Getting My Ass Kicked in Dog Canyon

For around 15 years now I've been sticking 'pins' in my map. Each pin is a place I would like to visit one day. (Many have already been visited but I'm reluctant to remove pins in case I want to go back. Who knows when I might get a hankering to stop by the One and Only Hippie Memorial again.)



Of course with all those pins, and more being added all the time, I kind of doubt I'll actually make it to all of them, OK, I'm pretty damn sure I won't make it to all of them, but that just reminds me of an old Irish toast; 'may you die before you run out of dreams'; and that sounds pretty good to me.

But there is one pin I've always been sure of for some reason, one of the very first pins I stuck in the map those many years ago. It's for the Dog Canyon National Recreation Trail.

This is not your neighborhood nature trail! In fact the 5.5 mile (one way) trail is ranked as difficult and for experienced hikers only. (By the way, that means people with the legs of a teenager in heat!) The trail map I picked up at the visitor center describes the hike as 'a rigorous day-hike up the escarpment of the Sacramento Mountains that climbs 3100 feet'.

This trail has been used for thousands of years as a route between the arid and hot Tularosa basin and the cool forests of the Sacramento Mountains. First by the original human inhabitants of the area, then by what we now call Natives, followed by the US Cavalry that was persecuting those natives in accordance with the hideous policies of the invading government, (Policies that are horrifying but not unique as, with the notable exception of Alexander the Great, throughout man's recorded history, this is usually the way conquering or invading peoples deal with the current inhabitants.) and more recently by ranchers moving livestock up and down the escarpment in tune with the seasons. Oh yeah, and most recently by half-crazed hikers. . .

I was a decade and a half younger when I pinned this trail on my map, but I've never quite gotten it out of my mind.

Though primarily a National Forest trail the lower trailhead is located just there on the north side of the Oliver Lee State Park Visitor Center. And if you remember from the previous post, that's where I just happened to pull in and grab a campsite this morning!



So why not climb aboard and we'll check this one off my list!

The Oliver Lee Visitor Center, where the trail starts, is that bit of rectangular cluster there above the center of my picnic table. Right there at the toe of the slope that continues up and out the top right of the photo.



In fact the trail switchbacks right up that ridge-line and initiates the hiker quickly as it climbs 600 feet in the first 6/10th of a mile.

So according to my math that's, let's see, - divide 5280 by 10, multiply that by 6 then - Oh hell - it's REALLY STEEP!!



So if everybody has their gear on let's go!  It's already after 10, a good 3 hours later than I normally hit the trail so we better get a move on!



Whew! (Huff and puff.) This is quite a workout! Like climbing a nearly endless set of stairs, one with few actual steps, plenty of loose gravel and no handrail!

Hey look!  There's The Van down there in site 33!   But enough of pretending to gawk while I'm actually sneaking in a rest period, let's get a move on..

What!! Oh you have got to be kidding me! We've only come a quarter mile??

OK, don't think about how much of the mountain is still up there overhead.

Don't think about the fact that we are already at nearly 5000 ft and based on the wheezy noise my lungs are making, dame altitude is warming up her vacuum. (True, I'm a good 4000 feet lower than I was when hiking a couple days ago, but if I don't blame altitude then I have to acknowledge that I'm never going to reach the level of 'young and virile' on the scale of physical conditioning, ever again, and nobody wants to have to admit to that!!) So just focus on the pretty flowers instead.



D'oh!!! You looked!

Oh man, the other side of the canyon over there looks pretty intimidating! I wonder if this side is the same way. (Nope, nope, think about the flowers!)



Finally! We've crossed into the National Forest!

                                 Hey, hold up a minute guys, I need a break!!



Woo-hoo!! The half-mile point! (A whole 10 or so city blocks!)

Except I can still see The Van down there just past my toes and now, after all that climbing, the trail takes a little dip getting around this shoulder of the ridge, and you just know we're going to have to recover that lost altitude all over again, then climb even higher. . .

