San Andres Canyon - Lincoln National Forest

I've been on the Upper San Andres Canyon trail ( FT 125) which heads east and uphill from the West Side Road ( FR 90) , a couple of times. Last year I hiked  Lower San Andres Canyon down in the desert. Although the "new " number for that trail is FT 2094, there is still an old FT 125 sign down at the Forest Service boundary which tells me it was once a continuous trail.
 That left me the middle section to explore, which according to maps, the Lincoln National Forest website, and Lynn Melton's fantastic trails website, has no trail. Well, it does, sort of. It definitely did at one point. I know this because even though the paths I ended up following were made for the most part by elk and bears, at times I would come across places where logs across the tread had been sawn on either side and the  cut sections moved aside to clear the way.  Unless elk and bear have learned to use saws, humans were down in here trail busting, although it appears this was many years ago.
This is not to say there is one clear path to follow down (or up) the canyon. There isn't. In fact, I missed most of my mental landmarks I had made going down when I was coming back out. If this all makes anyone thinking about this trip nervous, don't let it. You can always follow the stream bed. Plus, if you get off track a little on the way, just keep walking uphill. You will hit the West Side Road somewhere.
Speaking of the West Side Road, I had a little adventure even before my hike started. Cruising along in the cloudy morning, my drive came to an abrupt stop a short ways past the Heart Attack Canyon( FT 235) trailhead. A large (over 18 inches diameter), dead tree had fallen directly across the road. I thought about my options briefly, and then went for the saw I have in the pickup bed. I sawed, and rested. Sawed and cleared away the smaller broken branches. Sawed and checked my phone to see there was no service. Sawed some more, and then was finally through. I was hoping to move the top section which would allow just enough space for one vehicle to get through. It was heavy. At first I tried to move it with my truck, but it just wanted to go over the log rather than pushing it. In retrospect, it would have been better to turn around, tie a rope to it a drag it out of the way. So then I just muscled it a little bit at a time until I was able to push it off the hillside. I cleared some more branches and I then I was back in truck and on my way for the last 1.5 miles to my starting point. In the end my start was only delayed  about 45 minutes or so.
 Everything was green and moist from the last week of rain showers. The creek channel was thick brown mud with the occasional puddles of storm water. I stayed on a faint path on the north side. The forest was mostly second growth pines and firs in this section.  I walked along and soon found myself at the ruins of an old two room log cabin. I knew it wasn't really, really old, because there was actual lumber for the doorways and the nails I saw looked just like the ones I used a few weeks ago. Still, it had small trees growing in its midst, so it's been abandoned for quite some time. I could tell it had been a two room job from a middle framed doorway. I couldn't find much of the roof, and there wasn't even a chimney.

 A little farther on, but not really that close, I came across a rusted bed frame, the parts to a woodstove, and some  fragments of a large bottle. The letters "EL P .  . " and " . . . ICTS" could be made out,  so it was an El Paso company, but what was in the bottle way back when, I don't know.

 
 I came to a fence which had tall posts at what once was the gate, and then rather soon after that I came to another fence which I went under at the creek crossing. Neither of these fences is serving much of a purpose anymore as they are mostly on the ground. On a different path you might not even encounter them.
 It must be said that the along the entire forested  part of this hike, there was copious elk droppings, and very regular intervals of bear scat. There were also several carcasses which I inadvertently chased the vultures off of. One was a turkey. One was an elk. The others were mostly just bones, which I didn't look too closely at, so I'm not sure what they were. Strangest of all was elk shed with its points sticking eerily out of the black water in a pothole further down the canyon.

 In places the path ran into thick stands of young pines and firs as if you were walking through a conifer nursery. It could get a little claustrophobic in these stretches, so sometimes I would detour to the creek bed if possible.

A couple miles in, there started to be grassy clearings on the north side of the creek. One of them had the stoutest ponderosa pine I've ever seen in the Lincoln. Its circumference had to be on the order of 10-12 feet( although it wasn't extraordinarily tall) and was the only truly huge  conifer I saw on the hike.


 At the largest clearing, where Lawrence Canyon comes in from the south, was a very old, broken down corral. There had been  a small spring with a waterfall further upstream, but at this spot there seemed to be several and  the stream actually flowed for a bit through a sinuous channel cut into the sandstone.

