Thursday, March 14, 2024

Pickett Spring Canyon - Gila National Forest

 



I've had this one in back pocket for awhile now. When my wife wanted to go to the Black Range a couple of Sundays ago, I thought it would be good time to use it. First, though, I wanted to see the situation with FR 522. We got off of  NM 152 and drove a short ways to a large parking area and then headed out on foot walking past the Forest Service work center with an old trailer with broken windows, crushed metal culverts, a couple of ATVs and other junk lining the well maintained road. The small house there was drab stuccoed cinder block,  and looked liked it was yanked out of  30's or 40's neighborhood in T or C.  It had various large antennas sticking out it, which probably, don't serve any purpose anymore, but who knows, the Forest Service has been a bit slow to get with the times. There were stables too, but we didn't see any animals about. After passing by I'm not totally sure the area is even used anymore.

 We continued uphill on the road. There was no shade and it was quite warm for February. The wind picked up and I felt a tinge of dread for the beginning of the drying season here in southwestern New Mexico. After less than a mile we came to a locked gate with a camera. This is what I had expected (there was sign early on indicating this as well), just not quite this soon. When  I checked on Google Earth, Topo Maps and On-X , I could tell that this gate is at least a quarter mile from where the actual boundary of the private property inholding is.  I feel a little rant coming on. I get that perhaps whoever lives on that inholding doesn't want people driving to 10 feet  from their front door, but what I don't get is the Forest Service (who seem to be maintaining the road that is essentially their driveway quite nicely), has not bothered to figure out a bypass route for this road which used to be a through route all the way to Tierra Blanca Creek (where they did put in very rough bypass). Well, maybe someday. Lately it seems, I'm very tired of the inaccessibility of large swaths of Gila Forest land in the southern Black Range that is locked up on the fringes or blocked within forest boundary by  private property.  I don't understand how it came to be  that there is no established  right of way to use the roads in or along Trujillo Creek,  Upper Berrenda Creek, Taylor Creek, Macho Canyon, Gavilan Canyon, Donahue and Sheppard Canyon to access National Forest property. I am to some extent part of a similar problem with my meager property that borders the BLM lands on Horse Mountain. My subdivision, Teepee Ranch, and other private parcels limit access to much of the north side of the mountain. But, the total  BLM parcel here is small, around 10,000 acres, and the public access on the SW side is a reasonable alternative because the distances for hunters or backpackers are small. In the southern Black Range the acreage unavailable to all but the  hardiest backpacker or hunter is more on the order of 30,000 to 50,000. Okay,  I'm done.

So it was on to Pickett Spring Canyon near Kingston, which by the way is looking very settled and somewhat prosperous (gentrified?) nowadays. There were two false starts one the right where we followed a fence line that took us up high above the canyon to nowhere in particular, and then a second where we followed  another "trail" that took us high above the canyon on the left which was not where we wanted to be: on a treacherous ledge baking in the warm sun. So we went back and followed the stream bed trail which frequently was the stream bed. Pickett Spring Canyon is a very narrow drainage with the closed- in feel further emphasized by a thick growth of short piñons, junipers and other shrubs. Water eventually appeared which looked more like a thickened ooze of iron minerals. I'm not sure if this is the natural "spring" or what, but it was hard to keep our idiot dogs from trying to drink from it even as disgusting as it looked. We had our picnic a little farther downstream (past the orange muck) and continued on. The canyon finally opened a bit and there were traces of old roads here and there. We found the developed spring piping clean water into metal tub (of course the dogs had no interest in that) went a little an open gate in a dilapidated  fence, but I'm not sure if that was it because in very narrow canyons like this my On-X app doesn't work. Not the greatest hikes, but there are worse ways to spend a Sunday.


Labels: ,

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Broad Canyon Arch - Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument

 



I have seen this arch from below, but I hadn't ever seen it from above. I had half-heartedly tried a couple of times to locate it on the ridge without success. A few weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to take my fellow adventurer Doug Scott on a hike here in my own home territory. We went out to Lichen Canyon (a tributary of Broad Canyon) to visit its little box section and 100 foot dry waterfall. I told our little group (Doug,Doug's son Talus, and friend Weston) about the arch. We hiked up out of the canyon and began wandering around the crags and towers that are perched 200 feet above Broad Canyon. It looked like we were going to be unsuccessful, when Talus caught eye of it and lo behold without too much effort we had  found our arch. It's about eight to ten feet wide and about five feet tall. It also has cracks in many places. So get out to see it before in crumbles.

