This being the monsoon season in northern New Mexico, we’re getting pretty regular showers and big, dramatic clouds. Thus, the plants are growing and the sunsets are excellent!
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Old roads
We took a little ride in the heat (90F) on Tuesday, out on the plateau south from Santa Fe. It’s a very old route, and has various spurs that go off to look over the edge of the gorge down into the Santa Fe river, but eventually it hits the edge of the escarpment and there’s a wonderfully-constructed zig-zag route down into the valley below. Once, this was the main road!
Other than a slow leak in my rear tire that gradually turned into a faster leak, it was a fun exploration.
Bikepacking on the Caja del Rio (and the Great April Windbreaker Rescue)
After a few checkout rides, we took our new Bike Friday All-Packa small-wheel folding bikes on their inaugural bikepacking adventure to the Caja del Rio plateau. It’s a short but suitably rugged 12 mile route from home out to a scenic overlook of “Dead Dog junction” which looks better than it sounds. A thick basalt layer caps the plateau, and where the old lava flow ends there’s an escarpment that drops a hundred feet or so down to Alamo Creek and the historic El Camino de Tierra Adentro. https://www.nps.gov/elca/learn/historyculture/index.htm
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Camping with Will and Tom
I (Chad) showed my friends Will and Tom some of the local scenery -- we drove up to the Valles Caldera and poked around for the day, then camped at Bandelier National Monument for the night before exploring the cliff dwellings. Stunning weather and scenery!
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
The rest of the trip
After the kiddo's graduation, we helped move a ton of his stuff up to the mountains. Naturally we used it as an excuse to camp our way up 395.