360 View from one of the Truchas peaks (can't recall which one now)
This is not what I used to associate with New Mexico mountain hiking. I've hiked and climbed lots of peaks in New Mexico, but always in the southern half of the state. The peaks are dry, barren, and sometimes jagged. But they never really look alpine, at least in the true sense of the word, which associates with the Alps. The Sangre de Cristo mountains are different, and I suspect a bunch of the other ranges up here in Northern New Mexico are similar. These are high peaks, above 12,000 ft, and they get enough rain such that they host meadows and alpine flowers, snow fields that persist all year long, and beautiful alpine lakes.
I had an ambitious hike lined up for these mountains. My goal was to summit all the Truchas peaks, cokmpleting a long circular ridge-walk way up above 11,000 ft. The quickest approach is at a trailhead that requires special permissions to access, and a serious 4x4 vehicle, so I opted for a longer hike which started on the San Leonardo Lakes trail. Hiking up to the lake at 6am was quiet and quick, and I was soon at the lake before the sun had even crested the mountain ridges.
San Leonardo Lake
I was dreading the climb up to the ridgetop above the lake, thinking it would be up scree slopes, or involve 4th and low 5th class climbing, but it turned out to not be bad at all. I was able to follow steep alpine meadows the whole way. The hardest part was trying not to step on all the beautiful flowers. Once on the ridgetop I began making my way around, collecting geocaches as I went. What, geocaches?! I know, a real surprise that there are a number of geocaches I was targeting on this hike. There were 6 unfound caches either on the ridge, or close enough for me to make small side excursions to get (I Touched the Sky, The Himalayas of NM, El Norteno, A thorn in my hoof, It's All About the Hike and Meadow of Solitude). They were all about 9 months old, and yet no one had gone after them yet. On top of those, there were two pretty lonely caches. One on South Truchas peak, GCQ39M, claims to be the 2nd highest peak in NM and has only been found 6 times in 11 years. The other cache was on Middle Truchas peak, GC3XCCB, had only been found once in 4 years. These lonely caches were my main targets. The FTF caches along the way were bonus finds.
The views from up on the ridge were fantastic. I took many panorama shots. The terrain was usualy not too bad either. Yes, there were a lot of ups and downs as I climbed each peak, and then descended to the next. But mostly the going was easy walking in alpine meadows, or stable rocky surfaces. Only in a few spots, especially around North Truchas, did the terrain get into 3rd and 4th class scrambling. This was also the area that I ran into a small family group of Mountain Sheep. Watching them dance along the rocky terrain was something special.
I took a nice lunch break a little before noon, at a high saddle/highpoint between Middle Truchas and South Truchas. There was a lovely outcropping of quartz up there that I could sit behind and it was somehow sheltered from the wind, which was blowing pretty steadily else-where on the ridge. After many thousadns of feet of elevation gain, and several miles I was pretty darn hungry.
Lunch on high
Meadows on the Flank of South Truchas
Gap in the ridge near the summit of Middle Truchas. South Truchas visible off to the right.
My alpine circuit had taken me past 5 of the 6 unfound caches, and both the older lonely caches. There was still one more unfound cache within reach, but it was way down in the emadows beneath the Truchas peaks, at the headwaters for Rio Quemado. Going after it would mean a big descent and then climb back up the ridge to get over to San Leonardo. But if I went back along the ridge, I'd probably have just as much descent/gain just from going over all the various peaks and bumps. So I dropped down the NE ridge of Middle Truchas and grabbed the meadow cache too. Once down in the valley again, I decided I might as well hike down the trail a mile or so to Quemado Falls.
Quemado Falls
HIking down to Quemado Falls didn't add more length to my trip, since it was going in the right direction toward my car. In fact, it put me fairly close to a spot on the ridge that I had marked earlier with my GPS as a potential saddle/gap that I could drop down onto San Leonardo Lakes. I was a bit worried that climbing the forested ridge would be really tough and bush-whacky, but it turned out to be a pretty open forest. Just steep. Once i reached the gap in the ridge I was faced with a terrifying chute to descend. Well, terrifying to some I suppose. To me, it looked just like some of the narrow gullies that I'd scamper down after climbing peaks in the Organ Mountains. There was one small (20') section of low 5th class down climbing, and lots of steep gravelly choss, but I made it down in one piece. Once at the lake, it was an easy 3 mile stroll back to the car, which I made it to at 5pm. Not bad at all!
