chamisa and whatever the hell the others are. The mountains and the sky. Our trip to Alamosa yesterday, my god. The vistas and the weather. We drove through actual rain. On the way back early in the [...]
Keeping watch for bigger things
A couple of years before we moved to New Mexico, we were driving through el Norte on a trip. An outing north of Taos brought us to the Wild Rivers Recreation Area (now part of the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument). I was astounded by the remoteness of the place as well as the [...]
It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it
You can hike up to the top of this thing at 12,115 ft. In fact, there’s a trail up there that follows the ridgeline to high above the Taos Ski Valley. If you start in San Cristobal, you can hike in the wilderness for days. This is obviously something I need to do before I [...]
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