Life, food, events, and community in Albuquerque, NM

Within One Hour of Albuquerque, This Week's Inspiration

Opposite Cliff

Monday is hiking day. Every Monday, yes even in the winter, Aaron and I go out into the wilderness to recharge our batteries, exercise our legs, wear out the dog, find some inspiration, explore new territory, you name it! It is our day for finding inspiration.

Luckily, we live in Albuquerque, New Mexico! Within one hour in every direction of Albuquerque, there are some amazing places to explore. Since we both grew up in southern New Mexico, neither of us had explored much of the northern part of the state. So, after almost 9 years in the largest city in NM, and a great wilderness book Aaron received for Christmas, we have set out to expand our horizons past the hiking trails of the Sandia Mountains east of town. The Sandias are wonderful, don't get me wrong, but you can still hear the hum of the city and run into lots of people there.

The past couple of weeks we've headed northwest of town, up hwy 550 out of Bernalillo, to the Cabezon Peak WSA(wilderness study area) and the Ojito WSA. Yesterday, we even remembered to take the camera! The photos that follow are all from yesterday's hike. I probably took close to 100 pics, so this is just a small sampling! There was an old abandoned ranch ruins, lots of great rock formations, even an old jail building.

Osa was completely worn out by the end of the hike, plus she ended up with several thorns in her paws which she proceeded to get in her mouth trying to chew them off. Took a few minutes of wrestling to get her still enough so Aaron could pull them out for her. Poor puppy! Other than that, she had lots of fun! We are looking into getting her some dog booties for future wilderness trips.

Trails are not maintained, so at times they disappear altogether which resulted in our having to back track to find our way. It was all too fun though, picnicing on the rocks not to mention a beautiful day with temps in the low 70s! T-shirt weather, finally! Enjoy the photos and I will try to make this a regular weekly post, with photos and descriptions of our trips. Lots to do here in New Mexico, if you've never been here before, you definitely need to visit someday!

Rock overlook

Barn roof, looking up

Tattered curtain

Stone Tower

Old Stone Barn

Adobe Ruins Ranch house

Pooped Puppy!

Tags: albuquerque, hiking, ojito, wilderness

29 Comments

Comment by Ron Da Bomb on February 24, 2009 at 10:20pm: lovely photos!

Comment by sophie on February 25, 2009 at 9:19am: I'd love love love to promote this post to the front page, but would need 2 changes:

1. That top photo needs to be cropped to be 500px wide and between 130 and 17 px tall.
2. You need some paragraph breaks in your text. Maybe every 2-3 sentences?

Thanks!!! Sophie

Comment by Paula Manning-Lewis on February 25, 2009 at 10:46am: Cool, thanks Sophie, I'm on it!

Comment by sophie on February 25, 2009 at 11:30am: Thanks, darlin'! It's set to go to the main page this afternoon.

Comment by Paula Manning-Lewis on February 25, 2009 at 11:43am: Oh, yes, nothing Osa likes more than a good day long hike! She really is a happy good dog! She was ready to go for her bosque walk this morning, no sign of soreness today.

Thanks Sophie! Now that I have been reminded what the photo format is supposed to be (I remembered the 500 wide part!), I will make them all that way from now on! ;-)

Comment by The Wooden Cow Gallery and Art Space on February 25, 2009 at 3:08pm: Wow, looks like great fun! I love your pics - especially the Stone Tower!

Comment by Flozilla on February 25, 2009 at 3:57pm: Ojito - Ojito - you make me very hap-ito! I love it out there...

Comment by Bosque Bill on February 25, 2009 at 4:01pm: That is a wonderful area isn't it? Lots of interesting terrain and rock & earth shapes and colors. There are miles and miles of quiet and sky.

I have a couple of photos from that area you might be interested in seeing. Scroll down to near the bottom of my NM Photo Page. You might also see some photos of areas you have not yet explored and would enjoy.

Thanks for your post.

Comment by Jennifer Ruden on February 25, 2009 at 6:29pm: Love the tattered curtain. Thanks for reminding us that we live in such a cool place.

Comment by Snak on February 25, 2009 at 7:26pm: This is one of my favorite areas too. It's amazing how remote it feels when it's actually so close...basically Albuquerque's backyard. The downside of it being so close is that it's right in the trajectory of Rio Rancho. Just today I looked at Google maps of the area (initiated by looking of a map of where all those bodies are being found, awful awful) and was really freaked out by how far the Rio Rancho grid has made it northwest. It's positively stunning (in a bad way). One thing I found curious: A huge portion of the land with all the roads appears to be devoid of any buildings, at least by what I can see on the satellite. Does anyone know more about how this thing works, as in: do the roads get built regardless of whether the site is slated for actual development? It's seriously such a huge swath that is all covered with roads (dirt, I'd guess) stretching practically to San Ysidro. Since so much of that wonderful Ojito/Cabezon area is state or BLM land I worry about it repelling development in the long run.