Several months ago, I heard about a geocaching writing "competition" in which folks could submit geocaching stories and if their story was accepted, it would be included in a compilation book to be released at Geowoodstock XIV. Someone on the TVG facebook page suggested I submit something. I guess I have a small reputation for writing, perhaps owing to my sometimes lengthy logs, or perhaps this blog. So I put together a story for the competition. I had my brother-in-law, who also geocaches under the user WildWes, edit it for me since he is an English major. Then I hit the submit button. Months went by, but when I finally heard back, my story was accepted. I had to do a little bit of editing, but nothing major.
As this nice promotional graphic states, the book is available at Amazon. I get a free copy sent to me since I was a contributing author, but I also have ordered 3 more copies to send to family memebrs who i think would appreciate the book. or at least my small part. I'll have to check with Kimberly Eldredge if I can repost my story here on my blog now that the book has published. not sure if that is kosher. But for now, yippee!
We've only been in New Mexico for a week, and already my head is full of hiking possibilities. Lonely caches, remote wilderness peaks, unfound caches in obscure wilderness canyons... m,an I live for this stuff. So with our house mostly getting settled, I took a day off from moving in to go out and tackle one of my new nearby wilderness adventures. There were several hikes/caches I was looking at, but the one I settled on was a recently published cache called North Macho Falls. It was placed only a month ago, mid may, but nobody had gone after it yet, and there was no one watching it. I could tell why, the description talks about a brutal off-trail trek up and down a wilderness canyon. It talks about needing to have expert route finding skills, and repeatedly stresses the rugged nature of the area. Yeah, that sounds like something I'd be into. I packed up my kit and got up at 5am. Made a quick coffee and was on the road soon after, on my way to adventure!
Sunrise on my drive into the Pecos
Just driving to to the starting point for this cache had some hiccups. I totally missed the turn off for forest road 123 and lost nearly a half hour of time doubling back. Then driving up FR123A was slow going in my CR-V. Luckily the road was passable for my poor little SUV, which is more like a mini-van than an adventure mobile. I crawled my way up several steep rocky sections, and eventually made it to the coordinates that the CO had given for one of the starting points. It was 7am. I wolfed down a banana and hit the trail.
An easy meadow for the start of my hike
All smiles at 7am
There wasn't a trail really, I was just following a drainage/creek down until I reached Macho Creek. And it started off pretty easy, with an open meadow. The meadow didn't last long though and soon I was rock hopping the stream bed, which was choked with willow and other brush. The going got slow, but I forced my way down it, sometimes resorting to climbing up the embankments to escape the lunch vegetation of the stream bed. I reached Macho Creek in 50 minutes and was delighted to immediately see a pool full of trout. They were roiling the water every step I took, fleeing from my shape. Most were pretty tiny, but in the bigger pools I caught glimpses of bigger fish.
The descent down to Macho Creek
The going was slightly easier in Macho Creek, it being a bigger drainage, but it was still kind of slow. A short ways upstream though I came across an old mining camp, and from the camp was an old road bed leading up the canyon. This provided only a short 0.1 miles of easy walking before the road disintegrated and it was back to boulder hopping and brush-beating. I passed a really large and nice swimming hole, which had to be passed on the right by climbing up a steep crumbly slope. I made a mental note that I could swim here on my return, but plowed ahead.
Mining camp
Nice swimming hole in Macho Creek
In a short while I came up to the North Fork of Macho Creek, which was where the cache lay. The intial foray into North Macho Creek involved a steep climb over a few waterfall pools, where much to my dismay I discovered poison ivy. I thought I had left that behind in Tennessee! Apparently not. And to add insult to injury, at one of my rest stops I felt something crawling on my leg and discovered a tick! What! I thought we were done with those when we drove out of Tennessee. Two big disappointments all in one hike.
