SummitPost.org

As winter is setting in here in Mount Shasta, I am pining for the Southwest as usual. It is hard for me to believe how long it has been since I have been down there. Even though I live in paradise, I think about moving to New Mexico everyday. I often log onto Summitpost just to browse the pictures in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah pages. Here are some of the pages I have been enjoying lately:

Red Butte

(Bedrock in nearby Valle is one of my absolutely favorite places in the world!)

Four Peaks


Hermit Peak


Cabezon Peak


Selfishly, I hope the AZ/NM contingent here on SP will post some great stuff this winter. I am hungry for some new fodder.

Dern it, I will go ahead a plug one of my own pages too. When I was in gradschool in Dallas, I would drive back and forth between Dallas and CA at the beginning and end of the summer. Thank God I never had to spend summer in Dallas! I took numerous routes there and back again, but I found myself either beginning a trip or ending it by stopping at the Canadian River Canyon. It was either my first taste of terrain after a semester's exile in Dallas or a farewell to the vertical on my way back.

Dern it again, I was just recalling the first trip I took back to California from Dallas, before I discovered the Canadian River Canyon. I cut all the way across the Texas Panhandle and crossed over into New Mexico at Texline. At just about that time, Rabbit Ear Mountain appears on the horizon and after a year in Dallas, I was ecstatic to see some vertical topography (I had not yet discovered the Wichita Mountains or the Caprock, my eventual wilderness refuges). After Rabbit Ear Mountain, various volcanic domes get larger as one moves west until the Sange de Cristos are in sight. By that point one has adjusted to being in a landscape that actually has a landscape.

Later, at the end of summer, I returned to Dallas, ending the trip on a similar route, passing through the Sangre de Cristos, then through the volcanic cones of northeastern New Mexico. Then I saw Rabbit Ear Mountain again. Oh. It was so depressing, seeing the lump that had excited me so just a few months earlier. It was a long three years before I graduated...

Dern it Bubba...now you've got me longing for the Southwest!

Bubba Suess wrote:(If anyone can tell me why the Cabezon image is not working, I am all ears. I have substituted other image ID's and none work except the ones I have already posted. Frustrating!)

Fixed it. I pulled up the image number, clicked on "Small" and got the URL. It was different from the one you originally had.

Bob Sihler wrote:Fixed it. I pulled up the image number, clicked on "Small" and got the URL. It was different from the one you originally had.

Danke.

Dern it, take a road trip! That's what I'm doing to escape the Midwest in a little bit.

Lionel wrote:Dude, the SW isn't all sunshine, lolly-pops, and rainbows, and it's cold here in Arizona. On the Colorado Plateau, it was only 30 yesterday. Go low, say <4,000', and it will be nice. And ignore the morons who say 114 is too hot. We have A/C and pools for that, well the smart people who live low do. This year I have been in a 130 degree temperature span, from -19 to +111, and 111 was actually comfortable so long as I hydrated. -19 burned my exposed skin, despite being calm to almost perfectly calm.
Is there a point to this? No.

Believe me. I know this all too well. I don't need to recount the time the baby wipes froze in Tres Piedras. For me it is more a combination of great times spent there in the past and the opportunity to explore a lot of cool stuff (cold not withstanding) when the high country is blanketed in snow. I can handle the cold fine, but the snow gets old and access can be a real hassle.

Arthur Digbee wrote:Dern it, take a road trip! That's what I'm doing to escape the Midwest in a little bit.

Come March, my friend, and I will be. In the mean time, I go down to my folk's house in Sonoma County (the Wine Country) and do a lot of coastal and low country hiking. I plan on hiking the Palisades after Christmas. Still, it does not have the elan that the Southwest has...

I find myself longing for the Southwest again...

I hear you. My wife was just down in the Llano Estacado and came back with photos of Rabbit Ear Mountain, Palo Duro Canyon, and various other interesting places. It's all she talks about, recently.

I'd be up for a trip to the Superstion Mountains of Arizona or just about anywhere right now.

Any normal winter recreation up in this part of the country is currently on hold for lack of snow.

I have been living vicariously through other people's trip reports on SP and other websites, recently.

I'm a native of Santa Fe. The last time I moved away from ABQ was in 1998.

I have finally let go of my desire to live in New Mexico. The crime simply became unbearable.

I had a strange experience when I moved to New York from ABQ in 1998. I was running on a road out in the country in New York and heard a car approaching from behind. Instinctively, I took cover behind a tree and watched as the car passed.

Strangely, nothing happened. No one shouted obscenities at me from the passing car. No one flashed gang symbols at me. No one threw empty beer bottles at me as the car drove by. No one got out of the car and tried to chase me down for "fun."

Another car passed, and again nothing happenened. And another. And another. Still nothing happened.

In ABQ I lived in the NE Heights, a nice part of town. In a span of 5 years, my apartment was broken into 3 times, home invasion once, my truck was vandalized dozens of times (especially when parked at the trailheads), mugged twice, assaulted while jogging almost daily. Since leaving ABQ in 1998 I have not had any problems with crime at all.

Ah....It's good to not live in ABQ anymore.

Sierra Ledge Rat wrote:I'm a native of Santa Fe. The last time I moved away from ABQ was in 1998.

I have finally let go of my desire to live in New Mexico. The crime simply became unbearable.

I had a strange experience when I moved to New York from ABQ in 1998. I was running on a road out in the country in New York and heard a car approaching from behind. Instinctively, I took cover behind a tree and watched as the car passed.

Strangely, nothing happened. No one shouted obscenities at me from the passing car. No one flashed gang symbols at me. No one threw empty beer bottles at me as the car drove by. No one got out of the car and tried to chase me down for "fun."

Another car passed, and again nothing happenened. And another. And another. Still nothing happened.

In ABQ I lived in the NE Heights, a nice part of town. In a span of 5 years, my apartment was broken into 3 times, home invasion once, my truck was vandalized dozens of times (especially when parked at the trailheads), mugged twice, assaulted while jogging almost daily. Since leaving ABQ in 1998 I have not had any problems with crime at all.

Ah....It's good to not live in ABQ anymore.

Ledge Rat, that sounds like you survived, but not without some
ptsd.

I had my motorcycle stolen within 4 days of moving to ABQ, an d my friend just had his car stolen from his driveway, That's the second time tha'ts happed in as many years for him.

I hear you though Bubba, New Mexico is cool. Especially when in the backcountry.. Thers nobody around, its kinda the opposite of a 14er hike...

But damn what I wouldnt give to live near the Sierra, or, maybe just back up in good ol SLC.