Chama River Canyon Wilderness

Hola, everyone!  This blog post will likely be a shorter one than I usually post.  I hope your Independence Day was excellent.  I was able to watch fireworks as well as a real life brush fire caused by those fireworks!  Luckily the LAFD was able to put the fire out pretty quickly because there were about 300 people tightly packed waiting to get onto buses to be shuttled back to the main hill.

Chama River Canyon Wilderness

Keeping with my weekly attempt to get out and do something, I decided to go somewhere in NM where I have not spent much time. The Chama refers to the area surrounding the Chama river, a picturesque river that flows from the Rockies in the north through high desert landscape made famous by Georgia O'Keeffe in the south until meeting with the Rio Grande just south of Abiquiu.  While getting to the mountains sounded nice on this hot weekend, that drive would have been a little much for me for just a routine hike, so I opted to hike in the southern portion of the Chama, an area popular for tubing, kayaking, and rafting.  This drive was still about an hour and a half from Los Alamos, but it is so scenic that it doesn't really feel like that long of a drive.  The Chama River Canyon Wilderness is a small wilderness just northwest of Abiquiu, NM.  As far as I can tell by the map, only one trail runs through the wilderness.  The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) cuts through the wilderness and intersects with Forest Road 151 about 30 yards before Skull Bridge.  The "trailhead", while marked on the map, is not obvious.  There is a large sign near the bridge that has scant information on it, but there are no restrooms or maps or trail descriptions.  There is a somewhat confusing paragraph explaining how to find the trail from the sign, but if you walk southeast along the road (the way out of the canyon) for about 30 yards you will see a post with a CDT marker and a cartoon of a hiker.  The trail is nearby.

Because the trail is merely the CDT, there is no loop or obvious turn back point.  My trip was devoted to getting the best view of the canyon possible.  Once you get to the top of the mesa (right about where the 7700' marker is on the topo), the views of the canyon are pretty stunning.  I wanted to get a view of the Jemez so I hiked to where the red line stops, but since I was not planning on hiking that far I didn't print out any more map and turned around, since I didn't want to hike aimlessly for no reason.  It looks like if you keep hiking to the 'x' mark (near the 8012 marker) you will get a good view of the Jemez.

Overall, this hike was about 8 miles total.  The sky was clear while I was hiking, and there was no wind, so the hike was pretty warm the whole time, probably over 90 degrees F.  The elevation gain was approximately 1500', but spread out over 3.5 miles, so it's not too bad.  The trail was pretty well maintained, but it is easy to accidentally end up off trail.  If you catch yourself right away it's easy to figure out where the real trail is, so if it all of a sudden looks like you're off trail you probably are.  I was surprised by how little evidence of other people I saw.  I didn't see another person the entire time hiking, nor did I see any footprints other than my own (or trash, a nice change).  I saw a lot of elk prints and scat, though.  I think this hike would be excellent to do in Spring or Fall when it's not so hot, and the potential backpacking campsite views were world class.  The only downside would be that all water would have to be packed in, but for a 4-5 mile hike that's not so bad.

The parking lot in relation to the trailhead

The trailhead.  The CDT markers are scarce to start the hike, but they become abundant after a mile or two.

The trail at one point becomes very lush and green, although it still feels dry as hell

A much less impressive wilderness boundary sign than the others I've posted here

My view of the Chama River Canyon

View of Cerro Pedernal (foreground), and, I believe, Polvadera Peak (background) from about halfway up the trail

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Afterwords I took the short drive to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert.  It is a Catholic Benedictine abbey that welcomes visitors of all faiths, including none, any day of the week.  The monastery occupies an absolutely pristine setting, and there are plenty of places to think, pray, meditate, read, etc.  The idea here is silence and introspection, although visitors can volunteer to work and even stay overnight.  The design of the monastery and the property is gorgeous, and it is somewhat haunting being in the chapel and looking up through the skylights to see three crosses perched along the mesa top.  The monks actually are professional chanters and sell CDs of them chanting, and I was able to hear them practicing when I came.  At one point this monastery was home to the only abbey-based brewery in the US, but I heard one of the monks mention that it was sold, and the Abbey Brewing Company, the current owner, licenses the monks' image and name in return for royalties.  The Abbey Brewing Company is excellent at hiding this fact, as I had no idea the monks did not make the beer anymore, although closer inspection of the packaging and their website shows that they never claim the monks actually make the beer.  The brewery itself specializes in Belgian beers, which is kind of a breath of fresh air in this IPA-obsessed state (not that I'm complaining).  I'm not sure if any brewing happens at the monastery anymore, although the website says they are "on the monastery property", but I do know that they have a small hop farm on the property from which they make two seasonal beers, according to the company's website.  Either way, the beer is good and unique, so I recommend it.  They apparently have a taproom in Albuquerque, which adds to the overwhelming amount of taprooms and breweries that have opened there since I moved away.

The chapel.  I may have jumped a little bit when the bell went off.

There is also a gift shop where you can support the monks by buying any number of items handmade by them or by others.  I wanted to buy a handmade rosary, but they were unfortunately sold out.  If you are totally secular, they also sell candles, handmade leather items, and prints of desert scenery, among many other things.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short-ish blog.  I am going to Santa Fe tomorrow to, at the very least, buy some cigars, but probably also to check out some of the typical tourist stuff.  This upcoming weekend Lindsey is visiting me for the first time in about a month (exciting!) so I will not post.  She has done a wonderful job covering our adventures while she's in town, and next weekend is Los Alamos' Science Fest, so I'm sure she'll have plenty to talk about!  Have an excellent week, everyone!