Careful What You Wish For
Monday, July 4th, 2022: Black Range, Hikes, Sawyers, Southwest New Mexico.
My recovery plan called for a Sunday hike that would yield an incremental increase in distance and elevation from last Sunday’s hike. And to keep me motivated, it needed to avoid the popular trails near town and aim for the high mountains an hour’s drive away. My first choice was on the southern segment of the crest trail in the mountains east of us, leading to a 9,700′ peak.
But the hip pain that had stopped me from hiking 3 months ago had returned during the past week. I was proceeding on the assumption that it was only a soft tissue problem, and not a failure of my prosthesis, so I was trying to get rid of it by avoiding the activities that seemed to trigger it: hip-specific exercises, and hikes with long, steep climbs.
After a long, conflicted inner debate, I ended up reluctantly driving a short distance to a very popular trail just north of town, that would give me as much distance as I was comfortable with, on a gentle grade that shouldn’t hurt my hip.
Near town, the sky was clear and rain wasn’t forecast until evening, so I’d left my waterproof boots and pants at home. This trail starts on a primitive forest road up a narrow canyon, involving about 8 stream crossings. Some of the crossings are barely doable when the stream is low, but today it turned out to be a raging flood.
“Screw this,” I said to myself. “I’m going to climb the damn mountain. If my hip starts hurting, I’ll just cut the hike short.” So, now more than an hour behind schedule, I drove the long hour east.
The crest hike begins at the 8,200′ pass on the highway. Our recent mega-fire burned southward almost to the north side of the pass, and although our early monsoon quenched the flames, the north two-thirds of the range, including the wilderness area, remains closed.
The pass is a popular place with urbanites from Las Cruces and El Paso, and since the trail north was closed, I was expecting company on the southern segment. But despite my late start, the parking area was empty.
In fact, the trail turned out to be overgrown with thorny locust and Gambel oak, and the only tracks were from cattle. I’d encountered cattle once before along this trail, but they’d always been far outnumbered by deer and elk. This new regime echoed a worrying trend in our local mountains – livestock seem to be on the increase everywhere.
The trail climbs steadily, at a gentle grade, through the burn scar of the 2013 mega-fire. That fire had burned at high intensity over most of this area, and the remaining snags continued to topple and block the trail, which now had an abandoned feel.
But occasional views east from the deforested slopes continued to be rewarding. This is a narrow north-south range, and the eastern slope is so steep that the nearest outlying peaks are over a thousand feet lower, giving you a clear view over 40 miles of rumpled landscape to the low ranges across the Rio Grande.
As I climbed southwards along the crest, I saw a dark storm cloud forming ahead, and thought it would be great to get some weather. Be careful what you wish for!
The farther I went, the more the ground had been fouled by cattle. I had to walk carefully to avoid the deep pits made in the mud of the trail by their hooves. Saddles between peaks had been turned into churned-up mudpits, and even on steep grassy slopes the ground was an obstacle course of rain-softened cowpies. After dealing with that and fighting my way over all that deadfall and blowdown, I finally neared the base of the peak, and the rain began.
It was a hard rain, and because I’d originally targeted the trail near town, I was unprepared. Yes, I had my poncho, but I knew my feet would soon be wet in the breathable boots with their dysfunctional Gore-Tex.
But the peak was only a half mile and a few hundred vertical feet above, so I had to keep going.
Deep soil remains on these mountains from the pre-fire alpine forest, and rainwater was pouring down the slopes in a sheet flow, turning the soil into a continuous bog. And on top of that, the slopes are an obstacle course of fallen logs, many of which are so big you have to zigzag back and forth to avoid them. When I finally slogged my way to the top, where the view is blocked by spectral snags, my feet and lower pant legs were completely soaked. And I could see through the ghost forest on the north side that my return route lay under an even heavier storm.
The hike back alternated between long, apocalyptic downpours of rain and hail, with lightning and thunder all around, and brief respites of light rain. Inside my boots, cold water sloshed all the way up my ankles, and my waterlogged canvas pants chilled me and weighed me down. My hip was hurting but it was the least of my worries – I was rushing to get back to the vehicle, put an end to this misbegotten ordeal, and change into dry socks.
The hood on my cheap poncho is designed so it always blocks at least one of your eyes, so I normally carry a cap to prop the hood up. But having left that at home, I had to make do without depth perception, and stumbled a lot, my soaked boots providing no ankle support.
More torrential rain fell on the highway home. All I could do was eagerly anticipate a hot bath!
