Killing the In-Laws

My wife's folks are visiting and asked to go hiking this past weekend. They've visited us many times here in Las Cruces, and we've taken them on the best easy hikes already. So I had to think hard about where I could take them that would be both new and exciting, but also a reasonable hike for their abilities. One idea that sprung to mind came from reading a blog post from Southern New Mexico Explorer. I love this guy's blog, he is an avid explorer of the area and if he posts about somewhere I haven't been, I usually make an effort to check it out. He recently posted about a slot canyon near an abandoned ranch by Broad Canyon, (LINK). I remembered taking the kids hiking there to find a geocache last year, but we hadn't actually gone into the slot canyon. It has easy access, and looked to be really spectacular, so that was our Saturday destination. Turns out it was a perfect hike for the family. We even tagged the geocache on top of the mesa again.

Slot canyon fun

For Sunday though, they wanted something a nit longer and more challenging. I had recently done some hiking in the canyons east of Alamogordo, which have some really spectacular terrain that I know they've never seen before. But I was a bit worried that these canyons would be too difficult. None of them have good or short trails, and they all seem to have some pretty significant obstacles. I did some internet research and settled on what I hoped would be doable, the Southern Portion of Ortega Canyon with a goal of reaching the Oasis End Geocache. See that log. It almost did my in-laws in, with several difficult waterfall obstacles, tough boulder hopping and hardly any easy walking. When we got home, my mother-in-law was in obvious pain, lying on the cache an nursing a beer. All through dinner she appeared to be suffering. I hope there is no serious harm done. The canyon was indeed a fantastic hike, but a bit much, Oh well, lesson learned... maybe.

Oasis End