Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument - another Broad Canyon tributary.

 

West of the Cedar Hills Fault the canyon gets very rough.

Large chunk of black micro-crystalline quartz (chert)

Looking up the north branch

Nessie above the confluence of the two branches

Above the west branch

This canyon's branches start up on the plateau north of Broad Canyon cutting through gray and rust volcanic rocks steeply and briefly before meeting the Cedar Hills fault where it becomes a sandy wash snaking through more recent sedimentary rocks until it reaches Broad Canyon near the apex of a huge horseshoe bend. 

Sedimentary rock scenery

Just to south and then west is Lichen Canyon which cuts through a remnant cinder cone with a120 foot dry waterfall before before turning sharply and proceeding to a more modest dry cascade that empties into Broad Canyon. Both of these defiles are wonderful desert canyon country.  Wonderfully secret too, one could scarcely imagine they exist trekking along the flat, almost featureless plateau. They cannot be seen from Broad Canyon either. I wrote about Lichen Canyon back in 2018 when I explored the area after being clued in to its existence by my friend David Soules. I led a hike there a few years back for Friends of OMDPNM and also took good pal Doug Scott there two years ago. I found this new canyon while I was in the process of planning going back to Lichen Canyon with the Friends when I  decided I wanted to make the hike a loop this time. I had spied the canyon on Google Earth and went out a few Sundays ago to see if using it to climb out back to the plateau and the road was viable route option. It's not. Both branches are very rough and have significant drop-offs that would necessitate a degree of climbing that most weekend hikers would not be comfortable with. The north branch in particular is just one dry falls after another. We looked at it from above, climbing down a few levels before confronting a more serious drop. Then we hiked down an intervening ridge to explore it from below. After I had lifted Nessie up four or five times to get  from  one little platform to the next and so on, we stopped.

Looking down the north branch

Nessie in the north branch

 I may have been able free climb the whole thing if I hadn't have had my doggie with me. Even the worst drops may have had a way up. My experience getting through Sierro Kemado Canyon and to the precipice of the falls in Lichen Canyon gives me hope that when there's a will there's a way. Of course this canyon is much steeper than both of those, so who knows?

 Looking down the canyon. Robledo, Doña Ana and Organ Mountains in the distance

 Lone petroglyph found on a rock near where I parked. I suspect it is from the 20th century

Well, the hike to Lichen Canyon and Broad Canyon with the Friends of OMDPNM on February 28th went well. Everyone seemed to enjoy being on an adventure, which is always the point for me. The pools in Lichen still held water, but we managed the climb in and out with no incidents. It was a pretty warm for late winter (mid-eighties) so the trek up the steep ridge between the canyons was tough. I fell just before when a bank of the arroyo collapsed under me. It wouldn't have been so bad except  I grabbed a cactus on the way down. Everyone was very sweet giving first aid and patient while the many spines in my left hand were pulled out.  This is definitely a favorite place of mine in Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks NM. If you know me, you would know I rarely repeat visits except to really special places. This is my sixth time hiking this area (that's not counting the many visits just to Broad Canyon).   

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

Bedrock canyon in the Caballo Mountains

Mexican orange

Communication installations visible on the ridgline.

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 Andreas 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 function (such as contrast) I had to do the exact opposite. I did see deer bouncing about on the steep hillsides. Luckily Nessie didn't.