New Area Trails - Santa Fe

Shaggy Peak Overlook 

...[we're gonna just roll on back like we never left]...

Been a fair amount of new terrain popping up the last several years. Most of it planned and permitted, some of it rogue. All the new pathways are lovely and well built, with an eye toward graceful bends and loops as well as shedding water. 

I could choose to write about the best one but I won't because few seem to know about it just yet and I kinda prefer it that way. Instead I'll note the new tracks south of the Santa Fe Watershed, up Forest Rd 79, through the village of Canada de Los Alamos. The drive is shorter than to Galisteo, Glorieta, or Pecos, though the road and wayfinding are more difficult (vehicles with clearance recommended). 

The really keen thing about this area is its isolation. It just won't be the first choice for most (or 2nd or 3rd) to seek out mileage or a weekend ride, certainly not for visitors due to navigational challenges, and similarly unlikely for runners or most hikers due to its distance from town and lack of a creek or water way. A note to always assume that quiet places like this are beyond cell reception, which is mostly true here except on high points and along some ridgelines. 

fucking run away

The Forest Service worked with a few local outdoors groups to lay down 4mi of new trail. Some of this connects and runs along decades-old access and wood cutting roads, to the east the network will connect down and into Apache Canyon. Sorta fun and dramatic until you have to haul yourself and your rig outta there. While the isolation can be rather peaceful it also can get uncomfortable if you lose your bearings or find that you're turned around somehow. Just has a different feel than the Winsor watershed - best illustrated by the ghost house which I came upon on maybe my third exploration of the area. Nothing spooky or demonic-adjacent here, nope. Curiosity drew me closer to inspect - because WTF? - however I found it to be just one of those places with dark unhappy vibes and I set to mashing pedals to quickly get the fuck outta there.

As so often happens, I scurried directly up what happened to be a leg-bursting ravine ascent. All hexes and cursed intentions confirmed. Should you find yourself at the top of cursed ascent, you'll want to bear to rider's right for a bit more hike-a-bike but also a linkup to a winding (new) mile descent of singletrack which is really first rate stuff.

Cursed Ascent

Riding options generally run north-south from the main parking(ish) area. There's not a good way to describe this since nothing is signed but you head up the FS 79 for a few miles (~15min from the forest service gate/signage) and this is just beyond the second of two wood-cut access roads on the right. Trail runs along and below the east side of the road. Bien aventuras perdidas. 

First ballot Hall of Fame caterpillar

fucking run away

 Related Posts:

 -  Adventure on the Winsor Trail

 -  Apache Canyon Trail

 -  Glorieta Baldy

2018 New Mexico Outdoors Calendar

West Rim Trail

The calendar has flipped and the 2018 Event & Outdoors Calendar has now been brought up-to-date (see Tab at page top^). Most of the year's early season events have been pushed back in hopes of snow, we'll see if the storms are late to arrive or pass us by.

The U.S. Indoor Track & Field Championships is back for another go at the Abq Convention Center. Love this event so much. One season-changer finds the fledgling Outside Bike & Brew event here in Santa Fe jumping from May into early September.

Big additions to the calendar or events that have ceased operations? None that come directly to mind. Announcements or listings welcome at highdesertdirt at gmail dot com.


Related Posts:
 - 2018 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2017 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2016 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2015 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2013/2014 Outdoors Calendar

Trail Access Finally Comes to Glorieta

Long talked about and now finally in motion, the Glorieta Camps trails (formerly the Baptist Conference Center) will soon be available to public access via a newly constructed trail routing around the Campus to the southeast.

Working in tandem with Glorieta Camps, Santa Fe County, and IMBA, the Santa Fe Fat Tire Society has the lead on this project and is asking for trail work volunteers as well as contributions to fund the work, setting a goal of $2,500 (nearly half funded as of Nov 10). - Contribute Here -

Continuing work on the access trail is scheduled for this Sun Nov 12, 9am SHARP at the Glorieta Camps main gate.