Rock formations near the confluence of North Macho Creek
TICK!
North Macho Creek seemed to have a whole lot more waterfalls, carved into the granite like bedrock. The trout continued up the creek as well and I was in awe about how they could have migrated up beyond some of the waterfalls I had circumnavigated. I began to suspect that they had been "seeded" higher up in the creek, but this theory was shot through when I reached a long dry section of creek-bed, and then encountered not a single trout beyond that point. It seemed unlikely that there would not be trout upstream if they had been seeded from up on high, so perhaps that means that the trout really have jumped up the many waterfalls at the start of this creek.
I can't say what the main macho Creek looks like, but the North Macho Fork was just wonderful. I lost count of how many waterfalls and pools I had passed (I kept better track on my way down, marking each one on my GPSr). Often the going would be slow around these waterfalls, or in the thick growth that often choked out the bottom of the ravine. but at other times there were open meadows, and easy walking. I had a few miles to go up this creek bed, and I cherished those miles, taking in the various sights and sounds. The warbling vireos were going full blast this morning,a s were tanagers, warblers and thrushes. At one point I flushed a grouse but rather than fly off to get away from me, it tottered a little ways off and did a broken wing display. I suspected there was a nest or young nearby, so I cautiously crept up the slope to where the grouse had flushed. I couldn't spot anything, I climbed up onto a fallen log and peered around some more. The mother hen kept displaying, trying to lure me in her direction, but I was scanning for a nest or some young. i took a step down off the log and a baby grouse exploded from practically under my foot, a flurry of brown feathers arcing away from me across the gorge. The other soon let up her feint, and made her way over to where the baby had flown.
I made it to the coordinates for the geocache at 10:20 am, and found the cache almost immediately. The coords were actually pretty good considering the canyon walls, and the cache isn't that well hidden. But how many people would stumble their way down this canyon. my guess is that unless a forest fire sweeps down/up this canyon, this geocache is good and safe for decades to come. I wasn't at all surprised to see a blank log. I took a few minutes to compose a log entry, then rehid the cache and sat down to eat my sandwich lunch. The waterfall that the cache was hidden by was not flowing nearly as much as the pictures the CO had posted showed. It made me appreciate how much more difficult the route was only a month ago, with volumes more water to contend with
Falls near the geocache, not much water right now
The CO had hidden this cache on a one-way route from the ridge-top in front of me, but I was going to backtrack down North Macho Creek. While I wouldn't be covering new ground, I was looking forward to taking a dip in one (or more) of the many pools. I also wanted to see if I could catch a trout with my bare hands. Some of the trout I had passed were in tiny shallow pools and it seemed like I should be able to corner one and scoop it up. I also kept track of the waterfalls on the way down, marking each one with my GPSr. I'm not sure how consistent I was with marking them, and may have counted some small cascades as waterfalls, and missed others. But in general it gave me a good idea of how many cool spots there were along this hike. Here is what the route looks like:
North Macho Creek Waterfalls
The waypoint named "Trout Limit" is the extent furthest extent up the stream that I saw trout. beyond that point, the stream was fish free, much to the enjoyment of the water striders. Not that there is one section of very dense waterfalls. This section looks like this:
Section of many waterfalls and pools
this section was especially nice, with cascade after cascade, each with lovely little pools that would be perfect for bathing in. At each waterfall, I would create a waypoint with the Code WF# with sequential #s working down from the geocache waterfall. I also added the approximate height of each waterfall.
Section of dense waterfalls
Once I got down to where the trout were, I set about trying to catch one by hand. The trout seem to be adapted to this kind of hunting style, either by bears or racoons, and would immediately scurry to dive head-first under rocks where they would wedge themselves out of sight. Unfortunately, some of them were too big and in too shallow pools to get completely out of sight, and I spent some time chasing them about the shallow pools until I finally landed a couple. Somehow, it felt reassuring knowing that I could catch fish with my bare-hands out here, like I would be able to forage my own food if needed and live out in the wilderness.
