Wild Rose and Choke Cherry Perfume the Air!

Went up Quemazon Trail to Pipeline for 6 miles RT.  Afterward, I decided that I'm officially retiring the Brooks Adrenaline ASR 7 trail running shoes (I don't run but hike on rough trails) and sending the unworn one back for a refund.  They've never felt as good as the the street running version of the Adrenalines GTS on which they are modeled.    Now I'm forced to wear my street running shoes on rough trails which makes me more vulnerable to slips and slides due to the lack of beefy tread.  What to do?  Time to visit REI again to search yet again for real, mid or high hiking boots that would have good tread and would better support my posterior tibial tendon yet feel comfortable in the toe box (I need a wide toe box).  I realize ahead of time that this is a lost cause but I'll try again anyway because I'm desperate.  At least with REI's excellent return policy, I can easily return the rejects.  Tonight I have to wrap up the Adrenaline ASR 7's to take to the post office tomorrow and pay big bucks to ship them back!

The Quemazon Trail is experiencing lots of regrowth after the 2000 Cerro Grande fire.  This is a good but all the young trees and shrubs along the trail creep me out because I can't see if any 4-legged animals are lurking by the side of the trail.  I picked up a stout stick whilst walking through the bushes today and kept looking backwards just in case.

Several sections of the trail were resplendently fragrant with the smell of pink wild rose and white choke cherry blossoms.  I dubbed them Perfume Alley!

Summer Fleets and So Does Life

It occurred to me today that at the height of this winter's frigid temps, it seemed that summer would never come again; but, Memorial Day has come and passed and July 4th can't be far behind.  Summer is actually a very compressed, fleeting season.  It's the cold, dark winter that seems to last forever.

Summer is like my life.  It all seems to have gone by in a flash and I sometimes wish I had enjoyed it more while it was happening.

Thursday, went to Albuquerque.  Hanger will remake my ankle foot orthosis - took a new impression and sent it off to the lab.  I was ready to give up on the brace because on Monday's 7.6 mile hike in Frijoles Canyon, it gave me a blister.  The instep arch was just too high from the beginning and always left a red area on my arch.   When I first tried the brace on, I couldn't even walk in it until they did some adjusting.  The adjusting, though, seemed to cause my foot to pronate even more into the arch area and never relieved the pressure.  The latest adjustment caused rubbing which caused the blister.

Random, Odd Thoughts After Spending Yesterday in Albuquerque

How fast it (my life) all went by.  I'm now a senior citizen but just yesterday, I was a carefree young girl.  On the outside, I look old but inside, I still just wanna have fun!

Two things I hate (inspired by all day in Albuquerque): 

Perfunctory "how are you" greetings that require equally perfunctory "fine and you".  Why do people have to pretend they care about people they don't even know. A simple, friendly hi or hello would be fine by me!

Toilet paper rolls that I can't find the end of even after reaching underneath the holder and rotating the roll around and around and around.

Eating my lunch at Whole Foods while watching the hordes buying their food: 

We all think we're so unique but, collectively, we're not.  Gimme that Whole Foods religion!  Maybe they all were celebrating because they didn't get raptured!

Taking surreptitious glimpses of woman at next booth, hunched over her food, cheeks bulging, eyes downward, savoring her lunch.  Food is the 2nd greatest pleasure known to man but not to woman.  In reading Bonk, written by Mary Roach, it was titillating to learn that in lab experiments, the female, not the male, rat can be distracted during copulation by cheese crumbs! 

On the Third Day, She Hikes Alone

Hiked with all-female hiking groups last two days: 

Monday was the Frey Trail from Juniper Campground in Bandelier National Monument.  In the canyon, we went to Alcove House, by way of the Long House, and some of us climbed the ladders including me.  I was surprised to feel the down-climb in my quads and still do today.  It didn't seem terribly hard when I was doing it although I was so tense on the down-climb - shouldn't have carried my pack up! 

We had started hiking down from Juniper Campground closer to 10:30 am but didn't get back to our cars until 2:54 pm.  Took so long because: one hiker disappeared but didn't inform the leader so all of us waited on a bench and had lunch until she reappeared.  Then, after Alcove House, two hikers who hadn't carried lunch because they planned to buy theirs at the snack bar were now starving. At the snack bar, we ran into German tourists who were on a bus tour of New Mexico. Then, instead of walking back to bottom of the Frey Trail along the Rito de los Frijoles, we walked back on the Ruins Trail which is already becoming congested with tourists.  All day, we ran into crowds of school kids on field trips and it was neat to see them enjoying the outdoors.   

Today, the Tuesday women's group hiked upper Water Canyon to Forest Road 181/American Springs Road.  We followed that road down to the South Perimeter Trail, off NM 501, and then back to our vehicles.  Wildflowers are starting to bloom and we had fun trying to remember their names!  I forget a lot of them from year to year.  The young aspens are finally leafing out and covering the hillsides with the innocent green of springtime.  The morning started cloudy but by the end of our hike, around noon, sunshine predominated with lots of interesting clouds.  We all appreciated the cooler weather and the almost-moist conditions in Water Canyon.  

Grandson visited this afternoon.  I should have been suspicious when he said "Grandma, I'm going to play outside."  The kid is not an outdoor kid.  Turned out he had heisted my magnifying glass to practice fire-starting.  He says he stomped on the sticks as soon as he saw smoke.  I admonished him not to do this in the severe drought we're having.  It would be so easy to accidentally start a fire. 

Apache Springs Trail to Edge of Frijoles Canyon

Spouse and I hiked this 5 mile roundtrip hike this morning.  We enjoyed lunch at the edge of Frijoles Canyon.  Spouse considered this a hard walk but it may be that he didn't eat enough for breakfast.  I was happy for the company.

At the beginning of the hike, we spotted 4 deer in a meadow.  Of course, like all the deer around here, they stood and watched us from the shadows of some young ponderosa pines. Elk, when we see them, have more common sense and quickly flee.

Later, I noticed the aspens cast shadows across the trail and true to their names, quaking aspens, the leaves' shadows shivered in the wind.  We didn't shiver, though, because it was a lovely, warm day.  Not much in the way of clouds although we saw some interesting ones with their bottoms shredded into veils.

Letter Written to Representative Ben Lujan

Dear Representative Ben Lujan,

I urge you to endorse Senate Bill 564, introduced by Senator Bingaman and supported by Senator Udall, which would transfer management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve to the National Park Service.  I would like you to please introduce a similar bill in the House. 

The Valles Caldera Trust chairman, Raymond Loretto, recently testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that a majority of the Trust are in support of  this bill.  I am in support of of management of the Valles Caldera National Preserve by the National Park Service and I urge you to help make it happen.  The Preserve is a national treasure that New Mexico is lucky to have in our state and it deserves to be better managed.  I trust in the National Park Service to do this.  I'm completely 100% against the status quo continuing at the Preserve.  I think that the Caldera will be better protected by the National Park Service than if the forest service takes over management in 2015.  Why haven't you spoke out in support of S. 564 yet and why haven't you introduced similar legislation in the House?

Thank you,

Does This Constitute a Life?

WRSC hiking group - good company but not good exercise.  They are too slow to deem their walks good exercise so I just consider it a rest day.  They wanted to hurry back to the potluck for May birthday so only hiked about two miles total - up Frijoles Canyon to Alcove House and back. 

We saw a huge tree that was felled by our recent heavy winds.  The fellow with us who volunteers at Bandelier said the park service will give the wood to San Ildefonso.  Until one of those giant ponderosas are down for the count, you can't begin to conceive of the massive amount of wood it contains.  The roots were massive too but unbalanced, thicker on one side than the other.  The flaw of the ponderosas is a shallow root system.

