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!

The Aluminum Yucca

 

My kids and I went for a Letterboxing hike in Albuquerque a few weeks ago, and I’m finally getting around to posting the photos and the fun that we had.

The trail we hiked was only about 20 minutes west of our our home, among the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, just above and east of Albuquerque.

These trails are all a part of the Albuquerque Open Space and are open to horseback riders, too. Since this area is 2,000 ft lower in elevation than our home, these trails are a good place to hike or horseback ride in the winter, since they usually don’t get snow, and if they do, just a dusting.

This was a perfect day for a hike…blue skies, sunshine, no wind, and temps in the upper 70s. The trails were smooth and sandy, and only gently hilly.

From these trails we could see Kirtland Air Force Base and the Albuquerque Sunport in the distance, and watch the airplanes taking off and landing.

Along the way, there were lots of boulders to climb and explore.

Boulders bigger than cars are fun to climb.

More boulders beckoned from atop the ridges.

I always have a great time hiking with my kids.

Soon we could see Interstate 40 down below us.

Also down below us we could finally see our destination: The Aluminum Yucca!!

Approaching Albuquerque from the east on I-40, a public art installation welcomes visitors to the city: The Aluminum Yucca.

Since the letterbox was down near the Aluminum Yucca, which required a rugged hike over and through some large boulders, Jen and I chose to stay up on the side of the hill, while the boys hiked down to retrieve the Letterbox.

The Aluminum Yucca is a 22-foot tall sculpture created by artist Gordon Huether using salvaged aluminum fuel tanks from F-15 aircraft. At night, the giant yucca is illuminated by LED panels of slowly varying color, powered by solar energy.

 

Visit this link to see a beautiful nighttime photo: Aluminum Yucca at Night

While we waited for the boys, Jen and I enjoyed the views from above.

Jen especially liked watching all of the semi-trucks and traffic down below on I-40, wondering where they had come from and where they were going.

 

But soon the boys had climbed back up to us, and after stamping in, Jax and Jem took the Letterbox back down to rehide it near the Aluminum Yucca.

 

While waiting on them to finish up so we could head back to our car, we noticed these interesting boulders seemingly blushing with orangey red along their edges.

 

And on all the boulders around us we noticed the sage green and pink colored granite, which created the name for these mountains: Sandia, which means Watermelon in Spanish.

My Dobbie Girl didn’t mind posing for a photo on a granite boulder.

But Mustang Sally was ready to go.

 

It was a beautiful day for a hike and I do enjoy hiking and spending time in the outdoors with my kids.

 

Before we headed back up through the canyon for the drive home, we went out for some dinner in Albuquerque and found one more Letterbox. And on the way home, we were treated to some beautiful views:

The Sandia Mountains

And a pretty sunset

Searching for the Lorax

I took my kids out hiking recently to do some letterboxing just down the road from our house. I love it when fellow letterboxers place a letterbox close-by, so we don’t have to drive far.
I forgot my camera (gasp!), but I did have my cell phone. So don’t expect much in the way of photo quality. 
We had never hiked in this area before, so it was wonderful that this letterbox brought us to someplace new that is close enough to hike (or ride my horse) anytime we want to.
This area is off of Bartolo Baca Rd in the Manzanos and has a wonderful pull-through parking area, roomy enough for horse trailers (you know that I am always scoping out new places to ride!).
(And there are perfectly-sized mounting boulders right at the trailhead, too)

And even though the main trail traveled through a rocky arroyo, a secondary trail went straight up onto a beautiful, tree-lined, mostly flat, sandy path, which already had hoof prints on them!

We were in this National Forest area to search for a series of letterboxes called The Lorax.
(Jen doing her best impersonation of The Lorax)

There were 3 boxes with 3 separate puzzle-shaped stamps that formed a complete image of The Lorax in the woods, when they were stamped together in our log books.

We really enjoyed the very creative clues, wonderful stamps and beautiful location.

It was great to be out on a hike with my kids. And they seemed to enjoy letterboxing with their Mama and exploring a new trail, too.

The hike started off sunny, but by the time we were done finding all the boxes, clouds had rolled in and as we piled into my van, the first raindrops fell from the sky.

Of course, it never really did rain, but you just never know with our mountain weather, so we were happy to be off the trails when the skies grew dark and cloudy.
We had a great day!
        

Sandia Crest Solar Eclipse Party

 

Before I share about the trail ride I took with my friend, I really am excited to share how my 3 kids and I celebrated the Annular “Ring of Fire” Solar Eclipse on Sunday evening!!

