Camping in the rain

We’ve been quite busy, but summer is almost over so we decided go on a quick, local camping trip before it’s too late. We headed up to Mt. Taylor; easy access, never crowded, and several trails to choose from.

It’s not pristine, remote wilderness. No cheerful brooks or stunning lakes, nothing spectacular. It’s just a multi-use national forest with cows, ATV’s, hunters, etc. Nothing exciting, but it’s close by and I like the open ponderosa forests.

The first afternoon we went on a short hike, although I had a possible migraine coming on so we didn’t hike too hard. More like a “wander around” than a “hike”. It was pretty though.

When we got back, the cows had discovered our van. It was a good thing we didn’t have our dogs with us, because cows and poodles don’t mix very well. And we probably would have had them off-leash because no one was out there. Or so we thought.

At first we sat under a tree to wait until the cows moved off. But they were in no hurry. Meanwhile, the weather was growing ominous.

Time to head back to the van, cows or no cows.

We figured we’d do our “big hike” the following morning. But we figured wrong.

On the way back down to Albuquerque we decided to stop at El Malpais and do a little bit of hiking in the lava fields. It wasn’t raining down there yet, although the weather was threatening.

The landscape there is fairly treacherous. You won’t want to get caught out here at night without proper gear, and I also didn’t want to get caught in a lightning storm. There’s no clear trail, just rock cairns that can be very difficult to spot in low light. (Here I am standing next to one of them.)

The ravines range from ankle-wrenching to potentially deadly.

Here I am, hiking along, la, la, la…uh…hmmm.

We went home that afternoon, having gotten in two small hikes, but without having managed anything strenuous. So we resolved to hike in the local Sandia foothills the next morning.

At 9:00 the next morning we were ready to go for our big hike but – more rain. What’s it doing raining in the morning in the desert?

We got out our rain gear and went anyway. This hike we can do from out our own front door. Our house is in that first section of houses right in the center of the picture

Here we are, almost to the top. Our goal was that little tree just to the left of the saddle.

Made it!

Here’s looking off the saddle to the east.

Attached to the tree was a cute little box with a notebook to record your arrival.

Time to head home – with more rain coming.