Rio Cebolla April 25

The Rio Cebolla Valley is one of my favorite places to hike.  After a lot of debate I found out that it is pronounced “See-boy’-a”, onion, in Spanish.  Evidently there were a lot of onions that grew there at one time.  I have not found any.....

onions so you could not prove it by me.  This is my third trip to the valley.  I managed to catch fall colors and a bit of snow last October.  I was hoping to catch spring blooming flowers, I did, but there were very few.  I am happy that my camera saves the meta-data so I go to my images and know exactly when I was at a particular place.

The valley itself is a flat bottom open grassland anywhere from 100 – 300’ wide.  There are patches of apsen all along the valley which give great yellow fall color in among all the fir trees.  One can see lots of bite marks in the sides of the aspens from elk which travel through the area and either like aspen bark for dinner, or they are desperate for something to eat in winter.

The Cebolla is a special trout stream just up river from the Seven Springs Fish Hatchery, on state road 126 in the Jemez Mountains.  The area is set up for day use with restrooms just down from the trail head.  I took my two wheel drive Ranger up here with no problem.  As one goes farther up the road from the fish hatchery one has to drive slower because it is pretty much one + lane and uneven.  As I said before I had no problems with my small 2WD pickup, I can’t speak to a car making it to the trailhead.

Each time I come here I have seen fly fishermen trying their luck.  The last update I got is that this river is almost entirely spring fed.  I have come across several damp, soft spots along the valley floor which I am assuming are springs feeding the river.  Even when we came up in November of 2012 parts of the river were frozen but it was free flowing for the most part.  The water is very clear each time I have been here.  I’ve seen shadows of trout darting up the river as I get close enough to spook them.  The river itself is small, 2 – 4’ wide at the most, I could easily find narrow spots where I could easily step across the river.

Here are three photos of a tree that has lived past its prime.

About two miles up from the trailhead there is a large pond, I was told that the water above the pond is populated exclusively by native cutthroat trout.  Because I do not fish, yet, I can only take the word of the fly fisherman I spoke with.  On a future trip Byron was along catching several cutthroats.  

That’s a future post.

I hiked up-stream about three miles.  It goes on for several more but getting a late start kept me from going any farther.

There were a lot of cattle grazing the valley.  The grass is green and plush, good eating for the cattle.  Besides dandelions, Sweet Alyssum was the only flower I could find blooming along the river.  I also photographed a few other things I found in the valley.  Enjoy

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark