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This past Sunday saw the first ride for me in 4 or 5 weeks in my "backyard" here in Santa Fe, as the forest had re-opened at 12:01 am on Saturday. 2 Buddies and I actually drove to the beginning of the ride, to allow for more miles in the woods. The drive took abou 10 minutes, so no big deal, and we parked on Pacheco Canyon road, just where the dirt starts. We rode up Pacheco Canyon rd. (for those who aren't familiar with the area, it's a nice steady climb on a FS road) to Aspen Ranch, then hop on a superb trail, the upper section of Borrego which had us tear-assing through some remarkably clear, cool, and moist trail! We zipped down to the intersection of Rio en Medio and continued north towards the wilderness boundary. I'd actually never ridden this portion of trail before and was blown away by how incredible and remote it felt. I also knew that based on the amount of descending we were doing that there'd be some significant climbing in the near future! Sure enough, as we approached the next stream crossing at the Rio Nambe, it looked like some good, hard climbing was in store. All the creeks are running so well, it was hard to ride any of them without getting soaked feet, but as the temp. had climbed to warm, it actually felt nice. The climb after the creek was probably the most difficult rideable stretch of trail we encountered this day. It just was relentless, varying between steep and kiss-your-stem steep, but rideable. As we approached the Rio Capulin & Rancho Viejo, the climbing eased up, and we were treated to some open meadowy type trail that we took a pit stop on (one of many) to refuel. As we had now come face-to-face with the wilderness area boundary, we had to turn left, heading west southwest, on the Rio Capulin trail, heading towards the Nambe trail, which we then picked up for a short while before bearing left and heading southwest on a pretty rough trail, which was highlighted by a 1/2 mile or so hike-a-bike section up a drainage. We noted here that the trail was actually flagged and may be slated for some work, which would be incredible, as it was somewhat overgrown and eroded, but still pretty discernible. The hard part was actually finding the trail off of Nambe! Totally subtle and easy to miss. Anyhow, once up the drainage, the ride picked up where it left off.... classic rocky mountain/NM superlative trails! This trail (name unknown...) eventually hit Rio en Medio near the bottom, which we rode on briefly, then in and up another unknown (to me) and unmarked trail to take us back through a small valley and up onto a mesa-ish flat area that dumped us back on the road near where we parked!
My cycle-computer ceased functioning at 14.65 miles, so I figure we maybe got 22-24 miles in, maybe more, maybe less, but all good! Took 4.5 hours at a steady pace, including a few diversions and missed turns. I'd have to rate it a 9.5 or an A+. With a wee bit of trailwork, mostly weed-whacking brush on the sides near the hike-a-bike section, and some trail work there, it'd be a perfect 10!
I was wondering if anyone knew more about some of these mystery trails, or had a good map. I'll try and re-ride the route asap with my GPS and then look at the track on a map.
My cycle-computer ceased functioning at 14.65 miles, so I figure we maybe got 22-24 miles in, maybe more, maybe less, but all good! Took 4.5 hours at a steady pace, including a few diversions and missed turns. I'd have to rate it a 9.5 or an A+. With a wee bit of trailwork, mostly weed-whacking brush on the sides near the hike-a-bike section, and some trail work there, it'd be a perfect 10!
I was wondering if anyone knew more about some of these mystery trails, or had a good map. I'll try and re-ride the route asap with my GPS and then look at the track on a map.