We decided to go with some of our friends from my twin sons’ Boy Scout Troop, to watch the Solar Eclipse from the top of the Sandia Mountains, just above and east of Albuquerque.

Since we live on the east side (or what we locals call “the green side”) of the Sandia Mountains, this beautiful and wild natural resource is basically in our backyard. And because our house is already above 7,000 ft, getting to the top of the Sandias only requires a 20-30 minute drive to reach Sandia Crest at 10, 678 ft elevation.

This is a photo I took on Sunday, of the Sandia Crest House, the tallest point of the Sandia Mountains.

We were expecting there to be a ton of traffic, but were pleasantly surprised not to find the hordes of people that we had been warned about by the news and some of our friends. My guess is that there was probably only several hundred people up there to view the Solar Eclipse on Sunday evening. Yes, the small main parking area beside the Sandia Crest House was full, but we were able to park on the side of the road, just a short distance down from the Sandia Crest House, and just walk up to the top in less than 15 minutes.

At the very top are also, the Radio Towers, which can be seen from Albuquerque, and are planted like tall metallic trees.

The Viewing Platform on Sandia Crest was pretty crowded, but me, my kids, and the friends we drove with up to the top, decided to just hike a bit of a ways south on the Crest Trail until the people thinned out and we had a lot of space and quiet to ourselves.

There was plenty of room on top to spread out and have some personal space.

The views up there are incredible, even despite the smoke and haze from the fires burning in Arizona.

 

And we had front row seats!

 

We could also see the Sandia Crest House north of us, near the Radio Towers, as we sat along the top of the Sandia Mountains.

 

Our dogs, Mustang Sally the Chihuahua, and Dobbie Girl, the Chiweenie, came along, too. They love going everywhere we go, especially on a beautiful hike on the top of a mountain. I think I was a little surprised, but definitely pleasantly surprised, at how many other people brought along their dogs to watch the Annular Solar Eclipse, too.

Me and my dogs, Sally and Dobbie preparing to watch the Annular Solar Eclipse!

Of course, once we pulled out our Solar Eclipse Viewing Glasses, I had to take lots of silly photos to have as special keepsakes from such a special and auspicious occasion!

My son, Jackson.

My son, Jeremiah.

And my daughter, Jenna.

And our friend Tom and his son D.

 

While we watched the beginning of the Solar Eclipse, basically the partial eclipse with the moon taking a chunk out of the sun little by little…which was just as amazing, we were entertained by several Hang Gliders who were also there to watch the Solar Eclipse, but from a very unique vantage point!

 

In this photo, if you look closely, you can see the Rio Grande River, which flows straight from Colorado, through Albuquerque on it’s way to Mexico and Texas. 

This guy was soaring right above us…probably about 10,700 ft high!

My Dobbie girl enjoyed watching the Hang Gliders, too.

It seemed to take such a long time for the moon to make it’s way across the sun, but when it finally reached the center, a huge cheer went up all along the top of the Sandia Mountains.

The excitement was contagious, knowing we were all there together, wearing our silly-looking, specially-treated Solar Eclipse Safety Glasses as we all viewed such an auspicious and unique phenomenon from such a beautiful location!

(Our friend Tom, my son Jackson, and Tom’s son D)

And I was even able to capture it on film with my Canon PowerShot SX110 IS. Zoomed without a filter:

And with a filter (I just used my own $1.50 Solar Eclipse Glasses, nothing fancy at all.):

And I even had some fun playing with the Solar Eclipse and tried sweeping my camera back and forth. And this is what my little point and shoot camera captured:

 

Pretty cool, huh?

 

My daughter Jenna was pretty amazed at the sight of the Ring of Fire Solar Eclipse. She was so quiet and focused…which is very unlike her as she loves to talk.

Jeremiah became philosophical and had some very deep thoughts and astute observations to make about the wonders of it all.

As we sat and watched the moon sliding ever so slowly up and over the sun, our friend Tom, the leader of my twin sons’ Boy Scout Troop, and the friend we rode with to the Sandia Crest, took a photo of me, taking a photo of him. Pretty funny!

And my son Jeremiah picked up my camera as the sun was setting, and I was mesmerized still watching the Solar Eclipse, as the moon slipped over the top left corner of the sun, and he snapped this photo of me. I just love it, don’t you?  

I hope my kids remember this amazing day for their entire lives, because I know that I will. It is absolutely in my Top Ten List of My Most Favorite and Once-in-a-Lifetime Experiences!!