..."We'll be working on building more of the Glorieta Access trail. We got over 1/2 of the initial section built 2 weeks ago and will be working on the rest. We'll work until around noon, have some lunch, and then ride the great trails at GC. Another sunny day, with a high forecast for mid-50's. SFFTS will provide all the tools needed for the trail work."

A map of the Glorieta system via Strava heatmap. Glorieta Camps at the center there with various trails branching out and up. The orange route tracing a north-south boundary to the east is the road up to the fire lookout and to access the descents.

UPDATE: The funding for this trail project came through in a big way: $3,045 in total which exceeds the goal amount by +25% and was the top funded project of the 68 proposed projects of this year's IMBA Dig In campaign. Very well done to the good folks at SFFTSociety.


Related Posts:
 - Drink Beer: Support Local Trails
 - Santa Fe Watershed Assoc's new Arroyo Project
 - Local Outdoor Charitable Organizations Need Your Support

2017 New Mexico Outdoors Calendar

Galisteo Basin

The 2017 Race/Outdoors Calendar has been brought up-to-date (see Tab at top of page ^). The one significant addition for the current year is the return of the U.S. Indoor Track & Field Championships to Albuquerque. U.S. pros had a huge haul of Olympic hardware across several distance events in Rio and will no doubt be gunning for more at this summer's World Champs. U.S. Indoors is the season's first shakeout at the elite level.

Deserving of a highlight - two additions to last year's outdoors calendar that stood out as welcome events to the area race scene were Ultra Santa Fe and the Bull of the Woods Trail Run in Taos. If you couldn't make either event last year you ought to make plans to do so this Fall.

At least one event falls off the calendar, the Ragnar Relays in Angel Fire does not look like it's returning in 2017. An entertaining writeup in Outside published recently comes to mind. I didn't run at Angel Fire either year however the website was on the receiving end of several emails about promoting and volunteering for the event.

Two great events that always come and go before I can get my bearings set for the new year are the Chama Chile Ski Classic and Santa Fe WinterFest (beer!). Fast approaching as I type.

Related Posts:
 - 2017 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2016 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2015 Outdoors Calendar
 - 2013/2014 Outdoors Calendar

What It's Like to be a Parent - With Helpful Comparison to New Orleans Party

Important Dad skill: Crossing creeks with both coffee and kid

I traveled down to New Orleans recently for some wedding festivities. The friends and I brought the ruckus, rolling the celebrations out late over two nights, even high-stepping our own cocktail fueled street parade through the French Quarter complete with marching band and police escort. We went big even by our own historical standards, by accountants' standards we would have been off the charts. Straight up partied our asses off, committed fully to the task at hand. Flawless execution. The 7,000+ ft drop in altitude for myself only provided an even larger tank of fuel then normal to burn through.
Now, on my return home, not even one full week later I’m out on an evening mtb ride with a friend (also an accountant I should add). It is hot as holy hell. No wind or breeze to speak of, I’m literally thanking my good judgment for filling two water bottles before heading out of the house (usually take just one). I’m sweating sheets during the ride and this requires me to stop on several occasions to clear my eyes because I’m blinded. We are not even in the hills - no climbing, just zipping around Galisteo and pedaling madly up/down the southern stretches of the Rail Trail in Eldorado. We grab a beer after the ride and I’m definitely more filthy than average because I'm annoyingly conscious that my entire upper body is coated in a film of sweat and dust and I feel it when I move, minor actions like talking and smiling and swiveling my head. Thirty minutes later I pull into the house just in time for the 3yr old's bedtime so I walk in the door and directly into his room where I sit with him until he’s asleep. We both fall asleep of course - me in the rocking chair, layered in sweat and dust baked in by sun, he in his nearly outgrown toddler's bed. I was at the office all day and was spent. I wake up super early a.m. and on autopilot drag my broken old-man body out of that freaking chair and sleepwalk straight into the shower because I literally feel several degrees worse at this moment than I did on either of the late unsteady mornings in New Orleans the week before.
I feel that this story very elegantly illustrates what it’s like to be a parent and I wanted to share my pain with other people. Being a parent is super-fun though there's lots of discomfort and confusion and small humiliations of unusually high frequency and the occasional absence of beds or any type of necessary self-planning.
P.S. New Orleans is a riot and you should go there.
Related Posts:
- Adventure on the Winsor Trail (Sep 2014)
- Greatest Dad Wins (Apr 2015)
 - Fat  Man (Apr 2015)

MacAskill's Cascadia

Another brilliant video out from Danny MacAskill. Rooftop descents, drone sequences, masterful artistry and creativity in the Canary Islands.