Trail across the first bench

Finally, after 6/10ths of a mile and the equivalent of 60 flights of stairs, we make it to what the trail guide calls the 'first bench' .

Only the guide is not talking about your gentrified cast-aluminum park bench reached after a civilized amble from where you parked the tricked out Lexus, and where you can sit in cultured comfort and look out on the city duck-pond,



rather this bench is a kind of marginally-wide, not quite as steep but still noticeably tilted, spot hanging on the side of the canyon.  And I don't know about you guys but bench or not I really would like to sit down for a while; except everything around here is either hard or pointy. Sometimes both at the same time.

Anybody bring a folding chair??

                                                      Nobody?

                                                                             Well crap. . . I guess we keep on going then.

But never mind.  The walking here is easier than that first bit

the flowers are still pretty

and the views aren't to be ignored either!

No, seriously; don't ignore the view because if you step in the wrong place it's a long ways down! (And after all the work it took to get here in the first place that would be a shame!)

Old fence at about the boundary between the State Park and National Forest

It's hard to imagine cattle so willing to climb up what we just scaled that a fence is required to hold them back, but now I can see how they would love to spread out across this bench with lush spring grasses to keep them ecstatically occupied.

But barely a half mile later, about the time we hit the one mile mark, things are looking a bit rugged again and the upward tilt of the trail beneath our feet is becoming more and more noticeable.



And it's not long after that that the trail leads us off the other end of the bench; over on the right in this image; and around a corner as it skirts the margins of a big, water-carved notch in the canyon wall.



Things get a little narrower and decidedly more tilted on the other side of that notch, but the payoff is that once we're around the corner we can look back down the canyon to where we came from with the bench we just traversed there to the right of center.

Great view right?

Only is it just me or does the campground down there look disappointingly close considering all the effort it took to get here??



Oh wow!! Look at this bench tucked into a bit of shade!  Dibs!!!



Too bad more of y'all couldn't fit on this here bench with me, but then again my view of the opposite canyon wall from here is a bit imposing, to put it mildly.  My lungs burn, my legs ache, and looking at this 'scenery' isn't helping!



But if I turn; come on, turn around with me; and look up over my left shoulder at this side of the canyon, the north facing side sheltered from the full brunt of the sun, if we look way up there to that little speck on the sky-line where it flattens out below the steep part, (That little speck is not a defect in the image, but rather a full grown tree)



then we get a hint of the lushness that can be found up here. Now if only I could get a little of that lushness into my lungs I'd be all set!

What? You're tired of standing around watching me sit here sounding like a broken-down old boiler with a failing safety valve? OK, if we must, I guess we should get going again.

Oh man! Is this some kind of sick joke??

I know the trail guide mentions a second set of steep switchbacks that must be negotiated before reaching the next bench, but the reality of standing at the bottom looking up at the zig-zagging scar in the more-cliff-than-slope after all the uphill climbing it took just to get this far is - well, I'd say it was deflating except my lungs are already feeling pretty deflated up here at 5400 feet.

It's all well and good for a flatlander like me to sit around in a custom adjusted seat in climate-controlled comfort while driving The Van at this altitude, but to have to climb the equivalent of 110 flights of stairs to get here on my own two legs - well that's a whole 'nother story! And a punishing one at that.





OK guys, hold up a minute.

I know we're already partway up this set of switchbacks, but on one of the many forced rest-stops in the past few hundred feet I took a look at the time and holy crap! it's already 2PM and we still have to get back down off this mountain! If our pace down is the same as the one up, then it will take us until 6PM and that's getting close to dinner time!

And look, there's a signpost! (It says the line cabin ruins are still a mile away.) I'd say that's a sign (Oh stop groaning at my bad pun, we're all in this together.) that we should concede that the smart thing to do at this point is call this our turnaround point.

Yeah I know it's more a retreat than a turnaround, more a capitulation than a strategic decision, but do you have to rub it in??

Profile of today's hike!

