Caballo Mountains - Sandy Tank Canyon, BLM and State Trust Lands

Bedrock canyon in the Caballo Mountains

Mexican orange

Communication installations visible on the ridgeline.

This shack, I presume, is the "homestead" that Homestead Tank is named for. It is on private property that the road passes through. I refrained from exiting my vehicle to explore.

 The Caballo Mountains, like the Sandias, Manzanos and the Fra Cristobals, align north to south close to the Rio Grande valley, and present a bold western face of towering cliffs and brief, steep canyons that are very much of a desert character  while their  eastern slopes are more gentle (as is true of the other above mentioned ranges) with longer drainages whose north facing slopes are clad in juniper and piñon. In the first decade of the 2000's we did a lot of exploring on west side, doggedly going up into many of the major canyons south of Palomas Gap, but the only hiking we had done on east side was a trip to Palomas Gap itself. I'm talking about the main high block of the range here, from Apache Gap Canyon to Palomas Gap. We've done many hikes in the canyons in the lower elevation southern reaches of the range in the vicinity of the Mcleod Hills, Redhouse Mountain all the way down to Rincon.

I thought it was time to hike in one of the east side canyons. Most of  these are nameless (excepting the ones that actually end up flowing north then east towards Palomas Gap) in the mountains while the washes, draws and arroyos they drain to in the desert flats do indeed have names. I'm calling the one I hiked Sandy Tank Canyon which appears to be an upper tributary to the southern fork of Yoast Draw. I researched and waypointed my route well, but still managed to overshoot where I wanted to start twice (once heading south, once heading back north). Everything is always very different on the ground. It would've help to have someone with me navigating with the On-X.  It's always going to be a little bit of problem visiting a new area. I had only been out here once before when driving  nearly to the top of the Caballos on the Timber Peak Road (which may or may not be County Road A003) to do a hike on the high ridge between Timber Peak and Brushy Mountain.

 So we (Nessie and I) were finally able to exit the vehicle to begin our hike. The first leg was on the old road to the dry Sandy Tank. Past the tank we stayed in the stream bed for awhile before veering right onto a cattle path on the hillside. 

Near Sandy Tank

We had go up along the side creek  we ran into in order to find a way across. We then walked down on the gray limestone bedrock eventually finding a way up on the hillside again. Soon we were back on the limestone bedrock on the northern of the two main forks of the canyon only now we were marching upstream.  Eventually we exited onto the hillside to our left and got up on the ridge. From that vantage point we  could see across the foothills of the Caballos (including Lone Mountain) across the Jornada del Muerto and out to the Chalk Hills (a sub-range of the San Andres Mountains). Looking up the ridge, I realized we weren't all that far from the high ridge at the top of the Caballos. It wouldn't have been all that difficult to just go on up, but that wasn't in the plan for today. Perhaps on another trip. 

All the high canyons had stream beds of solid rock

View to the east

Close to the top of the main ridge

For now we had to find a way down to the final fork which runs against a massive slope of layered limestone forested with piñon, Wright's silktassel and juniper. We did with a few stumbles here and there and began picking our way downstream once again on solid bedrock. Once we leveled out, we found another livestock path to follow back to the tank, where we used the road to get back to our truck.

It was gray, gray day. All day. All the photo edits I'm used to making to mitigate that washed out look from bright sunshine of a typical southern New Mexico desert scene were not useful. In fact I had in some functions (such as contrast) I had to do the exact opposite. I did see deer bouncing about on the steep hillsides. Luckily Nessie didn't.

Horse Mountain Wilderness Study Area - Horse Mountain Gorge

 

Horse Mountain Gorge

 I did two hikes back in mid-October in the Horse Mountain WSA which is conveniently located adjacent to my cabin property in Teepee Ranch. Technically I began both my walks on intervening non-WSA BLM lands,  but they really are just a de-facto extension of the WSA parcel. On the Saturday I did a loop following the canyon that runs through our parcel back onto BLM lands. When I reached the intervening ridge, I began to circle around the upper part of Log Canyon. There was some scrambling at first getting down off the ridge a bit, but then I hit on a great wildlife trail that brought me all the way around to the plateau that's centered between the two ridges of the mountain and at the top of two canyons running in opposite directions.

 I got a much different look at a massive rock pillar that we had seen last year when doing loop hike using Nance and Log Canyons. It was even more impressive. This time, unlike last year, I found the wildlife drinker at the top of Log Canyon and so used the old road route to connect to the main canyon which took me back to the WSA entrance just down the road from the cabin, where my wife picked me up. It was a good hike although a bit warm for October. The fall color was hardly evident throughout most of hike which was a bit disappointing (we would return the following weekend to find it peaking).

 On Sunday, I left around nine beginning the same way, but then migrating over to the canyon just to east. It was cool and shaded as I made my way along the old trail that winds through the pines, oaks and tall grasses. 

Pine cones were so abundant on the ground they became a bit of nuisance at times. I took my time zigzagging up the steep slopes to get to the top of the ridge, but I was pleased when I checked the time to see that less than a half hour had even elapsed. I came off the ridge on some very steep gravel patches among the piñons and junipers, all the while drifting to the east to catch the canyon that I knew would lead directly into the gorge. At the head were thick grasses just beginning to fade from their summertime green, and large well-spaced ponderosa pines. An enchanting scene that seemed to beckon me downward to my destination.

A couple of deer ran across this scene adding to the magic.

I felt pulled as if into a funnel and gravity took over lightening my steps through this welcoming passage. Abundant downfall, brush and boulders in the now enlarged dry creek bed ended my idyl, but I pushed on scrambling my down and down as cliffs rose at the sides of the ever-narrowing defile. The pines stretched ridiculously higher and higher toward the sun. Crenulated bare cliffs of crusty volcanic rock where many hoodoos emerged were in the near distance as I approached the point where the two branches of the gorge meet. Nearer at hand were isolated towers and pillars stretching directly overhead. I carefully rounded the vertex to have a look up the other canyon. On my left was massive wall of gray rock looming over the canyon bottom thick with green shrubbery.  On my right a treacherous slope of crumbly white rock that precluded further advancement.

 I retreated and carefully got myself down to the stream course and began heading down. Here there were some nice oaks beginning in their fall color, plus more formations above and the tallest ponderosa pines I've ever seen close at hand. I turned around when I caught site of an old well because I knew I was at the boundary between private and public land.

 Before leaving altogether I explored up the south branch. Vegetation was thick and green and there was even a couple of puddles where small dams had been built into the natural cascade in an effort to retain any bit of water possible. A little further upstream I came to some large boulders wedged into the narrow cliff opening, where it appears on Google Earth that a waterfall sometimes occurs. It did not seem readily scalable for this 64 year old and I quickly decided to explore the area above another day. 

The return trip had me marching up the long "arm" that comes down from the ridge between the two branches. This much more gradual ascent (as opposed to returning the way I came) made the uphill both ways truth of the hike a little easier to swallow. It was all over and done in a total of almost exactly three hours, but down in that wonderful canyon, time stood still for a little while.