While sister J- came out for three weeks, we had some adventures. Here are just a couple of them.

White Mesa

White Mesa is a really neat area, mostly full of white gypsum, leading to the name. There’s also some springs that form cool mineral deposits in the valley below the mesa. The area is nearly devoid of any vegetation—it’s totally exposed with not a tree in sight. Because the sun can be brutal, we usually reserve hiking there for winter. However, we’ve wanted for years now to try hiking it in the summer by moonlight. No only would it be cool enough at night, but we figured the moon would provide ample illumination after reflecting off the white gypsum. Unfortunately, astronomy is tricky, and we couldn’t quite find a time with favorable moon phase, sunset time and moonrise time. Not to be deterred, we went anyway, hiking the first part of the Dragon’s Spine by sunset, most of the loop by starlight, and catching moonrise as we were finishing up. It was less light and tougher terrain than promised, but what an adventure!

On the camera side, I wanted to try out HDR photography with the sunset pictures, but I completely screwed that up. Pro tip: get to know your camera and her settings better before going out in the wild. I’m going to practice that today, before my next trip. Meanwhile, I was able to salvage some decent sunset pictures here. I’ll just have to go back (maybe when I can actually hike by moonlight) and try again.

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White Sands

J- and I took Big Blue down to Lincoln National Forest, aiming to scope out White Mountain Wilderness as a possible backpack trip location. We spent a lovely afternoon and evening walking around the dispersed camping area, but unfortunately the Wilderness area itself is currently closed due to risk of landslides from a previous fire. Instead of hiking in the Wilderness, then, we went to White Sands National Park, just an hour further southwest. Good thing I keep the National Park Pass in my wallet at all times! The beach is where J-‘s soul lives, and even if I couldn’t bring her the ocean and humidity in NM, the sand and sun at least partially slaked her thirst.

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Jemez Mnts: San Antonio Hot Springs

I’ve been to a couple of warm springs in the Jemez and Taos area, but I caught wind of a new one (new to me anyway), so exploring that was on my list. The hike there was 12 miles, though, a little farther than the Illinoisian thought she wanted to go. Instead, we planned the classic Jemez loop, stopping at the Walatowa visitor center, Highway 4 café for a piñon tart, the Soda Dam, and Spence Hot Spring. Next on the loop were Jemez Falls and Valles Caldera, but before we could go there, I requested a tangent to check out a different approach to San Antonio that promised to be only 5 miles instead of 12. I wanted to see if the road I saw on the map was open to the public. It was, and moreover, the forest service folks who were at the TH on their lunch break confirmed the trail I wanted to take. One look between J- and I, no words necessary, and we abandoned the rest of our plans and hit the trail to the hot springs.

It was a lovely path, especially when we got back on it after a little detour bushwacking down a hill. Due to previously-mentioned trail-blazing, though, we were bushed ourselves when we finally made it to bottom of the hill below the springs. Moreover, we were mentally psyched out thinking about having to get back up said trailless hill. After some rest in the shade, a salt tablet and old, stale, tough goo chew each, we felt better, but weren’t prepared to climb up to the spring, only to go back down and then climb up the hill-of-woe again. So after getting within earshot (literally) of the springs, we turned around and headed back without actually laying eyes on them or getting in. Still, it was a memorable experience with some beautiful views along the way, and it was entirely successful as a reconnaissance mission, setting us up for success next time we go up that way.

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