bjregan

Those who know me are probably tired of hearing my opinions this time of year and again in the spring when we adjust our clocks to accommodate “Daylight Savings Time.” If you are one of those people, please pardon me if you’ve heard this before. But what I like to point out is that, as much as we would want to, there is no way that we can “save daylight.” When the idea of Daylight Savings Time was conceived, giving it that name made it easier to get buy-in because it does sound good. If you like doing outdoor activities in the evening it’s great in early March when you suddenly have an extra hour of daylight in the evening after you finish work. But, if like me, you are a morning person and enjoy outdoor activities first thing in the morning, then it’s depressing to look outside and see that it’s still dark when you want to go out.

So, for me, this morning’s run before sunrise was a time of rejoicing that we had set our clocks back yesterday. I no longer had to run my double circuit around the SIPI campus to take advantage of the street lights. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was enough daylight that I could once again go back out on my run through the Bosque. As I got on the levy road the trees were beginning to glow from the brightness of the sun just about ready to come over the Sandias. Several flocks of cranes flew overhead on their morning flight from bedding down overnight in the river to feeding in the SIPI fields during the day. Crossing the ditch and getting on the road behind SIPI I could see the sun hitting the tops of the golden cottonwood trees up ahead. And, best of all, as I came around the SIPI fields, there was a flock of several dozen cranes chattering and munching in the field.

All of that I would have missed if we were still on Daylight Savings Time. It would have happened after I had finished my run and we were sitting down at breakfast. God’s creatures don’t adjust their meal times and sleep times to accommodate what man decides to use as the current hour on the clock. The only way we will get more daylight is to look forward to December 21 at the winter solstice when the days will once again start to have more daylight hours and less hours of darkness.

Actually, when I saw this sign I knew I was no longer lost, but had found my way back to the trail. And, considering the type of terrain I was hiking in, it’s probably not accurate to describe my experience of getting off the trail as being “lost.”

I had set off to hike the 9-1/2 mile Chupadera Wilderness National Recreation Trail, which I have hiked before. The first couple of miles traverses Chihuahuan desert scrub dominated by creosote bush and prickly pear cactii growing in loose, gravelly soil. Recent rains had caused the surface here to erode with multiple, small ruts weaving over and around the trail. Since this is a wilderness trail there are no trail markers. As I walked the first mile I was having difficulty figuring out if I was on a trail or on an eroded section of gravel.

When I finally spotted some rock cairns I thought all was well. Further along, the trail crossed under a power line and started heading down an old gravel road. What I failed to notice was that the trail and road overlapped for only a short distance. I kept walking on the road, eventually figuring out that there were no more rock cairns and that the road was curving back towards the parking area instead of heading west towards Chupadera Peak.

img_20181029_085334464 — A friendly rock cairn.

wrong marker — I thought I was OK when I saw the sign in the distance but it was only a boundary sign when I approached it and I knew I was no longer on the trail.

Once I realized I had lost the trail I had two choices–either backtrack to the last cairn I had seen or continue forward and see if I could reconnect to the trail. As I said, it’s hard to be truly lost in this terrain because the mountain is directly visible ahead to the west and if you get on a ridge the Rio Grande is visible behind to the east. Plus Interstate 25 bisects the trail about 2-1/2 miles from the parking lot.

When the trail gets to the Interstate there is a hiker tunnel that goes under the road. I pulled up Google Maps on my phone and by looking at the satellite imagery I was fairly certain I could see where the tunnel was. I decided to take the continuing forward option, leaving the gravel road and bushwhacking across the desert towards what I guessed would be the tunnel.

When I reached the fence line that separates the refuge from the highway, I wasn’t at the tunnel so I had to make a guess if I should follow the fence line north or south. Fortunately, I had correctly picked the tunnel on the satellite imagery. It showed the location was south of where I was and I didn’t have to walk much further before I found the tunnel. At that point I knew I was back on the trail–Whew!