As I made my way down North Macho, it finally began to get hot. The moringin had been cool and enjoyable hiking weather (although I wish I had worn pants instead of shorts for all that bushwhacking). I se tmy sights on one of the best swimming pools, WF13 as marked on my GPSr. This pool wasn't very wide, but plunged to a nice depth of 10' or so and had both a nice jumping off ledge, and a convenient shallow exit point. Just perfect for cooling off.
I water was cold, but not overly so (like little Chasm Falls on the Rio En Medio trail a few days ago) and I could have relaxed there for quite a while if it hadn't been for the thunderstorms. The massive grey clouds seemed to come up out of the north and practically out of nowhere. First just a few faint rumblings of thunder up on the ridges above, but growing steadily until the canyon nearly roared with the noise of thunder reverberating up and down its walls. Kind of scary stuff, although I felt safe from lightning strike down in the canyon. There was the hazard of flash flooding though... So I hastily put my clothes on and started rushing down the canyon. I took a bit of video of the storm chasing me, and while I pretty much suck as a vlogger, the video is amusing enough, and is good enough to close out this blog post.
Approaching storm
Abandoned mine, a safe place to take shelter? I think not,
Back to the CuRVy by 2pm. Not too shabby for my first Pecos wilderness adventure. May there be many more to come.
Finding the oldest active cache in a state seems to be a thing now. I don't remember when it became a thing, or maybe it has always been a thing and I've just noticed it. Whatever the case is, I learned that the oldest caches in New Mexico are really close by to our new home in Santa Fe, and conveniently located off of I-25 such that I could go out and find them after dropping off family at Albuquerque Sunport [airport]. Which is exactly what I did this morning.
Placitas Open Spaces as viewed from GC3C8KX
The oldest cache in new Mexico is actually a little difficult to determine. There are a group of caches placed in an area called Placitas open Space, a little juniper desert area on the outskirts of a suburban neighborhood. There are three caches that are all listed as being placed on January 15, 2001, GC190, GC192 and GC193. Oddly, GC191 is listed as being placed in April 2001. so which one is the oldest? And does it even matter? They are all in the same little cluster and can be found with a nice little 2 mile hike. Well, nice if you go early in the morning while it is still cool. I showed up about 6:30 and had a very enjoyable hour and a half of walking through the desert hills, finding those old caches and a number of others.
Sasha chases bunnies and helps me hunt caches
One of the coolest things was seeing the stamps from my fellow MOGA team-mates, Sequoia and Kimpossible. They were in New Mexico on a big road trip, and actually hiked the highest point in NM the day after we arrived in Santa Fe. I was invited, but couldn't go since we were unpacking. We are still unpacking... it's an ongoing effort. It was cool to see their stamps in the letterbox caches and know that they were here just a week ago.
The other fun thing from my morning was discovering a snake curled up right underneath a tupperware geocache. I didn't even notice the snake as I picked up the cache and signed my name in the log. It wasn't until I was about to set the cache back in the hiding spot that I saw this cute little snake all coiled up, waiting for the day to warm up. Good thing it wasn't a rattle snake.
I ended up hiking a nice 3.5 mile loop and finding ten of the geocaches in the area. There must be a couple dozen more out here. Looks like I'll have to make some more trips to the airport.
Moving from Tennessee to New Mexico offers all sorts of geocaching possibilities, not to mention a chance to see all sorts of new sites and attractions. But for me, the move was going to be a grueling 2 1/2 day slog with little time for fun stops. Unlike our last move, where I planned a few geocache stops along the way, I had nothing planned for this trip. We were just going to drive straight on the I-40, leaving Wednesday around noon and trying to arrive in Santa Fe early Friday afternoon. It would be a lot fo driving, with my dog and our 5 birds in the car with us. We'd stop when we got tired, and that was about it for planning. But since I now own a smartphone, I couldn't resist looking up a few caches where ever we stopped. And in this way geocaching provided a little bit of relief from the long-haul drive.