OK, if you must, then call it like it really is; the mountain well and truly kicked my ass; but that doesn't change the fact that it's time to snug up the boot-laces good and tight because there's a whole lot of downhill ahead of us!



Time for one last look up the trail that beat us - OK OK! You don't have to be so touchy about it! - The trail that beat me. Is that better?



Boy! I probably shouldn't have turned around and looked back down the canyon. The basin sure is a long ways away when you look at it from here. My knees are already hurting just thinking about all that downhill!



Hey guys!  The good news is that the campground is finally in sight! The bad news is that it's still a long ways down there and my toes are already killing me! Hopefully this is the last time I'll forget to trim my toenails nice and short before embarking on a toe-jamming downhill marathon of a hike.



Oh man! I can already tell this bit of trail is going to hurt; but take heart. We're getting closer! (At least that's what I keep telling myself. . .)



Almost there guys!  A couple more switchbacks and we're done! But first we should probably rest up a little.



Yea! We made it! Back on flat ground.

Oh look. I wonder what this Riparian Nature Trail is like.

                      We made good time on the way back so maybe we should check it out.

                                                                              Guys?

                                                                                            Hey! where'd everybody go??

Oliver Lee State Park

After being chased down off the mountain by icy winds

                and discovering that many of the Alamogordo 'points of interest' are closed on Tuesday

I spent much of the day holed up alongside the town's long narrow Alameda Park waiting for The Daughter to get off work.



This park is a thin strip of land pinched between US70 on the west and the Union Pacific tracks on the east.

The wind was just as vicious down here as it was up in the mountains, but Alomogordo runs a good 20 degrees warmer than Cloudcroft, I had shelter, I had food, I had plenty of magazines and books,



and the tracks were busy! (I hope you appreciate how much restraint I'm showing here in limiting train photos to just these two!)

So I was happy.

(I hope you appreciate how much restraint I'm showing here in limiting train photos to just these two!)

We, The Daughter and I, hooked up as planned that evening then Wednesday we made a marathon trip to Tucson and back to take care of some business. Thursday The Daughter, after putting in a few hours at work, had to go down to El Paso to pick up yet another visitor flying into the airport, so when she left for work that morning I headed south a dozen miles or so to Oliver Lee State Park to get out of the way until the next morning.



Oliver Lee is snugged up tight against the Sacramento Mountains



and sits at the mouth of Dog Canyon.

There are actually a number of Dog Canyons in this corner of the world, so don't confuse this Dog Canyon with the one at the north end of Guadalupe Mountain National Park.



The park is named for Oliver Lee, rancher, Deputy US Marshal, politician, and accused murder who settled in near the reclusive Frenchy's homestead because of the reliable water supply coming out of the canyon.

The murderer part came about because he got caught up, on the 'wrong' side, in a range war instigated by the same power brokers and politicians that sparked the Lincoln County War. Despite working to break up the corrupt political machine that was trying to control the state, which garnered him plenty of enemies, he was later acquitted of murder charges and went on to serve in the State Senate.





As for amenities, there are both water/electric and developed sites, some of each have shelters over the picnic tables, there's also a vault toilet on the south-loop (Left side in this photo.) a bathhouse with flush toilets and showers located on the central road between the two loops, and a dump station. (Configured so most should enter from the downhill or inbound.)

I was told that if you are first into the showers in the morning you need to push the spring-loaded faucet in the shower and let it run out (Maybe 30 seconds) a couple dozen times or so before the water will eventually get warm. I don't know if that's true or not since I only needed to mash the button 5 or 6 times per shower and any more seemed like a sinful waste of desert water. Besides, dermatologists say cold showers are good for your skin, will shrink your pores, and make you beautiful, and, as most everybody will tell you, I need all the help I can get in the beauty department!!

The campground itself sits on top of what was Frenchy's operation right at the mouth of the canyon and has the usual New Mexico State Park mix of $10 developed sites (with fire-ring and table) and $14 electric sites.




while the restored Oliver Lee ranch-house and headquarters



sits a ways further out there under the black arrow. (Guided tours leave the visitor center at 2 every afternoon. Bring your own transport and follow the ranger down the dirt road.)



