Travels with the Blonde Coyote

Rolling Bones on the San Antonio Dome

Posted on June 18, 2013 by theblondecoyote

An early 1900's kerosene lantern I found on the hike to the San Antonio Dome. I stashed it under this tree.

An early 1900′s kerosene lantern and a horseshoe I found on the hike to the San Antonio Dome. I stashed both under this lone tree.

There are bones under this tree. Broken bones, bones eaten down to the marrow. And why shouldn’t there be bones here? I’m sitting under the only tree in miles. If I were dying and looking for shade, or preparing to feast, I’d seek out this tree too. I spent all morning hiking here to this tree. All morning hiking towards San Antonio Dome, all morning before it got any closer. Damn, this must be a big mountain.

San Antonio is deceptive because it looks like a giant hill- a free-standing rounded prominence looming above the high Taos Plateau, slopes so rolling and gentle that from a distance, it looks like you can stroll up and roll back down, laughing. Now that I’m sitting at the base of it, after taking all morning on the unexpectedly long approach through the trackless sagebrush, I give the beast its due. This is not a hill; it’s a mountain.

Following the BLM fenceline towards the Dome. Notice the tiny vertebrae on the post.

Undaunted, I head up, stepping from the flatlands up onto the slope. One foot in front of the other, up and up. Lots of rocks underfoot, all sizes, pebbles and ankle rollers, mostly angular though, not easily turned, crusted with lichen, a few wildflowers. High desert flora.

Fauna too: pronghorn antelope startle at the sight of me, but can’t seem to place my sight or smell. They bolt to a safe distance – among the fastest land animals on Earth, for a moment – then turn towards me, so slim they disappear, impossible to photograph, and watch me. It’s possible they’ve never before seen a person on their side of this mountain. Dio watches quietly beside me, off-leash and keyed in to their every movement, but I don’t have to tell him not to give chase, though both he and the pronghorn could probably use a good run.

Dio & Elk

There’s a road to the top of this mountain, to the crown of radio towers, but I’m not on any path. Hiking off trail, solo, in remote country isn’t something I take lightly. Before I set out this morning, I had spent a whole day studying this mountain, tracking up the slopes through my binoculars, finding my route to the top. I decided on a ridge to the left of a deep gully, then to cut over at the base of an outcrop to the edge of the summit aspen forest. Based on my map, I thought I would intersect with the road to the summit somewhere up there, but I wouldn’t see the track until I was on it.

I’m hiking straight up the southeast flank of the mountain, taking a route little traveled, if ever. Soon I spot a dash of bright white on the slope above me and make my way up to a 5-point deer antler, bleached by at least one season of sun. I take a few photos, holding the antler up against the valley view, then after easily talking myself out of keeping this treasure, I make my way over to the gully to find a safe spot to stash it. I wedge it into a tree stump and take a few more photos. If pass this way again someday, I’ll be delighted to see it again, like visiting an old friend, unless something eats it first. Finder’s keepers, for the wild things.

Antler Treasure

Up and up. This mountain is an exercise in the sheer stubbornness of mountain climbing. Every step is the same: up and up an endless hill. I climb for hours, taking short breaks every few minutes, always feeling that upwards pull. My legs are tired, here and there, now and then, but they never quit on me, the muscles sliding and locking with indefatigable strength born from seasons of high altitude hiking. It’s taken more than a decade to tune this mountaineer’s engine.

Skullcap

I work my way upslope, keeping to the open spaces, where I can see and be seen. Pronghorn scatter when they see me, the same small herds crisscrossing ahead of me and behind me as I reappear and disappear from view over and under the rise and fall of the mountain. I’m not alone on this dome; I’m with the bones and the pronghorn and probably at least one mountain lion. Plenty of space for all of us. Onward and upward.

Nasal Cavity

Finally I come up over a rise and to the edge of the summit woods. Here in the desert is a reverse tree line: only the summit gets enough rain and snow to sustain woods and though the flanks of this mountain are all but bald, the summit is a toupee of trees. At the edge of the aspen, backed by spruce, I stop. I like the wide vistas and I don’t want to be enclosed. I skirt the edge until I reach another tall grass meadow with a faint road curving up through the middle.

