Category: travel

If you were to tell someone that you planned to celebrate your birthday with a getaway to Las Vegas I’m sure they would immediately think you were taking a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. Lee and I are a couple of weirdos who have a different idea of an enjoyable way to celebrate birthdays in Las Vegas. Our birthdays were on Monday (mine) and Tuesday (Lee’s) this week. With an open schedule for those two days we came up with an idea of a celebration trip to Las Vegas–Las Vegas, New Mexico, that is.

Lee had been wanting to check out the newly opened Sabinoso Wilderness Area that is east of Las Vegas, NM. He suggested that we hike somewhere on the way to Las Vegas Monday, spend Monday night in Las Vegas, and then do a hike at Sabinoso Tuesday before heading back to Albuquerque. It doesn’t take much arm-twisting to convince me to head out of town for an overnight trip.

There was one bit of business Monday morning that I needed to take care of that prevented us from getting on the road until 10:30. There are 2 driving options for getting to Las Vegas, the most direct being north on I-25. But it’s almost the same distance to take I-40 east to Hwy 3 and then north. That route passes through Villanueva and by taking that route we were able to stop at Villanueva State Park to eat lunch and do a hike. The late start meant that our hike was in the heat of the day, but the park is on the Pecos River and any proximity to running water makes the heat more bearable.

There’s a nice loop trail at Villanueva that crosses the river on a foot bridge and then takes you up the cliffs along the river to some good views of the campground and surrounding farmlands in the river valley. After sweating our way up and down the loop trail we were happy to discover that the Villanueva General Store in the tiny village of Villanueva did indeed offer soft serve ice cream. In my mind, you can’t do a hike in the heat of summer without the reward of ice cream at the end.

After checking into our motel Monday in Las Vegas it was time to decide on dinner plans. Neither one of us likes the task of choosing a restaurant but since it was my birthday, it would be up to me. The easiest is to bring up Google Maps and select the Restaurants option. From past experiences in Las Vegas and from what I could see on Google there wasn’t much to choose from except Mexican restaurants. We both like Mexican food but it seemed we should do something different for a change. The Skillet, billed as “funky outpost serving an array of hearty New Mexican fare alongside burgers and beers” looked interesting. It turned out to be a perfect option, “funky” being an understatement. We were able to sit outdoors, which is always a plus for me and the clientele and surroundings were quite entertaining as we waited for our very delicious dinners.

Tuesday’s hike at Sabinoso was another hot one, even though we were able to get an earlier start. As explained on the BLM page there aren’t any established trails there and I didn’t know what to expect. Fortunately, it is very obvious once you drive the rough dirt road that dead ends at the top of Sabinoso Canyon. The road once continued down into the canyon and after parking you see that you can walk down that way to get to the bottom of the canyon. From there you can’t get lost because you follow a stream bed and cow trails that lead you as far back into the canyon as you want to go before turning around. Maybe not the most interesting hike overall but now we can at least say we have been there to see the Sabinoso Wilderness. It is an area only recently opened to the public, and not many other people go there, but that’s a plus in my mind.

Just a few words, in case you wondered about using “weird” to discuss our birthday outing. I have been amused this past week about some news items making fun of our politicians creating a new way to try and insult each other by labeling each other as weird. I, for one, don’t mind being called weird. Who wants to be like the rest of this crazy world, anyway?

When my kids were young and we lived in Alamogordo, a visit to Dog Canyon would mean a walk out to the end of the Boardwalk Trail with maybe some exploration along the creek bed before enjoying a picnic lunch.  If we were really ambitious we might “hike” partway up the steep canyon sides to get better views or to find cactus in bloom.  That was at least 40 years ago. Today, accompanied by Lee, I did a hike at Dog Canyon that would have been unthinkable 40 years ago.

A lot of changes happen in the course of 40 years.  The rugged Sacramento Mountains don’t change much, but we humans and the things that we build are constantly changing.  The first surprise awaiting me at Dog Canyon today was the discovery that the boardwalk no longer exists. A flood in 2006 washed it away and it was never rebuilt.  It is still possible to walk the 1/4 mile on what is now called the Riparian Trail to the picnic table where the boardwalk used to be.  If you want to see the riparian cliffside with the dripping greenery that I remember looking forward to at the end of the boardwalk, then it requires scrambling over rocks and boulders, being careful not to slip in the muddy spots.

I was anxious to get started on our planned hike up the Dog Canyon Trail but there was no way Lee was going to miss the chance to see the Riparian Trail.  We guessed correctly that it would be best to do it first because we would probably be too tired if we did it after the longer hike.  I grumbled and complained but once we got there and saw the beautiful yellow columbine flowers in bloom amongst the greenery I had no regrets.

The Riparian Trail side trip had added 3/4 mile to the planned 6-mile hike on the Dog Canyon Trail.  The ruins of a line cabin are 3 miles up and we decided we would make that our turnaround point.  40 years ago I may have gone on some part of the trail high enough to overlook the campground but I had no idea what the rest of the trail was like.  There were some steep and rugged sections when I wasn’t sure I wanted to go all the way to the cabin.  But just like the Riparian Trail the end result was well worth the effort it took to get there.

I haven’t done the research to learn the history behind the line cabin. That’s left for the interested reader to determine. Anyone who lived there when it was still inhabitable is probably no longer alive. I just hope that they enjoyed the time there as much as I enjoyed the short time I spent there today. I certainly wouldn’t have imagined 40 years ago all that life would bring my way and that here I would be 40 years later once again in Dog Canyon.