The visitor center also has a bit of a museum in it that I suspect, based on the fact that they had to turn the lights on for me, is underutilized. It covers everything from the geological formation of the area, early inhabitants, through the 'Indian wars', and up through the Oliver Lee ranching operation.



Not all sites in New Mexico State Parks are reservable, leaving some available for first-come occupation. And most the parks have an interesting system for the sites that are reservable. If a site has not been reserved by an afternoon cuttoff point then the red marker on the post that designates it as a reserve-site is covered with a green marker that means you can have the site but for one night only.

I don't know if it was this park or just the current park host not keeping up with it, but the green markers were never put out while I was here even though it would have been handy on a couple of busy nights.



But on a Thursday, even though I got there before most departing campers would have vacated, I had no trouble snagging one of the well-spaced and large, if not terribly level, developed campsites for myself. And I still had plenty of time left over to get myself into trouble.

But I'll get to that, the trouble part, in the next post.

The Fawn Drops In For Another (Reluctant) Visit

As predicted a couple weeks ago when I posted this, that was the last sighting of the fawn for a while.



Mom continued to turn up most days looking for a handout, but only after tucking the fawn away somewhere first.

In fact she started turning up several times a day and if I wasn't at my computer station (In the bottom left corner of the photo you can just a sliver of the mat I have down in front of the shelf I use as a stand-up computer desk.)  she'd start looking for me.

She tried using that 'nursing-mom' excuse on me but corn to deer is like candy-corn to kids. More than just a little treat now and then is just not good for them, so I had to pick up some proper deer-feed because if I don't throw a handful of something out she will just stand there about 15 feet away and stare burning little holes in the back of my head. (This will continue for another month or so but then she'll rejoin her sisters, cousins and nieces/nephews and not come around so much until she's near-term with next year's fawn.)



Even though this pattern of one single visit shortly after birth then nothing for a while is common, I still had to start wondering if the fawn survived. They are such tiny, delicate little things and we have our share of  coyote and bobcat around here.

Then yesterday I turned around and we were both surprised. Me pleasantly, the little one, not so much.



After a quick, gangly scramble the little one stopped to scope things out from the security of the brush-line.



As long as I stood still it would give into the momma urge and move closer, but this was about as close as he/she could stand.



While mom was still not all that shy about coming down to the feeders for whatever I tossed out, some of the little one's wariness seemed to rub off on her at times.



But something changed for the little one between yesterday and this morning because, despite me standing right there, it followed mom all the way down to the corn, though it was more interested in experimenting with the easier-for-little-mouths seed under one of the bird feeders, which was fine with mom since she's pretty greedy about her morning corn-treat. Not so much about the deer feed but if she want's to ruin her health by eating bad I'm not going to be the one to help!!

Blown Clean Off The Trestle Recreation Area

I closed my last post with this photo of me getting snowed on while halfway up a mountain on a dirt road, but truth is, there was no drama involved beyond the alarming scenarios I conjured up in my own head.

To make sure of that, the no drama part, since I don't really know how much it plans on snowing, or if the ground around here will turn to snot-slick gumbo when this starts to melt; as soon as I got my pants on and the window-shades stowed, (Not necessarily in that order, but hey, nobody said you had to look!) I eased on down the hill and finished my morning routine in the safety of a pull-out down there on the well-maintained State Road.



Yesterday, on my way to the Osha Trail I passed the entrance to the Trestle Recreation Area and noticed that the gates were closed and locked. Now I knew why, me being here a little too early in the season and all, but I had also noticed a small parking area right at the corner of US 82 and SR 130. From here a short trail, the Village Spur, goes up over the hill and gives access to the handful of trails that start from the Recreation Area.

I also noticed that this tiny little parking area was jam-packed with vehicles shoehorned into every available corner, as well as some corners that aren't really available.

