My story starts the previous Tuesday, “Mark wants to go up to the Pecos
Wilderness this Friday”, Byron mentioned to me in my office. “We’ll check out a couple of the rivers for
fishing later this year”. I thought
‘Hmm, I’m in, but I’m also certain there will be a fly rod or two accompanying us, along with the other necessary tools to ‘wet a line’’. (I’m picking up on the fly fishing lingo)...
Back to the story.
I started watching the weather on Wednesday, snow; and lots
of it is forecast for Friday – Sunday. I
can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that before and absolutely nothing
appeared. Snow was still forecast on
Thursday, with the same intensity. Hedging
our bets Byron and I stopped off to rent snowshoes; maybe the weather forecast
will be right this time. When 4AM came
around Friday morning it seemed unusually bright outside my bedroom
window. It actually snowed, it was only
an inch or two but the snow came as predicted.
The roads outside the house look clear so the snow should be only a
minor holdup…
Texts started flying back and forth between the three of us;
Mark is really interested in investigating the Pecos. Byron and I just want to get out for our
monthly stroll in the woods, desert, rivers, or mountains; whatever sounds good
at the time we start our drive. “The
roads are a sheet of ice here (Bernalillo)” Mark texted. “It doesn’t look bad here” I replied. “Let’s see how it looks coming up in your
direction”.
I stopped to pick up Byron.
It turns out to be fortuitous that I decided to drive today. I have driven in conditions like this living
in Wisconsin; I haven’t in a while, but Byron has never driven in these
conditions. The roads in town were
generally quite good unless you are driving towards Tramway Blvd., the way I
happen to be going.
I should have paid attention to the little episode that
happened in Byron’s driveway…
I parked like normal, opened the back of the truck, started
putting his stuff in the truck, then we started holding or trying to hold the
truck in place as it began sliding down the driveway. Byron and I looked at each other like deer in
headlights, we slowed and even stopped the truck from sliding but it was
probably more hitting a dry spot on the driveway than our mighty strength
stopping the truck. While it set there
for a second or two Byron ran around jumping in the truck applying additional
brake power. Fortunately I had left the
door on the driver’s side open making that move relatively easy. If we had been smart we would have thought a
little more about pursuing our hiking adventure.
We are guys, we don’t do that.
It is slushy, icy and slick; with lots of other people on
the road that probably haven’t driven in snow in a long time. The snow is certainly not near the Boston
standard for snow this year but driving is still a challenge. Our goal is to go about two hours north into
the Jemez Mountains; the interstate is closed on the far side of Santa Fe so
the Pecos Wilderness is out. We drove to
Bernalillo on I-25 at a steady 35mph; the posted speed is 70 – 75.
We met Mark in Bernalillo, said hi and started thinking
about plan C, there wasn’t a plan C.
“Let’s skip going to the Jemez”.
“By the time we get there we will have to turn around because the road
conditions will certainly be worse than what we experienced on the
Interstate”. Mark came up with idea
snowshoeing on the Sandia Crest. He’s
hiked and snowshoed there multiple times and said it’s a great area to
see. We jumped all over that idea. There’s only one small detail; we get to go
back the way we just came from to get to the tram which will take us to the
Crest. This time we drove back through
town, in hindsight I think the interstate may have been better but I thought
the streets should be devoid of cars; people should be staying home or be at
work already. Boy was I wrong.
As time passed during our tour of Rio Rancho it started
warming up just enough to make the roads wet instead of icy. I noticed more and more people starting to
drive the normal - speed limit +5.
 |
| Our ride up to the Crest |
The top of the
mountain is socked in. It’s relatively
calm in the foothills, hardly any snow, certainly not enough for snowshoeing. We gathered all our stuff, sans fly rods
making our way to the bottom terminal of the tram. The ride takes 15 minutes; about 5 minutes
into the ride we lose visual contact with the world. All we see are the cables hauling us to the
top of the mountain. 10 minutes later we
catch glimpses of the upper terminal. It
looks cold; the face of the terminal is covered in ice, the trees are frozen in
place even with the 20+ mph winds incessantly blowing. Once the tram car door opens the scenes of
cold become reality. As we gather our
snowshoeing gear and walk towards the terminal we notice a thermometer; 16°.
In the terminal we prepare for our expedition; heavy coats,
hats, gloves/mittens, windproof pants, you name it. We carry our snowshoes to the edge of the deck;
I’m sure the restaurant would not appreciate us snowshoeing across it. In the five minutes it took us to get our
snow shoes on and equipment situated so we look like we know what we are doing
my fingers are freezing. They don’t hurt
from the cold; they are numb. I have
this sinking feeling that the next time I take off my mittens my fingers may
just fall out by themselves. I am happy
to tell you that after 10 minutes of snowshoeing I regained feeling in my
fingers and they are still attached as I write this.
Along the west facing slope the wind assaults everything in
its path. Snow accumulates horizontally
on tree branches; it’s hard to breathe; your face stings from the little bits
of blowing snow and ice. Yet we enjoy
being here to see, feel and experience this.
Byron spots a photo op and splits off to shoot. Mark and I move ahead partly to get out of
the wind and partly to move so we get circulation into our extremities. Once in the trees the wind all but
stops. There must be between half a foot
and 3’ of snow. I also see photo ops and
wander off the trail finding views that interest me. I already know I will stick with my wide lens;
I do not want to expose the inside of my camera to the blowing wind and snow while changing lenses.
Our world is a traveling 300’ circle centered on each of us. The clouds are constantly around us; sometimes
the snow starts blowing around us making our world even smaller. Today, nature is monotone; white with many
shades of gray; there are no shadows. From
a distance conifers normally a rich dark green, are shades of gray from the
coat of snow and ice they are wearing. Only
when you get up close can colors be discerned.
After a couple of hours of trekking and photographing we
stopped for lunch. We found a spot where
a trail went down the west face of the mountain, a nice view but lots of
wind. We hastily eat our sandwiches and
make our way back into the trees escaping from the wind to warm up. Here we encountered trees dropping large
snowballs all around us. The wind had started
gusting causing the trees to sway back and forth hence the falling
snowballs. The ‘whomps’ we heard from
the snow hitting the ground made us wish we had brought our hardhats. We didn’t wait to see who would be the first
taken out by a random snowball.
Shortly after lunch I noticed the cold is catching up with
my water bottles, I am still able to drink but the water is freezing fast. By the time we got back to the terminal after
5 hours of snowshoeing the top of my water bottle is frozen shut. Mark also had problems with his camelback;
the drinking tube froze around lunch time.
Our trip back went quicker.
We had a nice trail all cleared out for us so the shoeing was easier and
we knew we wouldn’t get lost. As the
afternoon wore on more snow and ice was starting to come down. We noticed in several spots the snow was developing an icy crust. When we
arrived back at the terminal we notice it had warmed up to 20°.
The ride down was much the same as the ride up. We didn’t see Albuquerque until the last descent
down to the bottom terminal. It had
warmed quite a bit in town. All the snow
in the parking lot and on the roads had melted and in some spots the road was
dry.
After we unloaded all our gear we stopped in the bar at the
bottom of the tram to celebrate our day and start planning our next adventure.
Mark
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