Related Posts:
 - MacAskill Cycling Zen - The Ridge ('14)
 - MacAskill - Way Back Home ('12)
 - Ski Commuting British Columbia (JP Auclair 1977-2014)
 - Urban MTB Downhill - Taxco, Mexico ('14)

Raven's Ridge - Pecos Wilderness Boundary

An interesting and insightful discussion took place this week in the mtb community regarding cycling on Raven's Ridge and areas above the radio towers to the south. The towers sit on Tesuque Peak, on bike or foot you can follow a faint (unsigned) trail north to Deception Peak, then descend west down Raven's Ridge to the wilderness gate on Winsor. Raven's is a steep and technical descent, hike-a-bike in places. The volume of bike traffic in such a difficult area is in dispute but may be a side discussion to the greater concerns of environmental impact and wilderness mandates.

Treeline on Deception Peak. Will Wissman photography and Mellow Velo graphic

Of note was the condition of the current trail, the fact that the trail actually wanders across the wilderness boundary in several places and is therefore not technically bike-appropriate, and references the illegal tree cut north of the ridge that has been in the paper recently. There were several vigorous defenses of mtb trail access, most notably by Brent Bonwell who has taken lead on most if not all of the new bridge crossings along the Winsor over the last couple years.

Several comments discussed the need for a national forest trail other than the service roads to the top (Aspen Vista, and Sunset), or Raven's which is quite technical and apparently off-limits to bikes in sections due to wilderness designation. Lack of signage was brought up, a constant and ubiquitous problem with area trails and access issues (see Deception Peak ridge trail above).

A fascinating and enlightened discussion by all. Recommended.

Google Groups - Fat Tire Society

Related Posts:
 - Trail Running Santa Fe Baldy and the Three Peaks
 - Ski Touring Deception Peak
 - Explorations in the Pecos - Nambe Creek Trail-160
 - The Columbine Hondo Wilderness Addition - Taos/Red River

Adventure on the Winsor Trail

Winsor Meadows

Had an interesting outing on the mountain bike this summer. Up at the crack of dawn with the plan of motoring up Winsor for the first time this year. Arrived at the Chamisa trailhead, rockin’ some Aerosmith (great band or best band?)*, when it became clear that a key piece of equipment didn't make the trip - my mtb shoes. Generally speaking, this wouldn't be a huge deal if I had been wearing shoes of some other type, however this was not the case. No, I had left the house wearing flip-flops for some strange reason. Effin’ flip-flops. FLIP-FLOPPPSSS!! [KAHHHNN!!] Desperation and denial stabbed at my mind: Can there be any imagined scenario in which Aerosmith wears flip-flops? No. fuck no. Not one. Well, there’s a lesson there. 

This is how this works - I have a sleeping 2yr old at home, so I have a short window at the break of dawn to run/ride/(ski sometimes) or, with searing remorse and regret I can rollover and go back to sleep. This being the case, driving back into town to get my shoes meant no long workout and probably no ride till the following weekend. An hour of running would have to replace cycling the Winsor as option A, and my mind that day was not calibrated toward running it was geared-up for cruising in the mountains on the summer’s first ride along the creek up the Winsor. 

So this happened…  >>>

There is literally a skull on my sock and a bell on my handlebars

Can’t possibly be the first time this has ever happened to someone heading out for a ride, am I right? This must happen all the time! How do folks generally resolve this kind of problem do you suppose? I reasoned that they probably just hope for the best, ignore the discomfort of missing gear, and ride - very carefully keeping an eye on toe-crushing rocks and tree branches. A very real danger that I'd simply never considered since it would otherwise be reckless to ride Chamisa/Winsor in open-toed shoes. (Sidenote: I have biked around at a party shoeless before. This is such a bad idea. I cannot caution strenuously enough how this should not be tried). 

