Red River and a New Wilderness

The highest peak in NM, Wheeler Peak from the Sawmill Park Trail

Thankfully, we had an uneventful drive from Santa Barbara Campground back to the “High Road to Taos,” driving first to Taos and Questa then on to Red River to camp for the weekend.  Although June can be one of the hottest months in New Mexico, so far we have experienced wonderful weather.  Warm days, cool nights with afternoon and evening thunderstorms nearly every day – pretty perfect as far as we are concerned.  This lovely pattern continued through our weekend in Red River. 

Hiking through a mature spruce forest

It was so good to see the healthy spruce in this area as so many spruce

have been killed by bark beetle throughout the country.

Nearly lost in the thick, young spruce forest

Our campground in Red River was only a few miles from the Wheeler Peak Wilderness and David and I had never hiked in that wilderness.  Bright and early on Saturday morning, we drove the few miles to the trailhead for a new wilderness adventure.  There were two options for trails to hike, one of them leading to the high country and joining with another trail to Wheeler Peak (the highest mountain in NM at 13,161 feet).  We were just recovering from our recent snow hike and not quite ready to summit the snow covered Wheeler Peak, thus we opted for the lower trail to Sawmill Park which respectably enough climbed to 10,980 feet and was a little over 10 miles round trip.

The "Big Ditch" (on the left, trail on right)

The trail crossed “The Big Ditch,” also known as the Elizabethtown Ditch, which was constructed in 1868 by the Moreno Valley Water and Mining Company to transfer water from the Upper Red River Watershed to the gold fields in Moreno Valley.  The ditch was 41 miles in length and included 3 miles of elevated wooden flumes.  But today all that remains is the overgrown depression where the ditch once existed.  400 men hand dug the ditch.  When we hike in historic areas like this, it always amazes me that people were able to even get to the places to begin with, with no roads and only horses and sometimes wagons.  And then to build, farm, mine or process timber in these steep, rocky areas with only hand tools – that’s just incredible to me.  I can barely walk the trails with modern equipment.

Maya being her goofy self

Our hike turned out to be one of those near perfect times that was just too much fun and part of that was due to our crazy dog.  Maya was in a silly, playful mood all day and kept us laughing at her escapades (more about that in a moment). 

Although perfectly capable of getting her own snow, Maya prefers it from

the center of the pile and fed to her by David.

The Sawmill Park Trail climbed but not too steeply, and the couple of stream crossings were easy.  It was fun reading the signage at “The Big Ditch” and learning some history of the area.  Once we reached Sawmill Park, a large and beautiful mountain meadow with a meandering stream flowing through the middle, the spruce, fir and aspen trees were joined by Bristlecone pines (some of the very oldest trees in the world and a favorite tree of ours). 

1000 year old Bristlecone, 60 year old Cindy, 12.5 year old Maya

"Some old babies"

Two years ago, we visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in California’s Inyo National Forest and learned a lot about these extremely long-lived trees.  The trees in California live in a very poor soil and have little competition so they can live over 4,000 years.  The oldest Bristlecone Pines we encountered in Sawmill Park were only around 1,000 to 1,500 years old!  It was cool to see the Bristlecone growing in a very different environment, this one in New Mexico much more lush and with a diversity of other trees.  (See June 2014 blogs for more info on the Bristlecone Pines.)

The little stream in the meadow, our stop for lunch

We had planned to lunch by the twisting stream in the middle of the meadow but just as we were about to sit down, Maya decided to take a little wade.  That is what she thought anyway.  The stream wasn’t more than 2 to 3 feet wide but it was much deeper than Maya anticipated.  As she placed her feet on the edge to ‘wade in,’ she plunged into the stream head first and disappeared under water. 

It's a lot deeper than it looks!

"I never saw that coming..."

Was she ever surprised!  She bobbed to the surface looking quite miffed and David had to help her out as the bank was quite steep.  The water was freezing cold so poor Maya was running, rolling and shaking all over the place getting us wet in the process.  After we finished laughing, we moved to a sunny spot up slope and dried her off best as we could, all of us having lunch in the sun to warm up.

Shake it off...

After that Maya was just a silly girl, romping and doing all kinds of crazy things.  She enjoyed the few snow drifts we encountered and sniffed for critters in the meadow.  But when we got back to the car, she practically collapsed in the back seat.  I had to shake her awake when we got back to the RV.  She was one tired dog.  We all were ready for bed early.

And roll...

Sunday we recuperated and did a few chores.  Later this morning we will leave Red River for a nearby forest campground.  We hope to hike again in the Wheeler Peak Wilderness and two other nearby wildernesses.  It will be a week of new wilderness areas for us. 

Back on the trail and headed 'home'

David’s Stats:

Days Hiked  1  
Total Miles Hiked   10.07  
Total Elevation Gain     1,298