Chamisa Trail ~ February 21, 2010

Chamisa Trail is an easy hike that the kid and I made easier by going only a short way (but long time). The recommended seasons do not include mid-winter, and we slipped and fell in the ice-covered shadows and more snow fell on us. The kid loved the falling snow.






Who could have made such little footprints?

Mitchell Trail, Los Alamos ~ February 6, 2010

Mitchell Trail was built as part of an Eagle Scout project to provide community access to the fantastic ponderosas and spectacular views of the Santa Fe National Forest. For years, I lived with my kitchen window facing this forest and my car parked at what is now the official trailhead parking pad.

For four years, I lived at the corner of 45th and 46th in Los Alamos, while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory on the Human Genome Project, perfecting my rock-climbing-performance excuses, and when forced to make progress, working on my Ph.D. dissertation. My half of the duplex at 4397B Arizona Avenue hosted many wonderful bacon, egg, green chile burrito breakfasts and a particular Wednesday night tequila tasting party that left the electric lime juicer too hot to handle for a whole day. One lived outdoors in Los Alamos, as a graduate student - when not in the lab, and the houses and the outdoors both suited this. The houses were drafty and temporary and maintained with nothing short of eccentricity. The outdoors on the other hand was world class. Ponderosas with their vanilla-scented bark, aspens with their single-organism-covering-the-mountain display, all turning yellow in a single autumn day; dark canopies and deer and coyotes and trail runners.

The Hash House Harriers knew about the trails, always providing men in dresses and beer in coolers and songs I still don't want to know what the lyrics meant. Being a small town, most of these hashers were also in the High Altitude Athletic Club, meaning they'd strap on flashlights and down some gel goo and run for 26 miles up Caballo mountain and back. They were also in charge of the nation's nuclear arsenal but that's how that works.

My friend J and I were wannabes: coffee drinking, thirty-something women who had come from markedly nonathletic backgrounds. J had worked as a jackhammer operator once, which meant she had much more physical activity in her background than I did. Los Alamos was perfect for us. Of all people, we ended up lead climbing - traditional, placing gear not sport clipping - on rock, and following on ice.

It was fun and it was therapy. After a particularly aggravating week at the lab, we went out to Cochiti and found a sweet overhang to work with our climbing and established a route known only to us but called "Moon Shot". You can guess why we felt better afterward.

The lab had its stresses. Still does. Every place does. The stakes were higher, though, there as you had no real public resume to use to go find another job. And you either had to make a job or move if you left the Lab. People either hated Los Alamos or loved the place. You could tell how someone was going to fare within a week of their arrival.

So the outdoor activity also held its share of therapy. We pretended we too were training as we slogged up and down the Los Alamos ski hill, as others trained for Condoriri or Annapurna. They trotted by with sixty pound packs of ropes and wands; we chose a thermos of coffee and some breakfast burritos. We later went to the same place to remember some people who didn't come back from their climbs.

P.S. Ouray isn't all bad either

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!