Telluride Sledding Hill ~ January 30, 2010

For some years now, we've dashed north to Ouray Colorado for some wintersport and geothermal recreation. Some years, we've snow shoed in the amphitheatre or Ironton Park. Most years we've broken out the old Black Prophets and climbed the ice in the Ouray Box Canyon Ice Park. But either our age or my daughter's age are compelling us to - theoretically - less strenous outings. After all, it takes a very very long time to go a quarter mile on snowshoes when someone has to stop and make snow angels every three feet.

Last year, we tried sledding in Ouray and in Telluride for the first time. I turned the thermonuclear-orange sled into a tree-seeking missile with great success on the Ouray hill (FYI: slick as sn*t), saving the sled from damage by using my ankle to protect it from said tree. Daughter somehow didn't want to ride with me after that.


Then we tried Telluride. The Telluride sledding hill is far less famous than its world-reknowned skiing empire, er, business. After all, no gondola, schools, rentals, food or Gucci is available at the sledding hill. It is however in the center of a wonderful nordic sports park, with a cross country skiing track, an ice skating rink, and a hockey venue. It is a delightful facility, superlative in its offerings and also small-town in its feel.

We parked the rental monster in the commuter lot, and rode the Galloping Goose and the gondola to visit Mountain Village. My daughter remembered the ski school from last year, and remembered her opinion of it. On the up side, she hadn't changed her mind about not needing to do that again. "No thank you" in the words of the miniature four year old.

Somehow, there is no longer the 40% off lift ticket coupon for staying in the Ouray hotels, which makes the Telluride lift ticket, well, more expensive. Last year, I skiied and Mitch snowshoed after we took the chair lift high up past a Mardi Gras tree. Aiga tried the ski school, being something like ten days older than the absolute minimum age for trying it. It wasn't probably the right thing for her to try then :)

The gondola, however, is a huge hit - and it's free, subsidized by those in the know to make Telluride and Disneyland the successful money sinks they are. We had a hoot on the gondola.
One of our friends had an iPhone app that could identify the neighboring mountains (Yes, there's an app for that) so the Gondola was a perfect place to try that. We also noted some killer grade schoolers snow plowing down some black diamond slopes, and were torn between admiration and feeling pain vicariously in every part of our bodies.


After the gondola, we strolled the town, checking out the consignment store (Frank Sinatra era, seriously) and a bakery and having a chat with the nice man with the nice portugese water dog; the dog drives out with him from Manhattan every season. He (the man) has a house in Manhattan and one in Telluride - awesome!

Telluride has its share of wellknown as well as rich. Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon, has a home there and is a big supporter of community events such as the Telluride Tech Festival. There's a semi science meeting every year. It has great summer traffic for four-wheeling and mine country exploration and of course scenery.

And of course, it has a sledding hill.

Dog Park - Santa Fe Interment Camp

The Dog Park, along with our neighborhood, has a darker history. During WWII, many Japanese-Americans were interned - imprisoned without due process - in American camps. While many of these camps are listed on the Japanese American Memorial in D.C., many others existed. The boundary of one is only a few houses down from my home. The memorial marker is in the dog park. One can see my house from it; it is in the photo below.

The public reminder of the official mistreatment of law-abiding residents - many of whom had served the US in WWI - is comforting, for this is not a thing to forget. Nancy Bartlit has investigated and written extensively about the experiences of the men at the Santa Fe Interment camp; I can highly recommend her book "Silent Voices of WWII". It is available at Amazon and not only tells the story of the Santa Fe Interment camp, but of other distinctly southwestern experiences in WWII - the death march of Bataan, which heavily decimated the National Guard of New Mexico; the Code Talkers, Navajo volunteers who fought discrimination at home to provide an unbreakable secret code for the fight in the Pacific; and the Manhattan Project of Los Alamos just forty miles up the road, whose story is probably best known, but it gives a new perspective to consider that its members and materials passed within yards of an American interment camp.

Frank Ortiz Park -- the Dog Park - January 23, 2010

We had a lot of ice on the streets when January 22nd rolled around, so our "hike" was in the neighborhood. We walked up to Frank Ortiz Park. It's also known as The Dog Park because people can let their dogs run free there.

The kid was a bit miffed about this walk ("Which car are we taking?" were the first words out of her mouth when we went outside. She repeated them with exasperation after being told we were walking.)

Fortunately, ice is irresistible when you're (almost) four.

So is cold metal when you've seen "Christmas Story": Triple Dog Dare you!

The "Summit Push":

Made it!

Ice everywhere

The Dog Park has a playground, but it's a rehab-in-progress. More than a year ago the existing playground equipment was replaced, but whoever was doing the job stopped short of actually hanging new swings. The only working bit of gear is an undulating "caterpillar tube", and we didn't let the kid go play on it because... it was cold.

What the kid saw:

Her photos show she was interested in all the bootprint patterns we could make.

This week's coffee was accompanied by a homemade green chile-apple pie. Mmmmm!

Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

After a rockin' Batman birthday party on Sunday, we used the Martin Luther King Jr holiday to recover and visit the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks near Cochiti.