Summit Aspens

Arborglyphs

I follow the road to an old sheep camp marked by rusted frame cot, some metal trash and a grove of arborglyphs. Just beyond, the road enters the woods, and at the top of a rise, I spy upright metal frames. The summit weather station. I’m almost there! But I don’t want to go. I don’t want to enter the woods, leave the views, to stand at the foot of humming metal towers. So I don’t go. Within striking distance of tagging the summit, I turn my back on the top and face the endless vista of northern New Mexico: Tres Piedras, Mount Wheeler, the Taos Ski Basin, the Enchanted Circle. This is what I came up here for: to see what I can see.

One of the only manmade signs on the way up San Antonio. Storm rolling in, time to descend!

Posted in Bowie & D.O.G., Hiking!, New Mexico, Photography, Road tripping!, Uncategorized, Vagabonding 101 | 1 Comment

The Mountains Are Calling And I Must Go

Posted on June 14, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Bowie & Dio in the San Juans

Hey everybody! Sorry for the trickle of posts lately. I’ve been working hard and playing hard. After turning in a half-dozen stories for the August issue of EARTH magazine, I headed into the mountains, climbing three 11,000, 12,000 and 13,000-foot peaks back-to-back-to-back. Today, I handed in a Travels in Geology feature for EARTH on White Sands, New Mexico and I’m off again! It’s summer in southern Colorado and the mountains are calling! Stay tuned for posts and pix!

The San Antonio Dome in northern New Mexico is an epically big hill: 10, 908 feet. Notice the tiny vertebrae on the fencepost.

Sheepherder Arborglyphs on the Summit of San Antonio

Old kerosene lantern I found on the way to San Antonio.

Old kerosene lantern I found on the way up San Antonio.

Into the San Juan Wilderness!

Trail #813 aka the Continental Divide Trail

Treasure: An old boot I found stuffed in a cairn marking the Continental Divide Trail

Happy Hiker in the San Juans! One of my favorite places on Earth. I love how enormously bear-like Bowie looks in this photo. 12 years old and still a mountain dog!

Snowmelt along the CDT

Happy Snowday Dogs!

Summit Peak (which I climbed in 2011) and Montezuma Peak from the Unicorn

Summit Peak on the left (which I climbed in 2011) and Montezuma Peak on the right from the Unicorn

West Spanish Peak! Hard to believe there’s a trail up there…

Up and Up West Spanish Peak. The last 1/2 mile gained more than 2,000 feet of elevation! Whew!

Nearing the Summit! Dio beat me up, of course.

Summit shot with my new mountaineering friend Richard. We both camped at the trailhead the night before this climb and decided to team up for the summit. Richard is training to climb Mount Rainier in July!

West Spanish Peak summit shot with my new mountaineering friend Richard. We both camped at the trailhead the night before this climb and decided to team up for the summit. Richard is training to climb Mount Rainier in July!

Summit shot! 13,625 feet!

Following Richard down the summit ridgeline. Crazy windy!

If you really miss me, check through the archives! I’ve written over 400 posts and somehow I doubt you’ve memorized all of them…

Posted in Bowie & D.O.G., Hiking!, New Mexico, Photography, Road tripping!, Uncategorized, Vagabonding 101 | 10 Comments

Bare Bones, Skulls & Skeletons

Posted on June 7, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Fencepost Vertebrae, Sapphire Mountains, Montana

Of all the treasures I find on my hikes, my favorites are skulls and skeletons. I love the way bare bones stand out stark against any landscape. After years of seeking, I can spot them in tall grass, in woods, in brush. I love lifting them off the ground, shaking out the debris from the cracks and crevasses and studying their contours. Bare bones have such gravity; they demand respect and I handle them carefully, looking and listening, while they tell me their stories. I can tell prey from predator, ungulate from bovine, canine from feline. As far as I know I’ve never found a human bone.

