Lost soul. Not exactly out. Not exactly in. Just hanging out somewhere on-da-fringe.
Two days ago, two fires in the Gila National Forest — the Whitewater Fire and the Baldy Fire — merged into one. Now called the Whitewater-Baldy Complex, this fire has now scorched more than 82,000 acres. Today, smoke from that fire moved into the Albuquerque area and is doing a pretty good job of obscuring the Sandia Mountains and creating breathing difficulties for a number of locals.
Yesterday morning, drove up to the Crest House in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque for a loop hike with the ASCHG.
Hiked the Crest Spur Trail to where it met the La Luz Trail. Then followed the La Luz up to the Sandia Peak Tram. After a short break, took the Gravel Pit Trail through the woods to where it met the trail that leads to the Kiwanis Cabin and then up to the cabin for a lunch stop. After lunch, we hiked back into the woods and then back up to the Crest House, although I am not certain as to the name of the trail, but I think it was the Gravel Pit to the Crest Trail.
Since joining, I’ve been on a number of hikes with the ASCHG and have met a number of nice and interesting people. One of the hike leaders invited me to attend a meeting where, among other things, hikes for the last half of the year would be determined. I was also invited to attend this meeting by one of the people who is responsible for pulling all the hiking information together and subsequently presenting the results to the ASCHG membership in a coherent manner. So, yesterday morning, I attended that meeting.
Went on a great hike this morning with a good group of people from the ASCHG. Hiked a loop: Up the North Piedra Lisa Trail, then hiked back down the Del Agua Trail, both on the north side of the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque. Didn’t hike all the way up to to saddle where the North Piedra Lisa Trail meets up with the South Piedra Lisa Trail, but look forward to doing that entire hike, from north to south, at some point in the near future. The Del Agua Trail was a bit more challenging than the Piedra Lisa Trail, as you will see in the pics. There were a couple of minor slips, but no falls, except for the water variety.
PLB: Personal Locator Beacon
Spent weeks trying to decide whether to buy a PLB. After much soul searching, and given that I hike quite a bit and plan on doing some solo hikes, and that I hike a lot with the ASCHG, it seemed prudent to acquire a PLB. My research lead me to the ACR ResQLink as my preferred choice.
How easy is it to get lost or turned around in the wilderness? Very easy!! This point was driven home last September when I went on one of my first hikes. Actually, it wasn’t even a hike. My friend and I just wanted to walk a little way up the Windsor Trail in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is a heavily wooded area and after about a ten minute walk, we decide to venture off trail a bit to look around. We didn’t go far at all, but we did go far enough to lose sight of the trail and we didn’t have a topo map, compass, or a GPS with us. We tried to retrace our footsteps to get back to the trail, but couldn’t find it. In this area, I knew we would eventually locate the trail, but when we did, we were about 50 yards down-trail from where we had originally left it! Lesson learned. 
A few weeks ago, I bought a Garmin GPSmap 62s handheld unit to take along on my hikes.
Among other things, once I turn tracking on, this unit will track my hike route by automatically creating waypoints as I hike. A waypoint consists of the date, time, elevation, latitude, and longitude of wherever I am at the moment the waypoint is created. At the end of the hike, I save the track.
Buckman Mesa sits right along the Rio Grande River across and a little northeast from the town of White Rock, NM. This area is northwest of Santa Fe. I believe Buckman Mesa is part of the Ortiz Mountains.
On May 8th., I hiked with the ASCHG up to the mesa, then across the mesa and up to the top of Otowi Peak. Elevation at the trail head is 5,468 feet (1,666m) and at the top of Otowi Peak it is 6,542 feet (1,994m) for an elevation gain of 1,074 feet (327m). Took 2 hours to hike the 2.1 miles to the peak. Winds were pretty brisk on the peak, but settled down while we were eating lunch. Good views in all directions. There is a USGS survey marker at the top (see the pics). I saw one of those on my Cerro Grande hike, too (see earlier post).
And we actually saw a horned toad on the mesa (see the pics)! That is the first horned toad I have seen since I was a kid living in West Texas. Back then, they were everywhere. Now, they are on the endangered list.
Hiked into Monte Largo Canyon on May 7th. with the ASCHG. The canyon is south of Albuquerque, east of Belen, in the Manzano Mountains, which are part of the Cibola National Forest. Elevation at the trail head is 6,131 feet (1,869m) and at the highest point we went, it was 6,780 feet (2,066m), so only about 650 feet (198m) of elevation gain. Entire hike, in and out, covered 3.6 miles and took us 2.75 hous. The trail does run all the way to the crest of the Manzanos, but that will be for another day. Clouds rolled in and it got windy and cold. Thought it was going to rain on us, but we were able to hike out of the canyon before it started. It was a pretty easy hike with a good group of people.
Hiked the Pino Trail near Albuquerque on May 3rd. This trail is in the Sandia Mountains, part of the Cibola National Forest. The trail runs for about 4.75 miles (7.6km) from the parking lot to the crest. Elevation at the parking lot is 6,472 feet (1,972m) and at the crest it is 9,300 feet (2,834m), so an elevation gain of 2,828 feet (862m). The last third of the hike was fairly steep and I had to break out my trekking poles.
May 25, 2012
George