Below Pacheco Canyon

Back to the current shady cycling story...Aside from potentially seriously injuring myself, my secondary concern was the possible embarrassment of seeing people see me riding along like a jagger in socks and flip-flops. Not a real danger, I calculated. Nobody’s going to be out this early on the middle stretches of Winsor. Wrong. I saw 23 people that morning [KAHHHNN!!]. 15 cyclists, 6 hikers including a woman who stopped me to ask if there was water up-trail for her dog, and 2 runners. I’m certain of this figure because I counted each one, my face screwed-up in a sideways cringe of awkwardness at each addition. 

It all worked out for me in the end, although I couldn't handle the steep climbing that leads up to NORSKI. I did see two ptarmigan (grouse) in one section, got too excited then veered off trail crashing into some bushes. There were also a few slips in technical sections where I pedaled out of my flop and had to avoid the pedal-whip-into-the-shin hazard. A very acceptable level of harm, all things considered. And it all makes for a good story as well as an important takeaway to share with others - that a cavalier attitude toward footwear has the potential to ruin your entire week. You’re welcome.

Old crossing at Bear Wallow, now much improved

Guerrilla-built drop above Pacheco. Since removed by the NFS

Firecracker penstemon

* I kid, i kid. Zeppelin will always be the best band, Halen a distant second.

Related Posts:

 - Trail Running on Winsor

 - Chamisa Trail
 - Scouting NM Running Trails by Plane

Urban MTB Downhill - Taxco, Mexico

On the heels of Macaskill's new cycling vid atop a remote island (The Ridge), thought I'd contrast that ride with this incredible technical descent through the narrow urban alleys of southern Mexico. The rider is Australian Kelly McGarry, a runner-up at the RedBull Rampage a year or two ago. The folks that dreamed up this course ought to get a medal for straight-up genius.



Related Posts:
 - Winter MTB Descent of the Rio en Medio
 - Ski Commuting British Columbia (JP Auclair 1977-2014)
 - Macaskill MTB - The Ridge

Macaskill Cycling Zen

A new Danny Macaskill video is out - a cutmedia production entitled The Ridge. Danny of course, doing sick things with his bike, navigating the Isle of Skye and some stomach-turning ridgeline exposure. Not a week old the video unsurprisingly has millions of views.

He exploded on the outdoors scene a few years back with his biking mastery in Way Back Home. His kit is now fully commercialized and pinned with logos. Good for you Danny.


Related Posts:
 - Art Filled Sky
 - Ski Commuting British Columbia (JP Auclair 1977-2014)
 - Macaskill - Way Back Home

Cycling's Grand Tour comes to Colorado - The US Pro Cycling Challenge

The US Pro Cycling Challenge kicks off today, a week long stage race through the Colorado highcountry. This would be year three of the event. I'd love to get up and check out some of the racing someday but the whole taking care of a toddler and having a job thing remains a bit of an obstacle for me.

Stages kickoff from Aspen, Crested Butte, Gunnison, the Springs, Breck, Vail, and Boulder. Many of the teams riding this tour are Grand Tour teams, BMC, Cannondale, Saxo-Tinkoff, etc. Riders focusing on the upcoming Vuelta won't be riding (Horner, Sagan, Quintana, Contador) but the entry list does include Teejay Van Garderen, Ivan Basso, Jens Voigt, Michael Rogers, Ben King, and Tim Danielson. Follow the racing via live-tweet with @Cyclocosm or on Tumblr at Cyclocosm.tumblr.com

Here's a looping vine of a wicked crash from last month's Tour of Utah. Garmin-Sharp's Phil Gaimon clips a side road marker and is launched into space at 40+ mph. Fractured his hand but appears to be on the team entry list for this week's Pro Challenge. Umm - Holy Shit!! The guy gets up from that spill... only to run down the hill to fetch his bike!! I think back to this summer's World Cup and the image of grown men rolling around on the ground sobbing about their shitty haircuts, and I shake my head disapprovingly.