Bare bones are the ultimate offerings, left behind by those who have come before me. I find them most often off trail, where I’m likely to be the first person to have passed since the animal laid down to die, or was killed and eaten. I have no right to claim such sacred objects as my own. They belong to the land, to any enterprising animal who might come along and carry them away. After admiring the bones, recreating the animal’s life and death, and photographing them thoroughly, I leave the offerings in a safe spot where I can revisit them, someday, if I’m lucky enough to pass that way again.

Snake Skeleton, Shenandoah, Virginia

Kansas Cow Skull & D.O.G.

Big Horned Sheep, Collegiate Peaks, Colorado

Coyote! Wild Rivers, New Mexico

Jackrabbit!

Elk & D.O.G., San Antonio Dome, New Mexico

Bowie & Nebraska Bone

Old Cow Bone, Cerrillos, New Mexico

5-point Deer Antler from a 10-point Buck

5-point Antler from a 10-point Buck, Northern New Mexico

The Blonde Coyote & Goat Skull, Cerrillos, New Mexico

Coyote Skull, Juniper Tree, Cerrillos, New Mexico

Bowie’s Treasure, Cerrillos, New Mexico

Posted in Appalachian Trail, Bowie & D.O.G., Hiking!, New Mexico, Photography, Road tripping!, Uncategorized, Vagabonding 101 | 13 Comments

The Weight of Water: Desert Deluge

Posted on June 3, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Washed Out Bridge

In an effort to raise awareness about water conservation among visitors to the Land of Enchantment, the Santa Fe Watershed Association and HospitalityGreen have asked me to pen a series of essays about my experiences living off rainwater in the New Mexican desert. Here is my second of four essays on the Weight of Water:

Turn on almost any faucet in Santa Fe and clear, clean free-flowing water will come out. This is a miracle. Where I live, just 20 miles south, water doesn’t come as easily. My house has no water source – no water lines, no well – other than rainwater from the sky. It rains less than a foot a year in this part of New Mexico, most of it in the summer months, and on more than one occasion, I have turned on the tap and had nothing come out.

It’s true what they say: there is no shortage of water in the desert, but exactly the right amount. Living off rainwater in the desert takes vision: you have to be able to see past dryness to the deluge so when rain does come, often in the form of a sudden, biblical downpour, you are ready to collect as much rainwater as possible.

Floods are as much a part of this place as drought. As dry as the desert appears much of the year, its shape is dominated by the running of water. Since it’s dry most of the time, the soil doesn’t seem to know what to do with water when it does come and storm scars cut deep and last for years.

The Big Arroyo

Arroyos are the great gutters of this desert: rivulets lead to small gullies and then larger ones, which empty into the deep arroyos that, a few times a year, I’m told, flow in white caps down to the Galisteo River. Knowing the arroyos as deep, dry scars, I found it hard to fathom them full of water, until I witnessed an August flash flood.

One minute it was sunny, then it was a bit overcast, then rain was coming down in buckets. Rain is rare enough here to warrant stopping what you’re doing to go watch it from the porch. But this time my porch was already soaked. This storm was something different. The rain was falling sideways and upside down, the wind-driven drops pelting so hard that when they hit they bounced back up towards the sky.

Squinting through the downpour, I saw a rushing, chocolate brown river raging across my driveway. This was the storm I had been waiting to see! I pulled on my water shoes and grabbed my camera and ran out into the rain. The driveway river was running fast and high enough that I would not attempt to drive across it. I turned upstream and plunged into the knee-deep fast running water without bothering to roll up my pant legs. Pants be damned; I had a waterfall to see!

I sloshed upstream, towards the spot I’d always planned on heading in the event of a storm like this: a spillway of red sandstone evidently sculpted by past floods less than a quarter mile from my house. The violent current was knee deep and frothy brown, like a melted chocolate shake – the good kind, thick with cream – and nearly as cold.

Flash Flood!

Following the roaring, gushing river between the high arroyo banks, water borne debris – sticks and rocks and I hoped not rattlesnakes– pelted my submerged feet and wrapped around my legs and I was glad for the long pants, though they were soaked and filthy. I rounded a few bends in the river and arrived to an incredible scene: raging water had transformed the usually dusty dry place and save for the familiar rocks crowning the falls, I hardly recognized it.

