I last hiked the Cerro Grande route on September 21 with a large group and on September 22 by myself. On those hikes, less than two weeks after the September 10 grand opening of the route, I was surprised at how quickly it had changed into a clear, stamped down trail. When Dorothy and I hiked the route today to look at the condition of the trail, two months after the grand opening, I thought that other than more flattening of grass hummocks, the trail didn’t look that much worse for wear. Perhaps photos of the route's condition over time would paint a more accurate picture.
The trail, as Dorothy says, looks like a trail now. It is well worn in yet not entrenched. There are places where it has worn into the dirt but there are other places where it is still grassy.
After the trail passes the large elk exclosure at the beginning and ascends to follow along the logging road above Frijoles Canyon, there is a portion of the trail where my feet tilt sideways. Dorothy says that we have to see how wet the winter is and whether erosion occurs next year and that it’s always possible that water bars would be needed in places. One hiker on the September 21 group hike was very worried that when it rains, the steepest parts of the route will become very eroded.
At least up to the high pass below the grassy summit of Cerro Grande, people have stayed on the route rather than making a criss cross of trails. There are various elk trails going off the route but I didn’t see evidence that hikers are using them. There are very few places where the route is wider than a single track. It surprised me to see that people even followed a single track path on the wider logging road portions of the route.
The logging road ends at the high pass and the route follows through beautiful stands of golden, hummocky grass. From this high pass and up to the top of Cerro Grande, there are several instances where short portions of the trail consist of two different paths that separate but than converge and there are also a few very short lengths of the trail that have been widened to a double path.
On the summit, there are two high rock cairns, each topped with a stick, built near the peak’s benchmark. One of the cairns has conifer boughs arranged in a circle around it. I saw a dirt depression near the benchmark where a rock was recently removed--maybe to add to a cairn. On September 22, there were already signs of overuse (patches of bare ground) around the benchmark. On today’s hike, the worst wear on the summit is around the benchmark which has a lot of bare dirt spots. It seems that the benchmark area is where hikers (including our very large group on September 21) congregate to eat lunch and visit. So as to not overuse that area, Dorothy and I bucked the trend and had our lunch to the west of the benchmark where the views are just as beautiful.
There are places (especially around the elk exclosure) where fallen dead tree trunks lay across the trail’s path. As I step over them, trying not to trip, I wish midnight chainsaw man would appear and do his job! There are also places where the trail has rocks loosened from all the footsteps but those are easily removed. Overall, the Cerro Grande route is easy to follow because it is now well-worn and crystal clear. The grass hummocks in the trail tread have worn down and flattened enough that it's an easy walking surface. Without the route, hiking Cerro Grande would be harder. The route makes it easy to avoid walking in the meadow with all its tripping hazards--hidden tree branches and rocks and the stumble-inducing grass hummocks. Even so, it's a very steep, straight-up route.
All told, we saw 6 other hikers and one jogger on the trail today.
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