Related Posts:
 - The Tour was Better with Armstrong
 - Santa Fe Century and Gran Fondo

January Cycling

Moon and the Santa Fe River Valley at Frenchy's

On the bike this morning for a ride on Super Loop. It was pretty eff-ing cold - needed the sunglasses just to keep my eyes from icing shut. It's January, yes, but had sold myself on this week being warm. Not how it works on a bike. The water in my bottle turned to slush in an unfunny attempt of further ridicule.

If the snow won't fall at least it means the trails are clear for riding.

Curiously, didn't see too many folks out. First on at La Tierra and had the trails to myself. My old friend the moon sat above the blue horizon of the Jemez and would say hello each time I veered to the west.

19mi, 934ft, 1hr45min

The improved NM 599 bike underpass to La Tierra

NM 599 on the right

Overkill with a buncha' needless bridges

La Tierra

Moon and the Jemez from the east La Tierra Ridge

Related Posts:
 - La Tierra - Trail 34
 - Moonlit Ride in the North Hills



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Converting a Bicycle Into a Snowmobile

Rockin' fat bike through National Forest access

Over the last couple of years there has been this growing new product line in cycling of giant Fat Bikes. Or rather, bikes with giant wheels and adjusted gearing and components. I never quite got it. Thought maybe it was just some breaking-from-the-herd type of concept for the non-conformists, like the barefoot shoe thing.

Turns out it's a natural progression of what happens when a bunch of punk kid bmx'ers living up in Michigan's UP turn snow plowed parking lots into frozen half-pipes and freestyle courses, then turn their bike tires into studded ice-grippers, then turn snowmobile trails into winter bike trails.

Yoopers for the win. These guys are awesome.


Related Posts:
 - Winter Bike Descent - Rio en Medio
 - Ski Commuting British Columbia

Trail Improvements on Winsor and Galisteo Basin

There was a slowdown in visible trail construction around town this year but that's not to mean that our trails were just lying unloved. The Santa Fe Fat Tire Society and the Santa Fe Trails Alliance continue to add to our existing recreation trail network with trail-work days, volunteer training, and now bridge construction. At least two new bridges went up on the Winsor Trail this Fall (at Borrego and lower Winsor), and one existing bridge saw improvements. If you've volunteered with the SF Trails Alliance you'll recognize some of the tools in the video below. If you participated in last October's IMBA World Summit you'll recognize the red shirts.

There's at least one more month of riding (and running) left before snow settles in on the higher sections of the mountains, so there's time to get one last ride in on Winsor and check out the new work.



BorregoBridge from Santa Fe Fat Tire Society (Brent Bonwell) on Vimeo

Prepping the bridge work

New crossing on lower Winsor - completed

Sawing logs on upper Winsor. USFS certification is required to cut and remove
deadfall in the National Forest. These two have that. 

Kicking man-sized logs to the trail side like a boss(es)

Sheehan fending off an early winter, taking trail work to the next level

Recent Fall improvements included:
  - Needed work on the La Piedra Trail switchbacks to bring them back into shape
  - New 1mi-2mi section of trail in the Galisteo Basin Preserve
  - Clean up and improvements at La Tierra after Septembers flooding and erosion

My Man's First Foray Into Cycling

Pistol Pete celebrated his first birthday earlier this month and one of his many gifts was a new bike helmet from mom and dad. Another was a sharp new bike-seat to cruise the bike paths and run errands with his father without the car or the jogging stroller. The seat clips on and off my different bikes. I can speak into his ear and point out dogs as we ride along, and I can hear him argle-bargle baby babble and ooh-and-aahhh as we pick up speed on the downhills. So awesome.

And now for some shameless pics of a ridiculously cute baby cyclist:

Peede and Dad rockin' the Acequia Trail

The helmet is an XS Giro model that we picked up at REI. The bike seat is an iBert safe-T seat, made and designed right here in the mountain west - Cody, WY.


