The Continental Divide Trail 2012: May 18th--- Near Laguna de la Lena to Mesa Portales

Sunrise in the Land of Enchantment

     A mystical morning in the Land of Enchantment. Eyes wide open as the sky grows lighter on the eastern horizon. Another day of hiking on the CDT is about to begin. Slipping out of the sleeping bag I go through the familiar routine of repacking my ULA Circuit as Shroomer and Why Not also gather their gear. Wyoming is already out front, hitting the trail before the sun rises. This is her way of getting a jump on the rest of us, who are, in general, faster hikers. Just before we remaining three depart, the sun appears, peeking out from the escarpment of a nearby mesa. For a great portion of the early daylight hours the full effects of earth's star will be dulled by the wispy layer of clouds overhead.
     Compared to the breakneck speed of the modern world, out here, time slows down. At hiker pace, it's measured in steps and breaths and miles. However, this is still much more rapid than the way time is kept by the land around me. In mesa country, it's measured by grains of wind-driven sand that swirl about my feet, by inundating rains that come but once a year in monsoon season subtly reshaping the land like an artist placing his final brush strokes on a masterpiece, by mudstone baking in the heat, chipping, flaking and falling, tick-tocks on a geologic clock.
     Early on, while walking along a shelf of the escarpment, we came across several interesting formations of mudstone and capstone, some looking like porticos and lintels from a Greek temple ruin. Others appeared to be giant toadstools that had magically sprung forth from the arid ground. Some small formations seemed so fragile, their base being more akin to powder than solid rock, that we wondered aloud whether they would still be standing for trekkers that passed this way a year from now.
     After a few miles on the shelf, a little winding climb took us to the mesa rim, where I truly felt like the king of all I surveyed. The desert plain lay several hundred feet below, dotted with greens of juniper and sage and streaked by the runs of arroyos and wadis. If McAfee Knob on the Appalachian Trail offers the iconic photo of a hiker in Virginia, then this provides a lasting image of what hiking in New Mexico's mesa country is all about. From time to time I'd stop to look over the edge at the jumble of giant slabs that lay strewn down the face of the escarpment, proof that as the centuries pass, the ledge on which I was now standing would eventually join them.
     Crossing a highway, we looked for a possible water cache that Ley mentioned on his maps, but all I discovered was an old plastic jug, brittle and broken, lying off in a patch of grass. None of us were relying on a cache as our sights were set on the spigot which was a couple of miles distant. Coming off of the mesa on a cairned route into Arroyo de los Cerros Colorados I noticed a bit of movement to my right. Sure enough, there was Wyoming waiting for us at the faucet. Cool water poured forth from the pipe and we took a long break to quench our thirst, fill our bottles, wash off and do a bit of field laundry. Before long socks, shirts and bandanas were hanging from the branches of a little bush or clinging to a bit of fencing surrounding the spigot. The cloud layer well nigh burnt off by this time was releasing the drying power of the sun. On the opposite side of the arroyo, a dilapidated windmill stood as a silent sentinel amidst the surrounding scrub.
     In order to reach the top of La Ventana Mesa, we had to contour around the side slopes and then pass between a gap in the Cerros Colorados, a grouping of low, interestingly-shaped, conical hills that served as a southern gateway to this particular tableland, which stood even higher above the lowlands than this morning's mesa and had a much steeper escarpment, at times forming near cliffs that plunged to the valley floor below. The land to the east, though dry, looked a bit greener and now and then groups of grazing bovines and the occasional cattle tank could be seen. For the most part the trail followed the rim, but at times it turned away snaking a well-worn path through the pine and juniper. In one particular section we had to follow a series of large cairns because erosion and weathering had scoured away nearly all of the topsoil leaving only a whitish bedrock on which to walk.
     Coming off the slanted back side of the mesa through scattered pine and a few kinds of deciduous trees, I came to a sign that pointed down a narrow sandy wash indicating the direction of the spring in Jones Canyon. At the end of the hundred meter run there is a small fenced-off alcove beneath an overhanging ledge of sandstone. Water seeping down through the porous layers drips steadily from the side wall onto the jumbled rock and sand below. A pipe emerging from this mound of silica siphons water into a trough located next to the left wall of the canyon. Cool and clear at this time of year, I took all I'd need to get me through the waterless stretch to Cuba without filtering.  Some USGS maps label the spring as polluted, but I experienced no ill effects. The only thing I could figure that might spoil the water was the swallow activity. Many had mud-daubed nests underneath the shady overhang and were continually zipping about, but I couldn't see any reasonable way in which the mess they made would despoil the water.
     During the late afternoon snack break in this little haven, we inspected the maps and agreed that if we could get to the top of Mesa Portales by sunset, it would set us up very advantageously for the trek to town tomorrow. Back at the junction with the spring's side trail, we decided to check out the remaining stone walls of an old habitation that used to stand here before pressing on. I'm not sure how old the place was, but we did notice a small plaque that informed all of us to be careful as we explored since the area was protected by the U.S. Antiquities Act, therefore it must have had some historic value.
     A gentle descent on a sandy trail through sage and tall yellow grasses led us to a large open grassland at a lowpoint of the Arroyo Piedra Lumbre. Looked as if the cows could munch a while here if they wished. A couple of dusty jeep roads crossed our path, no doubt travelled by ranchers that had herds in the vicinity. The subsequent and equally gentle ascent back up through the sage eventually took us into a fairly thick stand of juniper before dumping us out on the badlands at the base of the mesa. The next mile of hiking reminded me greatly of a few jaunts I'd previously had in Badlands National Park in South Dakota, the path wandering, dipping then climbing, on crumbly ground whose consistency in some places was nothing more than dried mud now turned to dust. However, soon enough, the switchbacks started, sharply turning back and forth up the steep escarpment.  As I scrambled up the rock face, a strong wind began to blow, a gusty creation of the dying day. Higher and higher I went until a pine-guarded gap lent access to the rim. One by one the others arrived and we set up our cowboy camps in a small sandy depression protected on three sides by rock. The wind continued to whistle overhead and on occasion a swirling blast would threaten to whisk away anything that wasn't securely weighted down. For this reason, I wandered over to the mesa's edge to grab a last glimpse of a vanishing day and several small stones to hold down the edges of my ground cloth. Back at camp, everyone was in good spirits because as night closed in around us, this was exactly where we all wanted to be. With the coming darkness, the wind softened to a gentle breeze and the stars came out.  Oh Yeah! What a Day!  The Land of Enchantment had lived up to its lofty name.

24 Miles