Local Parks Day Three

Forest of the Nisene Marks

This is a gorgeous space near Santa Cruz of mostly redwoods and douglas firs.  It is named for a nature loving woman - her family purchased the land hoping for oil and when none was found her children donated the land in the 1950s in her name.  It has around 10,000 acres and 30 miles of trails.  

For some reason I went about getting to the park rather casually.  I found the green blob on my phone map, clicked the main link and asked it to kindly direct me there.  With parks this is not a recommended course of action - I did not go to the main starting point for hikes.  Instead I obeyed Siri as she commanded me to enter a road labelled "Private" and wasted 10 minutes driving past homes until I hit a dead end.  I returned to the beginning of the private road where there was one small trailhead, this sign, and another sign listing distances to three other trails.  I parked on a residential street and experienced sadness that I would not be able to use the California State Parks Pass I bought yesterday.  But thank you Siri!  If I had looked at the website for the park I would have had correct directions to the main visitor center and likely never discovered these splendid side trails.  I went one mile which was a mix of downhills and flats to a stream, then turned around and headed back up.  Absolutely going to do more of this park's trails.

southwest greenery

Last weekend I went up to Albuquerque for a splendid little getaway.  The Rio Grande is a dry riverbed in El Paso, but it flows liquid through Albuquerque.  And there are lovely riverside trails.  Below you can see the river behind the trees.

A Local Hike

On Saturday morning we went on a hike between El Paso and Las Cruces, NM to a peak called Bishop's Cap.  The mountains go all along the freeway between the two cities (Las Cruces is 40 miles north), and luckily the people who lead the meetup hikes know where they are going.  We parked at spot with a few trailheads, but quickly ditched the trail and just started scrambling up the side of the mountain!  And our leader was an old woman, it was wild. On the way up, it was mostly simple, only a few places where one needed one's hands to help, but we took a much steeper way down it was amazing!  Everyone taking their own unique "path," lots of losing balance, a couple big plops on the ground to grant humility.

Our group was seven people, and a really splendid mix.  We had John the retired Army pilot who is very outdoorsy and gave great tips on some things to do around El Paso.  Alex and Maritza (sp?) are a Puerto Rican couple who are just adorable.  They've been hiking together since they started dating 27 years ago and just exude a genuine kind playfulness that was delightful to be around.  They hiked to Everest base camp last year and I was riveted by her storytelling of the expedition.  (One funny note - a woman on that trip decided halfway through that she was over it, so her husband paid the $10,000 to get her a helicopter ride out!)

Then there was Mark, the incredibly sweet traveling nurse-man who is temporarily working at a hospital in El Paso on a four month contract.  He was a civil rights attorney for 16 years, then knew he needed to do something more physically involved to help people, so he became an ER nurse!  He seemed totally outdoorsy and athletic, but turns out this was just his second hike here in El Paso and before coming here he had hiked hardly at all.  And how does he look like a 30 year old despite having turned 48 a few days prior to the hike?  Yoga of course.  He told us toward the end of the hike that he was actually counting it as his birthday celebration because he's been working through his birthday.  I think everyone felt very moved to be unwittingly thrust into a poignant endeavor.  It was good he told us at the end, when we were all feeling very proud of our accomplishment, rather than informing us at the beginning - then I know I would have felt pressure to make it an EXTRA good hiking experience.  But no, luckily that happened naturally.

And lastly we had Carol.  How awesome that she chooses to lead groups to random places they would never know about on their own almost every weekend.  The only sad thing is that she told us that she's brought her golden retriever on this hike a couple times and I would have loved having a dog along! Though it would have certainly increased my anxiety on the steep bits.

Bishop's Cap
our destination: the top of the hat

There were times I would look out at our party and feel like we were on a Lord of the Rings style quest, making our way across this crazy landscape, no trails to follow... But we were only going to a higher elevation to eat lunch.

Finally...almost at the bottom

Jack Rabbit Classic

Franklin Mountains State Park
this is the range that bisects the city of El Paso
our house is about one mile from their base at the very bottom of the range
but the race was held a few miles north where there are a lot of
hiking and mountain biking trails

As those of you on Facebook saw, Keaton and I ran a trail race for the first time on Sunday morning.  It was actually the first time we've ever run on actual rocky hilly scary hardcore trails - very different from smooth running trails.  This was just a three mile course, and THANK GOD.  The effort exerted to avoid tripping on the rocks when going downhill and flat made the hills impossible and cruel.  I felt totally crushed by my own weight when trudging up, not helped by the fact that the minuscule little middle school girls I had passed early on sped by me when we hit the first serious incline halfway through the course.  After that several more men and a little boy passed me and I thought I must be the last person on the trail.  Surely no one could be behind me, I was practically walking!  I refused to turn around and see the depressing sight of no one else there so I just kept looking forward.  One of the middle school girls and I played leap frog the rest of the way, but in the end she crossed the finish line one second ahead of me.

I didn't realize at the time that had I given a little extra push I would have been able to best her and get the third place trophy for overall female winners!  Turns out there were a lot of people behind me!  73 total participants, men and women, and I came in 14th overall.  I didn't look at the results which were affixed to someone's car near the water stand before the guy began announcing age group winners, and I had been too out of it right after the race to see others finishing (the last bit of the course is the steepest and longest hill I've ever ran).  So I got to be totally shocked when I got first place for the 20-29 year old females.  It's such a silly thing, the medal is cheap and plastic, there were only like four people in this age group, but still!  I've never won any athletic medal in my life!

The silly little awards ceremony with a fairly small group of people (73 did the three mile trail race, but there was also a 5k road race and a 7 mile trail race) standing around clapping for each other is a fun thing to participate in.  Even before I got my medal I liked cheering for the others, like the guy in his 80s who I would have guessed was 58!  It makes running social, which it usually isn't.  It gives a little extra motivation to run more on your own.

Here are some pictures from the area of the park we were in.  Now that I've finally done a trail run I am excited to keep going back and exploring the multitude of trails they have.