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Museum Hill Trails Come Alive

Just a small party with the master artisans of the world

Santa Fe was decked out in papel picado for last week's International Folk Art Market. This event has blown up over the last few years and is legitimately beginning to punch above its weight. Event organizers filled Railyard Park on Thursday evening with a free concert, and seemingly all of the town's restaurants and patios were packed full Thur-Sat evenings. Indian and Spanish Market peeps where all like, WHA? Dudes were bringing the noise.

Right, well Museum Hill is where a significant amount of my early morning running/biking routes cross through so I got to see the tents going up during the week, the excited market vendors waiting for opening on Saturday morning, then the full on Market by foot later in the day with the beautiful Mrs. Dirt and the button-cute little Pistol. A lot of excitement springing up out of my ordinarily quiet trail network in the east foothills. What made my day is that some ingenious soul dreamt up an onsite Bike Valet station which happened to be packed full of bikes of all sorts, including ones with toddler-seats and trailer hitches. Marvelous.

Bike Valet

Decoraciones fiestas

My favorite: the Oaxacan weavers of southern Mexico. There stuff was simply off the charts. Across the parking lot, sitting on the rim of the Arroyo de los Pinos is the brand spanking new Santa Fe Botanical Gardens which has its grand opening to the public this weekend. I run by there on a near weekly basis and have been witness to the slow determined progress of workers fashioning barren New Mexican clay and sand into a space of brilliant color and understated beauty. And what was once old, is new again.

Santa Fe Botanical Gardens

The re-purposed and remodeled span of the Kearney Gap Bridge - Sun Mountain top left

Related Posts:
  - Santa Fe's Arroyo Systems
  - Museum Hill by Bike
  - Picacho Peak
  - Sun Mountain Trail


View Museum Hill Foot Trails - Santa Fe, NM in a larger map

The Santa Fe Rail Trail Re-Imagined

The Pistol - out rippin' miles like a boss

In light of the recent trail and forest closures due to excessive fire danger (our second closure in three years), I thought I'd write about the Rail Trail which will remain open during the closures and for that reason is likely to see a bit more foot and cycling traffic over the next couple months. Because the southern section of the trail is relatively flat and has only one road crossing (Rabbit Rd) it's ideal for long marathon training runs (20+) and for non-technical mountain bike rides if you or someone in your riding group lacks the skillset to negotiate Dale Ball or La Tierra.

The Rail Trail is a genuine classic, holding title as the oldest of our in-town trails. It predates the Arroyo Chamisos Trail (footpaths before the trail was put in), by several years if not longer. As such, it stood as the template for the many trails that have come afterward including Arroyo Chamisos (1997), Dale Ball (2001), and eventually the Santa Fe River and Acequia Trails. The Winsor, Borrego, and Atalaya trails are much older, but they traverse the foothills and high county and share a pastoral history that generally belongs in an all together different class of trail systems.

Thirty years ago the Rail Trail was primarily an ad-hoc route that followed along the Santa Fe Rail Line from Arroyo Hondo and Sunlit Hills up to the city limits. Eldorado was just being built out then and Lamy was a as sparsely populated as it is now. An adventurous friend I knew in high school would occasionally bike in along the rail line all the way from Glorieta, (he also happened to be a state champion runner). But things changed for the better in 1994 when Stewart Udall and the newly formed Santa Fe Conservation Trust stepped in and secured the land in trust, and with some federal funding that they cobbled together they were able to build out a few re-routes and development of actual sections of trail separate from the railbed cobbles and rail-ties.

New trail improvements include a planed surface and significant erosion control - Fall 2012

Rock work and an newly elevated section near the tracks - Fall 2012

Looking north at the newly elevated path. It's completed now.
Note the snow in the highcountry when the photo was taken. 

Cadillac pedestrian crossing out in BFE

The Rail Trail has been improved on a couple times since, most notably the formal development of the trail from the city/county line out on Rabbit Rd through town and into the new Railyard Plaza in 2008. Formal trailheads were also put in at Nine Mile Rd, Rabbit Rd, and Zia & St. Francis at that time. Last summer (2012) saw the completion of stage 1 of a new alignment and re-grade of the trail, bringing the trail up to code by setting it a minimum distance from the tracks, building in fence lines and signage, and adding features for better drainage and maintenance of the trail. The work involved the two miles of trail between Rabbit Rd and the Spur Trail. I don't recall the sequence in which work is scheduled on the other sections but I believe the Eldorado portion attracts the second most traffic along the trail and so they are next in line.

