Sagebrush Trails

• NNML day 23, July 10, Friday
• Start S8 mile 25.6, meadow along Agua Piedra Trail #19A
• End S8 mile 46.7 creek near Truchas Lake
• Miles walked: 21.1

I climb Agua Piedra Trail along a firebreak or old road, with open space along the forest edge.

The route joins the Divide Trail, and follows along the edge of a firebreak or blowdown event, with a huge number of uprooted trees.

Now I get above treeline, having climbed from 8.5k to 12.5k elevation, and prepare to hike 12 miles on exposed ridges in good weather, on faint or disappearing tread following cairns. The tread is often scattered rock at odd angles, difficult footing, hard to hike at a reasonable speed.

Views are magnificent along the Santa Barbara Divide, on the border between the Carson National Forest and the Santa Fe National Forest.

After a few miles, rocks seem gathered into channels. Is this glacial action, topsoil gradually accumulating over a rocky base, or something else?

More images.

Late in the afternoon I trip on the scattered rocks I have been coping with all day, and fall hard— harder than I ever remember on a long hike, and hit my knee, hand, and chest, and I need to take a few moments to calm down and recover.

Is my finger supposed to bend like this?

My little finger of my dominant hand is dislocated, my first dislocation ever. I try a few times to pull and reset it, and eventually feel a little “pop”, and it looks a bit straighter, but still not normal. It starts swelling. I may need medical attention, but am several days from a trailhead, or even cell phone service.

Well, hike on, then.

Here is the rocky area I was dealing with just before the fall.

Views continue to be sublime.

I look down on an elk herd.

My route joins the Skyline Trail #251.

Finally I get to trees and a water source, a small creek just before Truchas Lake, and set up camp for a well-deserved rest.

Finished audiobook Men Without Women, by Ernest Hemingway.

• NNML day 22, July 9, Thursday
• Start S8 mile 0, Ranchos de Taos
• End S8 mile 25.6, meadow just beyond Agua Piedra Campground
• Miles walked: 25.6

Walking out of Ranchos de Taos along Camino Abajo de la Loma, ths neighborhood theme seems to be “charmingly dilapidated”. But nearly every rancho has a coyote fence.

NM 518 continues the neighborhood theme.

I divert from my route slightly because of an USFS notice.

Rio Grande del Ranchos Trail 18 goes for several miles through piñon and juniper forest. Nice trail, good for mountain bikes, Trnil 18 is old roadbed converted to single-track.

Approaching Rio Grande del Rancho, just a creek with a long name, first I need to push through a thicket of willow.

The wet-foot crossing of Rio Grande del Rancho seems deeper than I figured. Then I see the nearby beaver dam.

The route follows a utility line road, and I take no photos because I do not want to remember the steep ascent.

On a mountain of mixed conifer, a succession of 2-tracks must be navigated. So many roads up here. And I pass many ghost roads– roads that have been allowed to be overgrown. Was all this from old logging?

I come down the mountainside on Flechado Canyon Trail, go past Agua Piedra Campground, and find a campsite beyond the fee area in a meadow.

My trip journal app must have accidentally updated at the last town, and no longer works correctly without an Internet connection. Well, fudge.

Finished audiobook Pimpernel and Rosemary, by Baroness Emma Orczy.