We saw some hikers going off-trail to visit some of the cavates that are off limits except on tours with a ranger.  We hollered over that they weren't supposed to be there.

I really wanted to attempt the ladders at Alcove House but spouse was eager to get back to the gift shop to buy a Zia symbol T-shirt and then to buy a burrito at the snack bar. He had an appointment at UNM-LA regarding the class he will teach and afterward we had to run to Santa Fe - he to pick up a prescription and I to get my biennial mammogram. 

Our warm, sunny weather predominates, courtesy of our drought.

Hike Went OK

My co-leader was indispensable as she was the sweep and made sure we didn't lose the 12 hikers.  It's really hard to get the group's attention to tell them something about the trail or what we're seeing.  They are too busy chattering as they move through the surrounding lovliness.  I have to work on communicating with them.  Also, some tend to walk ahead but don't actually know the way.  I need to be more proactive in asking them to wait at upcoming intersections. 

It's surprising to me how many of the hikers don't know our local trails.  They say "Where does that go?", pointing to a turn off.  I always like/need to find out where "that" goes so I was able to tell them.  I guess not every one can be a professional hiker like me!  However, my hike leading skills are far from "professional"! 

Now a Pensioner

Tomorrow I co-lead the Tuesday group hike.  This makes me nervous because of fear of what others expect.  I hope they don't expect a professional educational tour.  My only goal is to share this area with them but I don't profess to be an expert on what we'll see.

This is a momentous year - in February I got my national park service senior pass and today applied for social security.  I'm getting old as dirt!  Now spouse and I are sitting in the office, he messing around taking tags off his new bicycle helmet and me typing nonsense at the computer, listening to 30 Years of Great Folk Hits from Reader's Digest.  I'm afraid there's little hope for us!  Then again, on Saturday, we met our neighbor's 100 year old father and, man, he looks good!  We can only hope for such longevity!

Yesterday I walked the Cañada Bonita Trail to the two mile turn around point.  Today I walked up Pajarito Mountain to the wooden bench, now overturned, on the south side of the mountain.  Winds were blowing and it was hazy.  I'd do pretty well just hiking on a ski hill every day except in the winter.  I love Pajarito Mountain!!

Red Dot-Blue Dot Hike with LL Gang

Great hike and a beautiful day.  12 of us braved going down the Red Dot Trail to Pajarito Springs and then along the River Trail and up the Blue Dot Trail.  The rest of the group did a relatively flat hike along the White Rock Rim Trail.  Male hiking leader kindly showed us petroglyphs including the Spanish Lady one but "she" looks more like a "she-man" because of obvious graphic details.  Some speculated that the "appendage" may have been added later.  I made careful notes on how to find the Spanish Lady so next year when the Monday women's hiking group does this hike, I can show them this petroglyph. 

Only disappointing thing is that groups go into White Rock canyon but never go down the the edge of the river, at least along this trail.  When groups hike the Falls Trail or Ancho Rapids, they do have lunch at the Rio Grande.  Along the way today, I saw a wonderful beach where we could have dined riverside but since it was in the sun, no one showed any interest.  Instead, for lunch we holed up in the shade of some junipers - kind of a blah lunch spot IMHO.

I saw scarlet mallow and I think chocolate flower but wildflowers are sparse even in warm White Rock canyon.

On the way down the Red Dot, I was pathetically slow.  Once when the group all stopped to strip outerwear off, I caught up with them.  They were talking about a hiker who barely lived through this hike.  They were perhaps inspired to bring this up by watching my slow, cautious descent into the canyon which most likely made them sure that I was losing it physically.  But, on the way up, I smoked them!  Only one hiker was ahead of me.  I decided that I would go for elevated heart rate and walk up the Blue Dot in one continuous flow.  I like uphill much better than downhill because I feel more stable.  Although, on the way up, when my foot got caught on a rock, I nearly "bought the ranch"!