Letter from America

Mountain Lions and Bears

Out on the bike again, and because I am deeply in need of a break, I am taking the opportunity to update y'all from the comfort of Starbucks with an iced coffee by my side!

A couple of weekends ago, Jen and I, along with another couple of friends headed over to Alberquerque, New Mexico. We arrived late Thursday evening, and hopped in our rental car which, in common with most other American rentals that I have had the misfortune to encounter, had the wheels attached to the chassis by means of a water bed. Luckily, the roads in this part of the world are fairly straight and wide, so by 2am we found ourselves north of Durango, Colorado, safely installed in a ski condo, with only some superficial scratches on the car, and having visited the wrong side of the road but a few times.

Friday morning came around, and we got our first view of the pine forest and mountains that we were in the middle of. It's times like this that I really appreciate the alternate Fridays off; I mean less than 12 hours prior we were in Houston, now almost 1000 miles away.

We headed off up the Million Dollar Highway, so called because it cost one million bucks a mile to build. An alternative explanation is that it takes you through many old mining towns, and past old mines. I like it either way. Our first stop was Molas Lake, just south of Silverton. This was the campsite that I had stayed at whilst doing my geological mapping project back in the days of Liverpool uni. We reserved ourselves a camping spot for the next two nights, and then went to stock up on lunch materials for our planned afternoon stroll.

Unusually, this walk begins downhill. It wasn't a gentle slope either, a pleasant walk through the alpine meadows at 10,500 feet gives way to a 1,600 foot decent into the precipitous Animas Canyon along the Colorado Trail. The route gives some spectacular views of the mountains, some topping out at over fourteen thousand feet, and the Animas river far below. The Durango - Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad runs along the river at the bottom of the canyon. We arrived at the bottom of the canyon just in time to get up close and personal with one of the trains; its very cool to stand a metre away from the tracks, in a wilderness area with a steam locomotive barreling towards you! We recharged with some cereal bars, and slowly began the walk back to camp. Suddenly the canyon looked much bigger than it had done on the way down! To make matters worse, the altitude really let's you know who's boss. 10,000 is a long way up.

That evening we popped into Silverton for a beer and a bite to eat, before returning to the campsite. Just as we were at the tents, a rather large thunderstorm hit, thwarting our plan to have a campfire. It was as noisy as hell, but great to be warm and snug in a tent, listening to the rain and thunder, having violet circles in your eyes from the lightning, and being in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

Saturday morning dawned milky blue, with a light mist that was burning off as we breakfasted in Silverton's Brown Bear Café. We drove up to Andrews Lake and set off on another route that I'd found in the past whilst doing my mapping of the area. We took the crater lake trail up a series of fairly civilised switchbacks, before cutting off left, walking over limestone and sandstone beds and into an alpine meadow where we took a break as we watched marmots playing on the sunny rocks.

After some yomping through the flattish meadows, the trail took a turn for the more vertical, and proceeded up the quartzite slabs overlooked by the 13,077 feet of Snowdon Peak. The climb took us over the 12,000 foot contour, an altitude at which interestingly I can fly a plane over only for a maximum of 30 minutes without supplemental oxygen. We passed some snow patches left from the previous winter, and through stunted forests and topped out by crossing a saddle on a ridge into a land of wildflowers and shallow alpine lakes. This made for a good lunch stop, and yours truly took a quick dip in the water, which, for the record, was very, very, very, veryvery cold. Did I mention it was chilly?

We were chased downhill by rather black looking clouds through thick forests and pink quartzite boulders, until we picked up the crater lake trail that took us back to the car. Jen by this point was struggling due to the rather mental decision to go hiking without an insole in ONE of her shoes. Apparently it was eaten by the dog. As you can imagine, this caused a little bit of an imbalance, and pretty much ruined her ankle. Doh!

EDIT @ 9pm: Jen has just asked me to point out that she is not physically inferior in any way (and that is wasn't nice of me to imply that), it was merely an "equipment malfunction" that caused the problem! I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I was very impressed with the resilience exhibited, and if it were me, I would have lain down on the ground and refused to take another step until the helicopter arrived.

We rewarded ourselves with a decidedly mediocre meal at the Pickle Barrel, again in Silverton, avoided a bit of drizzle by having a sunset photo opportunity at Molas Pass, and retired to the tents to do the campfire thing. We managed to get the wet wood burning quite efficiently, it turns out a bag of charcoal and a block of firestarters works a treat.

On Sunday, we scarpered earlyish, and drove down the 50 miles to Durango, where we stocked up with coffee and pastries for breakfast. Destination for the day was Santa Fe, back in the state of New Mexico. We wound our way there the long way, made slightly longer thanks to the so called Hertz NeverLost GPS (subsequently christened 'bitch'!) whom we had clearly confounded by taking it to a place with no roads that it knew about.

The others picked up a car in Santa Fe, as rather stupidly they had to head back to Albuquerque to catch a flight for work on Monday, but we all had chance for a quick walk around the pueblo and a bite to eat. Jen and I took the "low road" to Taos which, after passing through the crappiest town in the USA, turned in to a spectacular drive through red canyons lit by a hot sun that was also illuminating huge thunderstorms ahead of us. We thought the distant thunder sounded like rocks hitting the windshield, until it turned out that it was rocks hitting the windshield that sounded like rocks hitting the windshield. Unfortunately, one left a 5cm impact star as a memento.

It was a thundery Taos that greeted us that Sunday evening, and we went directly to the Cottonwood Inn, a simply stunning B&B that I'd found for the night. On the Taos ski valley road, it was excellently located for a little evening stroll and some further sunset photos high up by the ski lifts.

If you're ever in Taos, stay at this place! The owners, Shantel and Brantly, are ex Houstonites, and had the good sense to get out of the oil patch and head for the mountains. This tells you all you need to know about them! The building itself is a beautiful Adobe home, with stunning gardens where breakfast was served in the morning.

We had chance on Monday for a walk around Taos, and took the high road back towards Santa Fe and on to Albuquerque for the return flight home to Houston.