Rain was pouring, thunder was rumbling, lightning was clapping and the waterfall was glorious, falling like rushing chocolate and churning madly at my feet. A flood in the desert! I had to see it to believe it.

Desert Waterfall

In a one-inch rainstorm, a thousand square foot roof will catch 650 gallons of water. In that one spectacular summer storm – which loosed more rain than in the previous nine months combined – my roof collected enough water to last me through most of the winter. And that’s not even as wet as it gets out here. Heading west from my house across BLM land, I can hike to the Galisteo Dam, a massive flood control dam built in 1965 to hold back 100-year floods. As far as I know, they’ve never come, but there’s still time.

Standing at the top, on the edge of the dam, among bright red and pure white sandstone slabs – the red dotted with chartreuse lichen, the white decorated with delicate fossils of frozen grass – I finally saw the need for the dam: the land below is rippled by giant flood waves.

Only from this vantage, high above the desert, could I begin to grasp the vast expanse of time preserved here. Millions of years ago, this landscape was underwater, drowned beneath an inland shallow sea. Much later the Cerrillos Hills and Ortiz Mountains littered the ground with glittering shards of volcanic rock.

The view from the top of the Galisteo Dam

This desert is made up of millions of years of these layers, layers of Earth, layers of life. Studying these layers from the top of the dam, our own layer of Earth, the uppermost crust we live upon, love upon, ransack and pollute upon, becomes ever so humbly thin.

The rains will always come again, but there’s no telling when. In our lifetimes the deserts are desertifying: trending drier and drier, with longer and longer waits between deluges. How dry is too dry? How long is too long? Better to learn the weight of water, before those miraculously free flowing taps run dry.

This essay appeared last week on HospitalityGreen’s blog. Over the next 9 months, HospitalityGreen LLC, a New York-based firm specializing in environmental and operations consulting services and founder of the nationally recognized Green Concierge Certification program, will provide technical assistance, green team training and customized coaching free of charge to 15 lodging providers in Santa Fe in an effort to encourage better water conservation and reduce the amount of chemicals and other pollutants released into the environment. Read more about the initiative here.

Revisit my first “Freshly Pressed” post in this series, The Weight of Water.

Posted in Hiking!, New Mexico, Photography, Sustainable Living, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Writing On the Wall: Sego Canyon, Utah

Posted on May 29, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Barrier Canyon style pictographs at Sego Canyon

On my travels in the Southwest, I’ve seen quite a few petroglyphs: illustrations chipped or carved into the surface of the rock. In Sego Canyon, north of Moab, I saw some of my first pictographs: rock art painted onto the wall using natural pigments. These paintings, in the so-called Barrier Canyon Style, were created 8,000 years ago (!!) by little-known nomads called the Archaic People.

Sego Canyon, detail

Barrier Canyon Style is identified by larger than life anthropomorphic forms, usually with hollowed or missing eyes, an absence of arms and legs, and horns, antennae, earrings, and snakes. The ghostly red images are thought to represent shamanistic art associated with ritual activities of the Archaic people.

Ghosts of Sego Canyon. Note the bullet holes.

Ancient Art, Modern Target

Spiral & Umbilical, Modern G.H.

Wide View of Sego Panel. Note the purple flare at upper left.

Graffiti near the Sego Panel

I was unprepared for how spooky these images are! I worry I might meet them again in my dreams. Sego Canyon is a beautiful place. You have to wonder what these ancient people saw there to inspire such beautifully hideous artwork. So monstrous, so alien! Hmmm…

Sego Canyon & Pictographs

Posted in Hiking!, Photography, Road tripping!, Uncategorized, Vagabonding 101 | Tagged Pictographs, Sego Canyon, Utah | 8 Comments

Home Sweet Teardrop

Posted on May 24, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Home Sweet Home. Can you spot my guard tarantula?

I’ve posted plenty of pix of the outside of the Teardrop, but I keep getting requests from readers to see the inside as well. So here you go! I keep “the Rattler” neat and clean at all times because every time I pull over somebody asks for a tour.