Labels: , ,

Friday, March 8, 2024

Sierro Kemado, Horse Canyon - Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

Juniper
Sierro Kemado

Fence at left


Undercut layers






stone structure




Structure in center of photo







I'd been wanting to look at this area on the east end of Sierro Kemado for  a while now. I took the opportunity a couple of weeks ago on President's Day. I parked across from the  corral area on  County Road E006 and began heading south after my first of many fence transits. I got a little off of my plan by heading too far  south and had to circle back to look at a couple of canyons that interested me. One was pretty nicely rugged and rocky. The other one wasn't much.


 Eventually I got out of the canyons and began walking on the ridges in between toward a gap in the mountain. It just so happened that the gap on the east end of Sierra Kemado which is also uppermost Horse Canyon( on the south side) is located very close to a center point where several fences radiate out like spokes on wheel.  All the getting under them was surely annoying especially for someone like me who frequently changes and improvises on the route throughout the course of the day.

There was brilliant white gravel covering the hillsides alone the ravine which made for a nice contrast with the boulders in their many shades of brown. On a relatively flat piece of land on one bank there was  a stone structure. What it was, who built it and why, I don't know. I searched around for any surface artifacts but there were none from any era to be found. It wasn't surprising though because the structure and the bank it sits on are being buried with the white gravel.  

I had planned to investigate more of this upper section of Horse Canyon but after having a look from above  I was uninspired. Instead I moved on higher up the drainage and then circled back and headed eastward a bit to check out a grove of junipers growing on north facing slope of a swale.

 Along the way, after going under a fence at a particular stop for the fourth time I spied an old rope in a couple of pieces. One still had the knot in it. When I find things like that, I always wonder what the story was for how it got left behind. Not much else to report except for several odd piles of rocks right close to where I had parked the car.

Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Silva Canyon - Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

River of grass

Sierra de las Uvas in the distance

One of several rock dikes the canyon has cut through
















Golden river


We hiked down Silva Canyon starting near the old blown out dam at Coyote Tank just off of the Corralitos Road. Silva Canyon starts out as a narrow defile cut into the bedrock higher up in the mountains, but where we were walking it is one of several wide " rivers" of grass in the Sierra de las Uvas. I'm assuming the high water table in these arroyos  allows for these tall thickets of grass to flourish. It also puts in mind, that in earlier times, these washes had even more water still, which leads me to think that they are great places to scout for signs of ancient people who traveled, camped, gathered, hunted and perhaps even farmed fertile soils along these currently ephemeral, but perhaps more reliable in the past, tributaries to the Rio Grande.

Metal pipe that ran under the dam
Bell Top Mountain in the distance

 There was a bit of wind when we got out of the car, but we soon were shedding our jackets in the warm winter sun. Near the dam are the deep erosional channels that come about when there are virtually no shrubs, trees or even grass to hold the soils in place when the occasional flash flood comes through. It was ugly, but the rest of our hike wasn't. Below the dam things become more natural. We walked down stream in the winding sand channels and tussocks of golden grass. Unfortunately, this area receives enough water to grow cockle burrs  which is not good when you have dogs. We dodged them as best we good for a while, but then came where the really thick growing grass dominates the entire channel for several miles. There is only two choices here: find the main continuous channel or skirt the edges. We did the latter. 

Just downstream of the dam

We found an alcove, that may have had a protective wall ( it was hard to tell) along the way where there was a mano and what I'm pretty sure was broken pestle, but there was little else in the way of artifacts. No sherds, no lithic flakes. 

We continued along the edges, but then we decided the dogs needed some shade which was in very short supply. We went for the main channel in the deep grass as our only option. It was alright for the dogs, but we had the long dried blades right in our faces. We decided to exit after only short ways, but getting out was kind of tough. There are so many hidden channels to get in and out of just to walk  twenty feet. We did it and then I realized, we had gotten out on the wrong side for continuing along the edges as the edge we were on quickly ran out at a narrow section of the canyon bed ahead. My wife didn't want to cross the grass again, and I didn't blame her. It's not fun. 

In the main channel

 After having our picnic, she stayed back with one dog and I continued on with other. I hadn't gotten very far when the wind really picked up . I called it day when I would have had to make yet another grass  crossing to continue.

 The wind was pretty steady and cool on the way back, but we managed okay. It was a pretty day.

Labels: ,