 Past this point, the canyon started to descend more rapidly, and cliffs, with layers of limestone, shale, and sandstone began to rise up on either side until it was completely boxed up.  All along there had been  abundant, deciduous oak trees, some quite large, but now, in typical fashion where there's a more reliable water source, boxelder, and few willows began to appear, and there was also chokecherry, ash and grapevine (with  still green grapes). At the lower elevation, the pines thinned out and  gave way to sparse alligator juniper and arid land shrubs on the hillsides. The sunshine and bit of blue sky in the clouds were welcome sights (on this overcast, humid day) at the enormous opening where canyon has a hundred foot or more pour-off. On the south side were vertical cliffs several hundred feet high, where a few tall, but skinny pines clung. On the  north side were huge overhangs nearest  and views of the distant rims of the lower canyon. This was awesome spot, reminiscent  of Split Rock Canyon in the Robledo Mountains, but on a  larger and more spectacular scale.

I took many photos. I was much calmer ( despite the bear scat, threat of rain, etc.) than I had been on my previous week's hike, I ate my lunch and lingered awhile. On the way back, huge yellow and black butterflies followed me up the hill, or maybe I was following them. Canyon wren laughed. I startled a pair of whippoorwills ( or maybe poorwills or nighthawks) and they flew from the ground to some low oak branches and never took their eyes off of me till I had passed. I saw a long legged turkey too, and he threw me some backward glances as he hiked gingerly away from me.
 I was glad and my heart was light to be  part of such wonderfully wild place for few hours. To all the animals, who didn't want me to be there, I am grateful  because I, nonetheless, felt welcome.

San Mateo Mountains, East Red Canyon (FT 31) - Cibola National Forest

 The last two summers I've been visiting some places of interest in the San Mateo Mountains. I know, I know, the extremely rugged, hot, dry and burnt over San Mateos are not exactly the best July destination, but I have time on my hands in the 6th and 7th months of the year. The driving distances have always been hard to justify ( although the the driving times aren't so bad to east side locations because of their proximity to I-25) for a day hike, which is why almost all of our hiking in the range has been in conjunction with a camping trip.
In 2017 I went to the amazing and awesome box of East Red Canyon. In 2018 I visited the nearly as amazing and awesome box of  Deep Canyon. It was hot both times, but I kept the hiking distances short. There was enough shade, so I didn't really ever feel uncomfortable.
 I was hoping for some earlier rain this year to green up the place a bit, and perhaps bring down the temps before I ventured out. I kept going back and forth in my mind between going to Cold Spring Canyon Trail (FT 87) or the  Indian  Creek Trail ( FT 48). One had a much shorter drive, but a much tougher hike (Indian Creek). Cold Spring's trailhead was further away with the last dozen miles or so on forest roads that went from slow to slower to slowest, but, at least for the section I was planning on, the walking would be easy with only one major elevation change on the way in and out, whereas Indian Creek would have two climbs that appeared to be mostly without shade.
 Thursday morning, I tossed out both, choosing to reserve them for cooler times of the year, and decided  I was headed to a little canyon  in between called The Gorge. I quickly figured out how to get reasonably close with various forest roads and then off I went. I was hoping just to get in a short ( the continuing heat was precluding anything over 5 miles roundtrip) morning hike to what appeared to be a rocky, deep, scenic and steep little canyon and get out and on my way, much like the previous two years' hikes.
 Well, it got complicated. There was road closure sign at the beginning of FR 225 due to the Roberts Fire which had started  five days earlier. Still, I drove on, hoping it didn't affect where I was headed. A local fire official in a  white pickup was coming the other way a short time later. He seemed to think the closure was meant for the very road I was on, and told me I was going to run into the fire camp shortly.  I did, and that's where I talked to two very nice forest service employees, who gave me the low down on the fire and the closure perimeter which handily eliminated all three of the options I had researched. We talked about a few options outside of the the perimeter, one of which was a place called The Park. I turned around and drove back out. When I got to NM 1, I decided to give this place The Park  a shot. I headed north to NM 107 and then west on FR 378. FR 378 starts off okay up on the grassy mesa, but then heads down into a shallow arroyo ( Horse Mountain Canyon) where the going gets rougher as it crosses back and forth over the dry streambed. Once it leaves the creek, it gets significantly rougher and slower still, as it narrowly weaves along the hillside, plunging steeply in and out of side drainages. The seven or eight miles from the Tigner Ranch to Park Well took around 45 minutes. Now, I wasn't super happy about the fact it was already 10:30 and all I had been doing for the last three and a half hours was driving, but I was glad to finally arrive somewhere. The Park was large and level enough for a ball field and the closely cropped grass was just beginning to green up. Juniper and a couple of pines dotted the flats and rimmed the hillsides.