But when I got there this morning the parking area was deserted.

Either no one in their right mind would be out on this cold and very windy morning, or I just got there first. I'd like to think it was the second but evidence suggests it was the first.

Bearing in mind what the parking area looked like yesterday I carefully positioned The Van in such a way that she couldn't be blocked in then, bundled up in two shirts, one lined jacket, two pairs of socks, a knit scull-cap under my straw hat and two pairs of gloves, hoping dame altitude wasn't yet finished with her morning ablutions so I could avoid her attention for a while, I trudged on up the hill to see what's on the other side.



Nestled there in the trees around a loop parking area that I'm sure is popular once the gates are unlocked, is a pretty little picnic area that was very inviting even given the current climatory conditions. (I know, not a real word, but I like it anyway and this is my blog dammit.)



Nearby sits this replica of the Cloudcroft railroad station, though paper signs posted on the doors informed me that the bathrooms weren't scheduled to open until Easter Weekend.

The unblemished snow on the deck was clear evidence that I was the first there this morning, and in fact the only one there right up until I left the area again.

I had to brush a coating of snow off this plaque before taking a photo. Unfortunately I did it after pulling my gloves off to handle the camera. Not my finest move. . .

Of course the railroad, which ran their last train up the mountain in 1947, is the star attraction here. and that's where the trails are focused. Just my kind of place!!



Beyond the replica station is a complex of trails tracking either along the railroad or the original highway that has now been replaced by US 82

Here, with my shadow trapped indecisively between the short, paved trail to the overlook and the descending Cloud-Climbing Trestle Trail (T5001) I made the mistake of heading on up to the overlook for a look-see before tackling the real trail.



This photo from the overlook down into the Tularosa Basin does nothing to show the icy and fiercely aggressive wind roaring up the canyon which threatened to strip the pack right off my back (My ears didn't flap but only because they were secured under a knit skull-cap.) as I leaned further and further into it trying to keep my feet under me but also attached to the ground. Even the Flying Nun would have crashed and burned in this wind! But she probably wouldn't have felt anything because it was also numbingly cold!



I have to admit that at this point I had a smug little chuckle thinking that those people that built their stilted houses right on the cliff-edge there along SR 130 about a half mile behind me deserved every little draft that was blowing through the walls right about now.

But I also have to admit that I, frozen digits, numb nose, nipped ears and all, was having serious 4th, 5th and 6th thoughts (I was way past second thoughts by now.) about the wisdom of attempting any serious hiking in these conditions.

The temperature would have been tolerable, but throw in the winds and hiking was making less and less sense. (They actually have an acknowledged windy season here that adversely affects the pilot training at nearby Holloman Air Force base, and that season is now!) Oh hell, who am I kidding! Forget about hiking, just standing around outside out here didn't make any sense at all, even to me.




Decision made, as I retreated in the face of this blustery rebuff, I took the other leg of the overlook trail back towards the Recreation Area in the hopes that the slope to my left, the windward side, would shelter me from some of the wind.

It didn't. . .

On the bright side, my truncated hike didn't require enough effort to let dame altitude get her claws into me all over again this morning!!

This is why it was still fairly early in the morning when I found myself drifting on down the highway towards Alamogordo, The Van leaning on low gears to keep the speed in check during the 14 mile 6% decent, since I wasn't interested, in the least, in trying out either one of the two runaway ramps on the way down.

I wasn't scheduled to meet up with The Daughter until after she got off work that evening but I figured I could find something to occupy myself down there on the basin floor for the rest of the day, especially since Alamogordo runs a good 20 degrees warmer than Cloudcroft.

But a word of warning to all those that take a look on-line and decide there's a number of things to check out in Alamogordo while they smugly wait for the workday to wind down and the working stiffs to be released back out into the world; the New Mexico Museum of Space History, the Toy Train Depot, and even the zoo, are all collectively closed on Monday and Tuesday. (Guess what day this was!!)