Ojito Wilderness

Lately I have been looking around on the web and through books for other places to hike around in New Mexico. One of my coworkers mentioned the Bisti Badlands. I have seen images from the Bisti through other blogs and thought this may be a possibility. Upon further searching I found it is probably 3 hours from home, which is not bad, just not something I wanted to do this weekend.

Besides I was not able to find a decent map on short notice. Bisti looks quite large and with my map reading and compass skills close to zero I wanted something smaller and closer. Since my trek in the Ojito I have taken compass and map 101 at the local REI store. I was working with a poor memory of compass skills from grade school. After the class I was quite happy that I felt comfortable with what I relearned. (Major cobweb burning was going on in my brain) No long treks coming but I should be able to keep myself from getting too lost.

On my search of NM badlands quite a number of locations showed up. The rock formations are unique to each of them so I may have to visit each. The Ojito Wilderness is quite close to home, just over an hour with the last 10 miles over dirt roads. I have passed by this area several times on the way to other hiking trails so I am happy for the closeness of this one. Considering the closeness of the Ojito I felt very remote, the 10 miles of dirt roads ensures that one really wants to go to this location.

My first and last contact with badlands was on one of our family vacations through the ones in South Dakota back in the 70’s. They looked like a place I want to pass through and was happy when we came out on the other side. After seeing Ojito I want to take a closer look at the SD Badlands. There’s a lot more to see when one stops and looks than what can be observed from a moving car.

The first thing I noticed was the quiet. There was little to no singing of birds. I was there I the middle of the day so the birds may have been taking a siesta. I did see quite a few animal tracks in the sand so there is wildlife. I did not see any sign of water.

The next thing I noticed is the starkness of the landscape, bare rock everywhere with some trees and shrubs. The rock formations are really different. Some look like the formations at Tent Rocks, (an earlier post) and others are totally different.

Thank you for stopping by, part two later this week.

Mark