Hiking Guiterrez Canyon

 

One of our favorite local trails is only about 15 minutes from our house and is located in a beautiful, natural area called The John A. Milne/Guiterrez Canyon Open Space in Cedar Crest. When my sons have guitar lessons, after they’re done, we sometimes go next door to the trail head parking area and begin our hike.

 

And there’s a Hitching Rail, too!

The main loop trail is only 2.8 miles long. We took our GPS with us when we hiked it last week.

Guiterrez Canyon Hike

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We took a detour to the gravel road that connects the lower loop trail to the ridge trails.

We also did some scouting of the upper ridge trails by hiking up that quiet, country, gravel road to the connector trail. But once we reached the top of the ridge, we didn’t go any further because we didn’t have enough time to explore those trails up there. I hope to ride some of those trails on horseback in the near future.

 

Speaking of horseback, one of the reasons I thought it would be fun to hike this loop trail with my kids, is that I had invited one of my riding friends to go with me and ride the very next day! I loved the idea of a back-to-back visit, and my kids and I hadn’t hiked it in almost a year, and I wanted to see how the trail looked since we had gotten rain and snow just a week earlier.

This is where the trail begins, after you hike down the hill from the trail head.

There were a few muddy areas, but nothing too slippery and deep, so I was excited to come back with my Apache mare the next day to ride her with my friend, Barb.

But first I hiked the trail with my awesome kids (and our little dogs, too!).

 

 

 

We had a great hike and we were out for a couple hours, so when I offered to take my kids to our favorite local burger place afterwards for some delicious New Mexico Green Chile Cheeseburgers……..they were ecstatic!

What a great way to spend the day, hiking with my kids on beautiful trails out in nature together. And followed up with a great meal to boot!

                             Life Is Good!

Horses, Pups, Friends and Four-Wheelin’

 

 

My buddy, Kendra recently invited me to come down and spend the day with her on her ranch. I left my Apache mare home and just went down to spend time with my friend doing a bunch of fun stuff, like………

Cart driving her pony, Poncho.

 

Poncho hadn’t been cart-driven for several months, so he was a bit fresh. Kendra trained him to pull a cart less than a year ago and he’s such a good boy. He was pretty good that day and really seems to enjoy pulling a cart.

There’s always lots of interesting things to see while sitting in a cart being pulled down a country road.

Kendra and her husband Gerald are surrounded by countless miles of dirt roads and can ride or drive a cart for hours.

We covered about 6 miles this day and enjoyed the views, including the beautiful Manzano Mountains.

The ranches out here are hundreds of acres, so there aren’t many homes to see when you’re on horseback or riding in a cart. And we only saw one truck that needed to pass us. Kendra brought Poncho to a stop when the truck drove by and he was a perfect boy.

I really enjoy cart driving and often think about getting myself a little pony, mini-horse or mini-donkey so I can cart drive, too.

This was my Dobbie Girl’s first cart ride and she loved it!

 

Before long we were back at Kendra’s ranch.

 

Kendra and Gerald have such a beautiful ranch.

Poncho was very glad to see his barn-mates, Bailey, Kendra’s riding gelding and Durango, Kendra’s grandkids’ riding mini-horse, waiting for him in the corral.

 

After getting Poncho unhooked from the cart, we headed inside the house for some delicious tacos made by Gerald while us girls were out having fun.

 

After a delicious lunch of tacos and ice cold beer, we went out to play with the ponies.

Kendra took a turn riding Poncho in just a halter…no lead.

Good boy, Poncho!

Then Kendra took a spin on her boy Bailey, wearing just a neck rope.

And little Durango didn’t get to escape the horseback fun either.

Durango is so stinkin’ cute and so sweet, too!

While I was sitting in the dirt, Poncho took several much-deserved dust rolls.

This is the cutest little ranch dog ever! Kendra and Gerald got Hondo just a couple months ago.

And then there is my wonky Chiweenie girl, Dobbie!

Dobbie really enjoyed playing with Hondo and exploring around the ranch, too.

Hondo loves to sit on your shoes. He’s so precious!

As the sun began to go down, we let the horses eat their dinner, while we headed out for some four-wheelin’!

This was my first time ever on a four-wheeler, so Gerald accompanied me for the first 20 minutes of our ride around the ranch. It was so awesome fun! But there was a small learning curve and some crazy stops, starts and inconsistent speed until I figured it all out. Gerald was very patient and pretty amused with my silliness. We didn’t stop laughing the entire time.