New signage

Old signage. True story - I probably ran out a couple hundred miles on the Rail Trail
before someone pointed these mile markers out to me.  Just never noticed them I guess. 

I love the what they've done to the trail. It's just gorgeous now with most if not all of the sand sections and widowmaker potholes removed (not fun to be surprised by one of these at night). The new rock work and berms provide texture and capture the proper aesthetic. My favorite times to be on the trail are daybreak, sunset, and at full moon. Unmatched views. The major new complaint from rec users that I hear often is that in an effort to make the trail more accessible all technical elements have been sanitized and removed. Bollocks, I say! If you get out and explore a little a bit you'll find that there's miles of untouched singletrack on the east side of the tracks. Great for running, less great for riding in my opinion because in my experience sand and blind potholes lead to unnecessary separation from the bike followed by pain and discomfort. If your aim is technical riding why mark the Rail Trail anyway when Dale Ball sits beckoning only a few miles to the east? The two offer very different trail experiences. One is a national class recreation trail, Dale Ball; the other is a stellar off-road commuter route amenable to jogging strollers, the Rail Trail. Decades in the making no less.

Now get out there and make it happen. Explore your trails.

Miles 6, 7, and 8 - on any given summer evening on the Rail Trail. 

Related Posts:
  - Rail Trail Improvements Update (Sep 2015)
  - Train Trestle Loop
  - Cycling the Rail Trail - Zia Rd to Nine Mile Rd'
  - Luminaries on the Rail Trail



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Santa Fe Forest Closed for Fire Season

Sunrise over the Sangres (6/22)

Update:
Closures will be lifted Friday 7/12

It has been in the papers and on the news the last few days, but the Santa Fe National Forests have been set to Stage III restrictions as of this morning (6/24), and will be closed to all access until further notice. The Pecos Wilderness was closed a couple weeks back to deal with the ongoing fires in the Pecos River Basin (Tres Lagunas Fire) and up on the higher ridge of East Pecos Baldy (Jaroso Fire). The Cibola national forests in Albuquerque have been in Stage III for several weeks, the Carson national forests up in Taos moved to Stage II recently. Bandelier National Monument and the Bandelier Wilderness are still open at Stage II restrictions.

The Santa Fe closure also affects the Caja del Rio area, which is unfortunate. City trails that will remain open include Dale Ball and the Dorothy Stewart extension, the Audubon/SF Canyon Preserve, La Tierra, the Rail Trail (including the Spur Trail), Arroyo Hondo, and Galisteo Basin. I believe Sun and Moon Mountains are still open since they're in City Open Space. Atalaya trails are open. likely closed though I can't confirm that. Picacho Peak is open remains a bit of a question as well. All of the City Urban Trails will of course remain open.

The ascent up Chamisa at daybreak

Right, well none of this was unexpected and several folks I know had plans to get up on the trails this weekend before closure went into effect. Some of the folks included me. Adam and I were first on Dale Ball, Chamisa, and Sidewinder Trails on Saturday. Tried to descend through Little Tesuque Trail but the County now has a fence up at La Piedra and the Yellow Dot trail, so we hiked the 33 switchbacks and returned via Dale Ball. Beautiful morning to be out.

We could smell smoke from the Jaroso fire on the higher parts of the ride. No bueno. We're all hoping the rains arrive sooner rather than later, and that the fires are held at bay until then.

Update:  Atalaya is open, but we found on Sunday 6/30 that at least one of the access trails was roped off because of work the NF crew were doing on that section of trail. We were told that the day before several hikers were ducking the rope and were ticketed $150 each. Be courteous, be smart, avoid tickets.

On the Chamisa Trail ridge. Adam's head obscured by first light.

The Rio Grande Valley - morning view from Sidewinder Trail ridge

Door to door: 2hrs 55min, ride time 2:45
Mileage: ~28mi
Highest Elev: 8,500ft



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