Last February, when I saw my very first Teardrop in Guadalupe National Park the owners were kind enough to give me a tour and it was love at first sight. I became a woman obsessed, on a mission, and I bought my very own Teardrop less than a month later. So now I give a tour to anybody who asks. You never know when you’ll spark somebody into taking their life on the road!

My Vintage National Park Postcard collection. I've been to all but one... can you guess?

My vintage National Park postcard collection and a rug that’s too pretty to put on the floor. That’s Hemingway and Georgia O’Keefe riding a motorcycle on the left as well as a map of one of my favorite places on Earth. The black box and wires are for the solar panel on the roof, which supplies all of my power.

My two Sarah McRae Morton originals and a scene from one of my favorite childhood books, The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses that I bought in South Dakota.

For those who don’t know the details yet, I bought this Teardrop from an 80 year old craftsman who made it in his garage for a winter project. It’s his original design and one of only five like it. The whole thing is 5 feet by 10 feet with a full sized bed, under bed storage, a folding table, a counter and cabinets, and a parquet wood tile floor that I added this past winter.

Before I bought the Teardrop I lived out of my car between housesitting jobs for seven years. Everything I owned, including my two dogs, fit neatly in my 2-door Volkswagon and then the Subaru (aka “The Raven”). So while the Teardrop looks tiny, it was a major space upgrade for me! Still, I’m ruthless about getting rid of anything and everything extra and I save tons of money by not buying things I don’t need. When you live in less than 50 square feet, it’s kind of amazing to walk through a big box store and realize that whole sections of consumer culture no longer apply to your life.

I don’t have a lot of stuff in the Teardrop, but everything I do have is meaningful to me. Every postcard on the wall reminds me of something, some one or some place. My main impetus for getting the Teardrop was to have a space of my own, without having to settle down. Every morning I open my eyes to this rolling work of art and fall a little more in love with life on the road.

My living room. If it’s rainy or buggy, I can set up my chair inside!

My Front Porch View at Gooseneck’s State Park in Utah. The trailer plate on the wall is my souvenir from the Yukon last summer. The red beads are for luck from a friend, the round block on the wall is my grandfather’s “Round Tuit”, as in “I’ll get around to it”. To the top right of the door you might recognize the painting of Hemingway playing the piano that I bought from a street artist in Key West for $1. To the right of the mirror is the card that inspired the post “Where We Love Is Home”.

Still curious? Check out my video tour of the Teardrop on Youtube and my previous posts Teardrop Sees America and A Teardrop is Born. The Rattler was also featured last summer on the Tiny House Blog.

Posted in Bowie & D.O.G., Photography, Road tripping!, Sustainable Living, Teardrop Trailer, Uncategorized, Vagabonding 101 | 19 Comments

Crossing Paths: Jurassic Park

Posted on May 20, 2013 by theblondecoyote

That’s a big bird.

Around 150 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic, an 18-ton sauropod, possibly a Camarasaur (think Brontosaur), walked along a rippled sandbar by a river, leaving a track of great sucking holes with its enormous platter-sized feet.

Then, danger: a pack of theropods, likely formidable T-Rex-like Allosaurs, appeared to the left and the Camarasaur swung right, leaving an arc of tracks, crossed by the three-toed bird-like prints of at least five of the 3-ton predators. Shortly after their crossing, fine sand filled in the tracks, which were then deeply buried as part of the Salt Wash member of the Morrison formation. Eons later, in 1989, the paths were uncovered when a road to a copper mine was built through this area, off highway 191 north of Moab, exposing the tracks.

The thing about dinosaur trackways is they often don’t look like anything special, just an odd-shaped depression in the rock. You have to stop and really look and use your imagination. A little water helps too…

Allosaurus Track #1

Allosaurus Track #2

Allosaurus Track #3

The Allosaurus Trackway

Sauropod Track. Suauropod prints are rarely preserved and even more rarely identified, mainly because they don't look like anything special.

Sauropod Track. Sauropod prints are rarely preserved and even more rarely identified, mainly because they don’t look like anything special.