The day was overcast, so the colors of the sky and rocks were not as vivid as they usually are here in New Mexico but the textures took their place with full force. Twisted branches, cholla still in fruit, sand sage, and bizarre rock formations combined to make a textural wonderland.

The difference, we're told, between a 'hoodoo' and a 'teepee' is that the hoodoo is the result of erosion, its hard capstone protecting the summit and ages of desert rain wearing down the exposed sides; the teepee is the result of steam shooting from the earth.

We took the "Cave Loop" trail from the parking lot. The day was cool and the walk was easy. We also had pear cake waiting in the car for a motivation.


The views were spectacular and sweeping. That's Sandia Mountain in the distance.






When you're a super-hero, the trail seems a lot shorter than the 1.5 mile round trip described. (This week's hat is Spider-Man: those white horn-looking things are the hat/mask's eyes.)




Even Spider-Man needs a lift sometime.

Ghost Ranch - Chimney Rock

Last Sunday we walked to Chimney Rock at Ghost Ranch.

Ghost Ranch has such a storied past, in part, because it became known at a time when people had a more magical interpretation of fossilized bones.

Encounters between people and fossils gave the ancient Greeks their Cyclops (probably from mastodon/mammoth skulls); and the Mongols and Chinese their dragons (protoceratops and the like). And the Puebloans and Spaniards near Ghost Ranch? Vivaron.

Later came artists such as Georgia O'Keeffe, who lived nearby. O'Keeffe was so taken with one particular mountain in the area -- the flat-topped Pedernal to the southwest -- that she once said of it, "God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it." This helps explain why some local residents bristle when they hear their land referred to as "O'Keeffe Country".

Just as O'Keeffe was bringing the beauty of this land to the attention of the world, paleontologists were uncovering its deep past. In a quarry at Ghost Ranch they found fossilized phytosaur skeletons -- the bones which had helped inspire the name of "Ranchos de los Brujos". At roughly the same time they uncovered other Triassic era creatures such as Coelophysus, an early carnivorous dinosaur which has become a sort of mascot for Ghost Ranch.

Ghost Ranch is a great place to explore natural history. When you tread through the mud near the parking lot, you're re-mixing Triassic era river mud. If you climb to the top of Kitchen Mesa (pun intended?) on the south side of the ranch, you'll find yourself standing on a layer of gypsum laid down by the Jurassic-era Todilto Sea.

Everywhere you go you're close to the ancient past, and you stand a good chance of discovering something new -- or, old. That's exactly what happened to a group of hikers in 2004, who discovered a previously unknown Triassic relative of T. Rex. It's making the news now, as its structure suggests that most dinosaurs evolved in, and fanned out from, what is now South America.

You'll also find yourself near the sets of a few Hollywood movies. Shortly after you turn onto the ranch's dirt access road, you'll notice what appears to be an old cabin on your right. It's really a prop, built as part of a set for "City Slickers". And just across the highway from Ghost Ranch, near the shores of Abiquiu Reservoir, is an old airstrip on which the opening scenes of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" were filmed.

But never mind all that. Ghost Ranch is a great place to take a walk. The scenery is just spectacular, and I hope our images can convey even a small sense of that.

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P.S. to watershed

Work continues on the new Water Something Museum. The kid liked the truck as much as anything else we saw of course.

 

Santa Fe Canyon Preserve, January 3 2010

Bundled up the kid, who loves the cold anyway, and her very own camera and out we went to start our documentary.

Our first objective was the Santa Fe Canyon Preserve, an area that used to supply the water for the city of Santa Fe. As far as being strenuous, this hike is not. We saw other people in clogs and girls in ballet skimmers, and they got along on the trails just fine.

A beautiful sunny day to check out the old reservoir. The Nature Conservancy now runs it as a wildlife preserve. Will we see wildlife (other than the three year old on my back)?

In Santa Fe, water is almost always a surprise.

And where there's water, there's ... Cheese?

Leave it to Beaver? You've got to be kidding.

It is absolutely fun to live in a place that is desert and yet has things like beavers. Looks like they have been busy. Like beavers.

So busy in fact that some of the trees have been caged up for their own good.

Their dam is taking good shape.

Can the humans do better? Finding the 1881 dam.

According to a sign at the site, "This limestone dam, built in 1881, was the first one built on the Santa Fe River. It caused quite a stir in the community."

"Until the 19th century, people living near the Santa Fe River relied on its flow for their day-to-day existence. Communally-owned ditches called acequias (ah-SEH-key-ahs) tapped moving water to irrigate fields or power private mills. When dam construction began at this site, local residents protested, foreseeing the loss of their way of life. Eventually, a compromise was reached that supplied a limited amount of water to the acequias. Many acequias are still in use today".

The 1881 dam, as you can see, is not still in use. The city grew quickly and Two-Mile dam was in place and ready to go when this dam flooded and silted up in 1904.

Art or Poop? Pretty either way. Told you I didn't go outside.

Video version here!

What the little person saw

Remember itty bitty?

Here are her photos.

Alone under the Mistletoe: Hey, where'd everybody go?