The Dark, the Wet, and the Cold
Monday, November 17th, 2025: Hikes, Mogollon Mountains, Southwest New Mexico, Whitewater.
Since the new knee doc said I could continue to hike without damaging my knee – and since for the past month I’d been limiting myself to 6 miles and 1,500 feet of elevation gain – I felt ready to tackle a little more mileage and elevation. But in my now-vast library of regional hikes, most options over 6 miles result in more elevation gain than my body is ready for.
I ended up with only two alternatives in less than a two-hour drive from home. But one of those was the partial hike of a trail I’d done many times, and ended at a very undramatic spot. The remaining option was a trail I’d never hiked before, a trail the official websites said had suffered catastrophic washouts and had been impassable since the 2012 wildfire.
The reason I was willing to try it was that in the previous week, I’d found a recent online trip report that said the trail had been at least partially cleared. But – on the eve of departure I could no longer find that trip report.
On top of everything, I’d had a very challenging couple of weeks and kept telling myself I needed a pleasant, fun hike – not a grueling bushwhacking, routefinding challenge. But in the end, the allure of hiking an unfamiliar trail and penetrating new habitat proved to be irresistable.
As usual, before leaving, I checked the weather forecast – but crucially, I only checked the forecast for town, which was for clear skies and a high just over 60. My first surprise occurred when the highway turned north and clouds appeared ahead, and my biggest surprise occurred when the high mountains appeared, partly obscured under a dark storm. That was my destination.
Since our weather finally turned cool, I was prepared for fall conditions – sweater, storm shell, thermal cap and glove liners – but not for winter weather, which in the past would’ve been essential in November. Winter wear includes thermal bottoms, fleece jacket, and insulated Goretex gloves.
Today’s trail starts on the rocky backcountry road – usually closed by now – that traverses the northern boundary of our big wilderness area. This road climbs a narrow, dark canyon with steep sides. The trail itself climbs over a ridge and descends into the biggest canyon on the west side of our high mountains, continuing up the other side to a junction near a 10,200 foot peak. When I was at peak fitness this trail had never appealed to me, even as a routefinding bushwhack, because it spends most of its time below 8,000 feet. But if I could reach the bottom of the big canyon today that would net me 7.5 miles and 2,400 vertical feet.
Two big pickup trucks from Texas had parked in such a way as to block the entire parking area for the trailhead. I’d passed dozens of hunting rigs on the way here, so I assumed the pickup drivers would be hunting somewhere along the trail ahead of me – not a pleasant thought. But I’d driven most of two hours to get here, so I continued to another parking spot about 500 feet up the road.
My previous hikes from this road had started more than a thousand feet higher, in the burn scar in former spruce-aspen forest. Here the forest was intact, but the trail started dauntingly steep. In fact, I couldn’t imagine anyone hunting deer in such steep terrain with such dense forest. Deer hunters seem to prefer level ground and open woodland where you can keep a steady eye on moving game and easily follow it on foot.
But my concerns were more immediate – making steady progress on steep grades, up and down deeply eroded gullies, and staying dry – it began to drizzle, then rain hard enough for my poncho, in the first quarter mile. Not what I’d planned for at all! I realized I should’ve checked the forecast farther north.
Despite the official warnings, it was a good trail, with narrow but level tread, and most deadfall had been logged. The habitat – high-elevation pines, fir, and eventually spruce, with occasional lichen-covered boulders – was beautiful in the rain. Still, it was so steep that I had to stop often to catch my breath. When I finally felt the saddle approaching, I checked the time, stepped under a pine to get out of the rain, and dug out my map. It’d taken me an hour to go only a mile and a half. Hopefully I’d make much better time on the descent into the canyon – but then I’d have an even longer ascent on my return.
In the saddle, I stepped into a howling barrage of drizzle. As usual, my view of the big canyon was blocked by treetops, but when I climbed a rock formation to shoot a panorama, rain spotted the lens.
From here the trail traversed across the ridge, and when the rain stopped I was able to get a panoramic view across the big canyon. The burned slopes on the opposite side were colored vivid red and gold by oaks, maples, and locusts, but the entire landscape under the storm was so dark, the colors were almost impossible to capture with the camera.
The traverse continued around a rocky shoulder, below dramatic outcrops made forbidding by the storm. Rain had abated and I took off the poncho and replaced it with my storm shell. This was the prettiest stretch of trail, until it descended into a washed out gully where the footing changed dramatically.
Rounding another shoulder, the trail began descending, in long switchbacks, a brushy slope that consisted of pale crumbling rock. Brush, and older logs, had been cut in years past, leaving an open corridor across the crumbly rock but no level tread, so you were continuously side-hilling instead of walking, and mounds of beargrass or bunchgrass every two or three yards had to be climbed over hundreds of times on your way. Plus at the ends of the switchbacks there were deep gullies with precarious crossings where tread completely disappeared and I had to use boot edges and reach for handholds.
Meanwhile the storm clouds temporarily parted, revealed patches of blue sky, then closed to dump more rain. I knew I was running out of time, but rejoiced when I reached the end of the crumbly switchbacks, rounded another shoulder, and emerged into sunlight with the treetops of the canyon bottom only a couple hundred feet below me.
It’d taken me two hours and forty-five minutes to go 3-1/2 miles, even with most of that downhill. I could probably ascribe the slow pace to the weather – requiring frequent stops for changing outerwear – plus my cardio recovery. I figured my stops had so far amounted to close to 30 minutes.
It was a little frustrating to be so close to the bottom – I could hear the big creek roaring down there – but that descent had been brutal on my lower body and I knew I’d be sore later. And I would already end up making at least part of the drive home in the dark, something I really hate to do with the potential for wildlife on the roads.
The sunlight was soon replaced by more darkness, and at the foot of the crumbly switchbacks I was suddenly hit by a downpour that had me scrambling to dig out and pull on the already wet poncho. I’d dreaded the climb – over 1,100 vertical feet, most of it sidehilling on wet gravel – but it’s all part of hiking in wilderness, so I just switch off my feelings and take it in stages, trying to enjoy the Gothic drama of this steep, rocky landscape under a storm.
More than an hour later I reached the saddle, where the wind suddenly grabbed my poncho, and for a moment I felt like the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz was carrying me off to perdition. It was so bad, I briefly lost the trail on the other side, racing to get down out of the wind.
Once out of the wind, I stopped to roll up the poncho and replace it with my storm shell. I added the thermal cap, but my hands were wet and Raynaud’s syndrome was turning them white, so I had to rub them frantically to dry and warm them before donning the lightweight gloves. I definitely need to start packing for winter conditions.
My new Goretex boots were soaked, my canvas pants were soaked to the thighs, and it was only forward motion that kept me from shivering. Both knees were sore and I was getting some kind of cramp that made stepping down rock ledges painful, but the rain had finally abated, and the descent wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.
The big trucks were gone from the trailhead – they hadn’t used this trail, so I couldn’t imagine what else they’d been doing here. With stops, it had taken me five hours and forty minutes to go seven miles and 2,105 vertical feet.
Driving down out of the mountains on the narrow, partly one-lane winding road with its sheer drop-off, I faced some beautiful sunset skies in the west. The storm clearly covered our region, and fifteen miles out of town I hit another downpour which followed me home. Definitely not in the forecast!
At home the next day, I re-checked the official websites, and discovered their trail description had been changed in the past few days, showing the trail had been re-routed around washouts and cleared to the big creek.
