By Patricia Lee Sharpe
The plan was this: follow the off-loop as it swooped down, down, down through aspen-covered slopes. Eventually, according to a very sketchy map, the track would climb up, up, up to the main trail, which would circle me back to my car. Unfortunately the lesser track led to an unmapped rocky outcropping. Picturesque, but a dead end. Unless, as I hoped, the track resumed on the other side. Naturally, I investigated. Stupidly, I got lost.
Picture this: Skinny pale-trunked aspen trees surrounding me like a palisade. Aspens marching one behind the other as far as I could see into the forest. Aspen clones laughing This way! This way! This way! while I racked my brains. Which way? Which way?
Going for the Gold
Wednesday was a work day. I had electronic errands to accomplish. I had a WV post to write. But it’s Aspen Season in Santa Fe. The sky is azure. The mountains are turning gold. Facing my computer monitor, I was also facing a window, and that’s what I saw.
How could I stay inside? I couldn’t, which doesn’t make me uniquely sensitive to the season. Throngs of locals and tourists have their eyes on the gold at this time of year. They drive to the ski basin, hop on the Aspen Express aka a ski lift, hop out at 11,500 feet, survey 360 degrees of gold- glinting slopes, capture all digitally, then plop into another chair for the ride downhill. Some people saunter back via a service road. Others beeline down a steep, stony and still snowless piste.
I’ve gone the ski lift route, but Wednesday I was in the mood for something resembling wilderness, the question being: Which trail? I could have been ambitious and headed toward the saddle before the final ascent of Santa Fe Baldy. I could have trudged up a six mile jeep road leading to the top of Tesuque peak. For that matter, I could have settled for a stroll along the Santa Fe river, where cottonwoods lag the aspen only slightly in the golding process. I opted for the Nordic trail, a gentle track that winds up and down for 2 ½ miles. Elevation 1080 feet. It’s basically a hugely convoluted loop, with lots of less-trod crossovers for those seeking shorter excursions. My plan was to complete the loop in one direction, then double back. An afternoon in the glorious crisp air of early autumn.
Things didn’t start well. Five minutes up the trail, my throat was dry. I’d left my water bottle in the car. It had to be retrieved. If I was thirsty already, I’d be miserable after a mile or so.
Bears and Cougars
Oh, yes! Although the Nordic trail is very easy on the legs, I also took one hiking pole along. It was a weekday. There were only three other cars in the parking area, which meant I’d be meeting other human beings at the rate of one party per mile. In short, I’d be alone on the trail, which, from most points of view, is a pleasure. However, when solitary in the woods, I feel better if I have something to brandish at bears, which are relatively harmless, and at the less harmless cougars, which are sighted, albeit rarely, even in the city of Santa Fe itself, where they snack on cats and little dogs. Not that I’ve ever seen a cougar. Not that I believe this feather light carbon shaft would make a full-out pounce less lethal. I just feel better with my magic stick.
Also a little silly, as on Wednesday. Toward the trail’s halfway point I met a couple coming counterclockwise toward me. “For mountain lions?” the guy chuckled. “Absolutely,” I grinned, to show it was all a game. Really! Ha. Ha.
The Nordic track is a well defined, narrow path of soft humus, wonderfully soft to walk on, bordered by tallish grasses and wild-flowers. Every so often the trail is punctuated by stones or roots, and there are fallen trees everywhere, mostly aspen, which grow thickly here, pale matchstick trunks, some thicker than others, but otherwise pretty much alike. The cross-over trails are harder to see and follow: tromped down plant matter with a tendency to prefer the vertical. But even the main trail is invisible from ten feet into the scrub.
Loopy Loops
I had a hunch that a portion of what seemed like the main trail was actually a crossover trail, so my goal on Wednesday was to complete the entire circuit, not the truncated version. If the trail proper were still competently blazed, there’d have been no challenge, but most markers have long since fallen off, and the remaining blue patches appear sporadically at best.
Optimistically, I veered down a little path that carried the authority of bare dirt. Then came that rocky outcropping, with an apparently promising track beyond, which may have been made by feet, but may also have been carved out by rain coursing off granite. Either way, the thread ended at an unscalable, impenetrable pile of brush and rotting tree trunks, after which the slope threatened to become a cliff. Oh well, back to the rocks! I thought, where I’d regain the good honest trail I’d come by. Delusion! I couldn’t even find the distinctive little aspen I'd meant to serve as a trail marker.
That was the moment of panic. Surely I was no more than a hundred feet from where I needed to be. And my parked car was probably only two miles away as the crow flies. But my trail had vanished, and searching for it could get me even more lost—or so the warnings go.
Bleaching Bones
When I first came to Santa Fe, I had a serio-comic bear phobia. Having hiked these parts for years now and never seen a bear, I’ve become fairly complacent re ursine threats. Now I only have cougar phobias, so I’d left my bear whistle in the car. Dumb.
Bear whistles can summon humans, while hiking poles are useless, as are cell phones, except on hilltops, where I definitely wasn’t. I was in a bowl, and no one was expecting me for supper. So I had a problem. Especially since I doubted that a trooper, spotting my car still in the parking lot at nine or ten, would initiate a search for an illegal camper. My conclusion: sitting in place I’d probably end up as bleached bones, and I certainly didn’t intend to be in the woods after dark. Talk about cougars!
At that point, logic took over. I decided to execute a kind of grid search. I'd criss-cross, systematically, the sunny meadow-like area that had to be hiding my exit route. The scheme worked. More quickly than I expected, I was looping back toward the trailhead.
And then I heard the noise. A funny sound, ressembling a huge yawn. Then came a rumble---or was it a roar! I stopped. People clowning! I thought, hopefully. And unconvincingly, because the sounds were coming from the wrong direction. The source had to be something wild. And big. Which could mean only one thing.
Eyes still probing the mysterious depths of the forest for a tawny carnivore, I hurried up the trail. Mistake. My toe stubbed an unnoticed root and plop! I was belly down on the path. And what was I thinking? This, of course: Now’s the time for the pounce! Which didn’t happen, except in my imagination, at least a dozen times, before I reached the parking lot.
The Joy of Traffic
Did I turn back then, to complete the reverse loop? I did not. I didn’t even mind the bumper to bumper traffic returning to town from the ski area and other aspen viewing points. People! Wonderful people! I didn’t even curse the timid drivers who don’t know how to handle curves on mountains.
Speaking of cars, I’ve already eased my bear whistle onto my keyring, so I won't leave it in the glove compartment. For Christmas, I’ll be asking for a GPS. And maybe bear spray would work on cougars. I've got to get this loop business figured out before it snows.