Dio crossing paths with the Camarasaur, crossing paths with the Allosaur

To visit the Copper Ridge Dinosaur Trackway, drive north from Moab on 191 for 23 miles to a signed turnoff just past mile marker 148 and follow the signs to the trackway, which runs across a tilted sandstone slab less than a quarter mile from the trailhead. There is good free camping down this road as well. Check out my previous post on dinosaur trackways: Monsters of Navajoland.

Posted in Bowie & D.O.G., Hiking!, Photography, Road tripping! | 7 Comments

Explosions in the Sky: Canyonlands Thunderstorm!

Posted on May 16, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Canyonlands Thunderstorm (click to enlarge)

One of the things I love most about road tripping through Utah is the abundance of free campsites! I passed through the Moab area on a beautiful spring weekend – the height of tourist season, every hotel, motel and campground said “No Vacancy” – and yet I had no trouble finding awesome, free places to camp each night. My grand total for lodging for 9 nights on the road: $0.

The absolute best campsite I had this past week – possibly one of the best I’ve ever had – was at the Canyon Rim Recreation Area, BLM lands overlooking Canyonlands National Park, south of Moab. The two official campgrounds were full, but I had the entire Needles Overlook area to myself! On my way out out to the overlook/ picnic area (which is signed no camping) I spotted a slew of unpaved roads snaking off through the trees, towards the drop. I left the pavement and followed one of these roads to where it dead ended next to a fire ring at the edge of the mesa.

My sweet free spot overlooking Canyonlands

Right after I parked, I heard thunder in the distance and soon the most incredible storm system I have ever witnessed swept down through Canyonlands in a dramatic procession of cumulonimbus thunderheads called a “squall line”. Up on the rim, I barely got wet! Utah, this is Love.

Canyonlands Squall Line

Best seat in the house!

A few drops on the rim, deluge down below

Rain in the Desert!

The Edge of the Storm

Thunderstorm D.O.G.

Aftermath: A Full-Circle Rainbow at Sunset!

For more on free camping check out my previous posts: Boondocking 101, How to Find a Sweet Free Campsite and Leave No Trace. Also check out my other raging storm post: Explosions in the Sky: Pawnee National Grasslands. These are some of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken and thus it bears repeating: please don’t steal my photos! If you’d like a print, please contact me at theblondecoyote@gmail.com. Thank you! M

Posted in Bowie & D.O.G., Hiking!, Photography, Road tripping!, Teardrop Trailer, Vagabonding 101 | 23 Comments

Writing on the Wall: Utah Petroglyphs

Posted on May 14, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Sheep in Glen Canyon

Petroglyphs are treasures: rock art created centuries ago by people both mysterious and familiar. Why did ancient people write on walls? Probably for many of the same reasons that modern people do today. Here are a few of my favorite petroglyphs from the past week in Utah. Some of these I read about in guide books, some I was told about by locals and a few I just stumbled upon while wandering in canyon country. Enjoy!

Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park

Newspaper Rock detail: post-Spaniard glyph of horse and rider & monster man

Petroglyph Violence? Sand Island Petroglyph Panel, Bluff, Utah

Fremont Style Petroglyphs at Sego Canyon, Utah

Monster Men near Glen Canyon. One of the petroglyphs I stumbled upon on my own.

Bear & Hunters

The Original Ballers

Elaborate Headdress

Family?

The Birthing Panel, famous petroglyph along Kane Creek Road near Moab

Snake & Sunlight

Love rock art? Check out my previous posts on Urban Petroglyphs and Geologic Unrest and the Sego Canyon pictographs. Love graffiti? Me too!

Posted in Hiking!, Photography, Road tripping!, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Utah In Bloom

Posted on May 13, 2013 by theblondecoyote

Blooming Yucca at Corona Arch

The desert holds a perfect and natural balance between lifelessness and living vibrancy. The strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life as in other places but scattered abroad in spareness and simplicity, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock. The extreme clarity of the desert light is equaled by the extreme individuation of desert life-forms. Love flowers best in openness and freedom.”

- Ed Abbey, Desert Solitaire