 I got out. It was hot and just humid enough to feel a little unpleasant. I started  following a rutted two track to the west. I was thinking it would curve around to the north to Exter Spring where it would dead end. I only found after my hike that there was another set of tracks going past the well curving west and then north like I had expected.
Well the rutted "road" turned into single track trail and began heading into a sizable canyon. I headed down. Junipers grew out of red dirt patched with well mowed (by bovine teeth) grass. I thought about going downstream first, but upstream there were red rock cliffs, pinnacles and fins, plus the massive  southern rim of the Mount Withington  section of the mountains rising above.

I headed up and eventually found remnants of a trail and well cut blazes.  This is when I finally clued in  (duh!) that I was in the upper reaches of East Red Canyon. I hadn't researched doing this trip, so I didn't know that East Red first curves to the north, and then to the west from where it's trail head is at the end FR 331 at Turkey Spring. I also was pretty sure that this trail( FT 31) was part of the closure order, but I wasn't heading straight back up the 300 feet I had just come down without seeing a little more of this canyon.

 The canyon got very narrow as I continued on. There were oaks, chokecherry and other forest shrubs I see frequently in shaded areas but can't ever seem to get the names right.  The lack of any real riparian trees  told me that this canyon only flows very infrequently. Occasionally there were clumps of willows and I had seen some pieces of black rubber hose, so I checked my forest  map and saw there were two springs in this reach of the canyon: Narrow Spring and Bear Spring. I  found one but it wouldn't even qualify for moist, more like damp.
The walking was pretty easy for a couple of miles. The higher I went, there began to be firs and spruce in the canyon bottom as well as emerging from the scree slopes of the steep canyon sides. Bear and elk scat  were here and there along the path. I kept telling myself as I went " just around this next corner, and I'll stop." I rested, I drank. I ate a plum, which wasn't a good idea because it puckered up my mouth which continued to feel relentlessly dry.

 I hadn't eaten breakfast, but the thought of lunch, perhaps because of the heat, humidity and exertion, nauseated me. My anxiety was high. I wondered why I put myself directly into situations that are guaranteed to make it worse. Oftentimes it's hard for me enjoy the moment because of the worrying:"Will I get flat?, will I get caught in thunderstorm,? struck by lightning? Will I get attacked by a bear? Why am I always going to such remote areas?" etc. etc. etc..
 Sometimes I think I just do things to have  something to write about, because this time, sitting at the computer writing and looking through my photos which always look peaceful and never can convey the heat, sweat, dehydration, exhaustion and, yes, the anxiety, is alway good.
Eventually the trail headed northwest and I had to climb up a boulder strewn ravine. At a spot where it leveled off, below a rock tower, and the first aspens I had seen, I saw one more blaze in a stout oak, but I really couldn't find another nearby or any tread whatsoever. I had the idea at that point of making it to Lava Spring or New Lava Spring or even the dividing ridge to look down West Red Canyon, but I was  too tired for any bushwhacking. I was probably less than a half mile from the top, but I also surmised there was still a lot of elevation to be gained. I turned around.

A few aspens where the trail turns to the north

The last blaze before I turned around

I hustled back, realized how much the trail had been uphill as I went back  down with gravity on my side. Clouds had darkened the sky now. I heard distant thunder and very few drops landed on me, although I wouldn't have minded had there been a whole lot more. Climbing on the steep trail back up to The Park was a slow process due to frequent resting periods. I could smell smoke from the fire as I reached the top. I made it back to the blue, blue Tacoma and let that AC flow. 

The Park

NOTE: My apologies to the very helpful Forest Service personnel at the Magdalena Ranger District as I  inadvertently ended up hiking on a trail that was part of the closure order. It was definitely not my intention.