This was Hondo’s first four-wheeler ride, too. He loved it, but he loved it so much that he fell asleep after 20 minutes and ended up falling off!

Thankfully, we were going slow and he wasn’t hurt.

But, Kendra and I left Hondo and Gerald back at the house and the two of of us headed out to ride the country roads around her ranch.

We ended up four-wheeling over 6 miles and finally got back to the ranch after dark. My chin was frozen, but my smile was huge and warm! What a fabulous day! 

Cerro Blanco Trail ~ The Hike Down

 

Once we got to the top of the Manzano Mountains, it was time to hike back down.

 

The leaf color on the way down was even more beautiful than on the way up because the late afternoon sun was shining through the trees and making the leaves glow.

 

As we hiked through the darker sections of trail, the low light cast a blue tint to everything…..which appeared rather magical.

 

The colors of the forest were so dense, saturated and all consuming. Sometimes we just stopped to oooh and aahh and take it all in.

 

Before long we arrived at the place in the trail where we had discovered the Stock Bypass sign that I had posted the photo of in my previous post. On the way up the trail, we never did find out why there was a Stock Bypass. But we were soon to find out on our way down…….

 

Looking down this section of trail, it’s not too easy to see how steep it really was in this photo. Or how high the rock steps were.

 

 

But looking up, you can really see much better the steepness and ruggedness of this section!

 

This would be very challenging for a horse to climb up and would be dangerous in wet conditions. Thank goodness for the Stock Bypass Trail!

 

Instead of returning the way we had climbed up, we decided to do a loop, since both trails were about the same distance. Or so we thought.  

 

It was a little spooky to hike on the new trail because we seemed to be the only people hiking on it and the trail travels away from the Fourth of July Canyon State Park and is in the Manzano Wilderness.

 

But we were on a grand adventure and there was so much beauty all around us, that we were too happy to be worried.

 

But I also knew that I wasn’t in the best of condition to be doing such a long hike. And although 8 miles doesn’t sound like too much, it is when the longest hike you’ve been on in over a year is 3 miles, and that was done on relatively flat trails.

But still, we were oblivious to any trouble and were just basking in the brilliant beauty all around us.

 

Every time I turned around, Kendra took a photo of me, taking a photo of her!

 

And my daughter Jen was just thrilled to be out on the trails hiking with us. She never complained until she started getting hungry about 3/4 of the way. And we had already eaten our lunch and all of our snacks.

 

Thankfully we had brought plenty of water, though.

 Kendra and I had fun discussing the conditions of the trails for horse riding and making plans to bring our horses here to ride. We will definitely come back next Autumn for sure!

The Manzano Mountains are so beautiful…and I love that they are located right in our own New Mexico backyards!

 

As we made our way down lower to the Cerro Blanco Trail Head, We encountered some steeper sections. My calves were really burning by this time.

 

We both enjoyed being surrounded by the towering Ponderosa Pines.

 

By this time the sun had dropped behind the Manzano Mountains and to take good photos, we had to use our camera’s flash.

 

Whew! We were so relieved to have finally made it to the Cerro Blanco Trail Head!

 

But our journey was far from over…..we still had to hike down the road back to the Fourth of July Campground……and it was much farther than we thought it was supposed to be…..

 

But we didn’t know that when these photos were taken….hence the big, relaxed happy smiles.

 

We were at Trail 79, across from Big Spring, on Forest Service Rd 55. Our goal was to hike through Tajique Canyon on FR 55 until we reached Fourth of July Campground. My hiking book said it was about one and a half miles. But, that was the longest one and half miles we’ve ever hiked. We guessed that it had to have been at least 2 miles.

 

But for a road hike, you could not ask for a prettier route to take.

 

It was very peaceful and quiet and we never saw another person or vehicle the entire time.

 

 

 I enjoyed seeing the interesting texture of the aspen bark set against the colors of the autumn forest.

 

We were all grateful for the beautiful scenery, especially on that last mile or so of trail. It sure lifted our spirits and kept us going even though we were all very tired by this point. We still found lots to laugh about, too.

 

 I think Kendra and I were both very thankful we had brought our cameras, too. Not only did they keep us busy and our minds occupied with a task to do, but they also helped us focus on the beauty all around us.

 

We finally made it back to the Fourth of July Campground and we were both very grateful we made it back before it got dark. It was a grand adventure and one we were very happy to have shared together.

 

But I have to be honest and share how, for several days afterwards, I limped around from the most sore legs I’ve had since my first x-country skiing trip 18 years ago, when I skied over 5 miles the first day.

Ugh. When will I learn not to overdo it?