Our first stop was at a rest-station in Tennessee, near Carthage. As we sat and munched snacks, I checked the geocaching app and sure enough, there was a traditional cache and virtual right in the rest stop. I went and visited the Virtual, but decided not to hunt the traditional, a micro placed right in front of the visitor information center and swarming with people. The Virtual cache, Saddler's Rest, was at a small cemetery, and just far enough away from the rest area that no one seemed to bother visiting it. It took the dog over and we made the find.
Saddler's Rest
Our big Yellow Penske at the Rest stop
From Carthage we booked it across the state and ended up near Memphis in the evening. While stopped for gas, I looked up pet-friendly hotels and found one nearby, A Days Inn on Elvis Rd. I booked us a room and we made our way over, only to find out that we were in a seriously Elvis themed hotel, only two blocks from Graceland. It was gaudy and ridiculous, but it was a room, and we slept of the day's miles.
Before leaving the next morning, I made a little geocaching expedition down across the Mississippi border. Finding a geocache in each state is one of those things that geocachers can't seem to help themselves from doing, myself included. We weer only 2 miles from the border anyways. We ended up finding two geocaches, although one was still in Tennessee. Rock-N-Roll Ghosttown and one just over the border in Southhaven. The excursion took about a half an hour, but it was nice and cool in the early morning, and we were back on the road soon enough.
Hamming it up at GC2TVNP
Sasha looks on at the Southhaven cache.
Just some of the kitsch at our hotel in Graceland.
We scooted through Arkansas with barely a stop, and I didn't find any geocaches there. Some geocachers might think this weird of me, to pass through the whole state and not try to find at least one cache, but since I had found an Arkansas cache when we moved to Tennessee two years ago, I didn't feel any strong urge to make a find this time through. We did make one pit-stop in Arkansas, but there weren't any geocaches nearby. Pretty soon we found ourselves in Oklahoma, which is a big big state to cross. We ate lunch at one of the highway rest-stops and once again there happenend to be a geocache nearby. Actually there were three geocaches at this one rest-stop, but I only went on a walk to find one. The dog needed to go for a bathroom break so off we went in search of fertilized ground and a geocache. I found the geocache, GCRQG4, and much to my surprise, it had been found only the day before by one of my friends from Oak Ridge TN, Geoboater! I couldn't help but call him up and see if he was still in Oklahoma. He wasn't, he was already in Dallas, but it was still surreal that we made the same stop on our respective road trips only a day apart. especially weird since I had seen him in Knoxville just 5 days earlier at a geocaching event.
All the pets got out at this rest stop in Oklahoma
We made it as far as Elk City Oklahoma before calling it a day. There weren't any geocaches near our hotel, and nothing in town that seemed all that interesting to go find, so I didn't make a find in Elk City. The next day put us through Texas and into New Mexico. Just an hour into our drive that morning, my dad, who was in the other car, got really drowsy, so we pulled off at a gas station about 20 miles east of Amarillo. After filling up gas, my dad took a quick cat nap and I checked the geocaching app to see if there was something nearby to pass the time. There was a geocache across the interstate called the Bug Ranch so I put the dog on a leash and we walked over. I don't know what I was expecting, but the row of half-buried on-end VW bugs, spray-painted a rainbow of colors was not it. This just is one of those nice surprises, a neat little local attraction that I would have missed entirely if not for seeking out a geocache here. The other funny thing is that the rest of my family was visiting the Cadillac Ranch on the west side of Amarillo at about the same time.
The logbook is the VWs. here's my sig
And that was it for geocaching. We caught up with the rest of my family at the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, NM. There is an awesome earthcache here, but we found it a few years ago. That didn't stop us from jumping into the icy waters once again. The Blue hole left us feeling clean and refreshed as we finished the last hour of our trip to Santa Fe. All said, I found 5 geocaches over 1000 miles of driving and 5 states. Nothing to boast about, but each cache was a nice little diversion from the monotony of driving, and well worth the effort. Geocaching earns its keep once again!
