Again I accidentally found myself “stuck” in NM for a weekend. As I headed to NM for a planned one week trip the whole COVID-19 situation was just starting to hit the US. As we headed out to NM the US had only 541 confirmed cases. Travel had not been impacted and other than about 1% of travelers wearing a mask which was above normal (but not much for this time of year) it was business as usual. While on our trip it was decided we’d stay the weekend to work a few more days into a second week. By the time we left the US had over 9,000 confirmed cases. Many state and federal entities had restricted travel, and for a little while we were concerned we may struggle to get home.
While the term social distancing was just entering our vocabulary our small group of coworkers were working, eating, and commuting together constantly and so while socially isolated we saw little concern with continuing to travel together as a group.
Friday
Friday afternoon after work we decided to start our weekend recreation early with some exploring. Four of us headed off to explore the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in San Antonio, NM. None of us was really sure what to expect but what we found was a very well maintained and laid out wildlife refuge. We explored the various loops by car. Stopping at different docks and walkways to get out and explore. It was a cool and super windy afternoon, but the birds didn’t seem to mind. They sat in the marshy environment by the hundreds! While we didn’t see any wildlife other than birds I’m sure that was partially due to our Winter visit.
After exploring the refuge Darren headed off to catch a flight but the rest of us, Sarah, Mike, and I, decided to check out the Valley of Fires about 40 minutes away. While Wiktor and I had driven through this area in January I was excited to get out of the vehicle and explore the area more effectively. After paying our entry fee we made our way to the Malpais Nature Trail which is a 1 mile handicapped accessible loop through the lava field.
I don’t know what to say other than I’m really glad we walked this trail. It was really neat to walk through the area that had clearly had flowing lava all over it at one point. The unique wildlife was also really great to see up close. We had fun walking off the trail at various points to explore areas that had caved in, inspect various plants, and see the rock left over up close and personal. If you’re in the area I highly recommend stopping here and exploring along the nature trail.
Saturday
Saturday morning Wiktor, Mike, Sarah and I stopped at Walmart for snacks, and then headed out for adventure. Our first stop was for breakfast at Magdalena Café which was great. The big goal for the day would be explore the ghost town of Kelly again and see if we could drive to the top of North Baldy. This time we had 2 four-wheel drive capable pickup trucks along with recovery gear so I was more comfortable exploring off the beaten path.
It was a short drive to Kelly from breakfast. We first parked near the old headframe and got out to explore. Mike was more interested in climbing that I would have been and climbed part way up the dilapidated headframe. He also climbed up into the wooden structure that is still in remarkable shape. After exploring the main buildings we headed up the path Wiktor and I had taken in January. Again we found the building near the ridgeline and took some more time to check out the winch apparatus left behind next to the mine shaft.
After showing everyone what we’d found before we headed back down the mountain to explore another leg of trail that might lead to North Baldy. We drove for a few hundred feet up a path that started wide by quickly got narrower. I turned the truck around at a dead end. As we came down from that path to head to the other trail head likely to lead to the top I went over an exposed metal piece in the ground and cut the sidewall of our trucks rear drivers side tire.
While we had the tools and knowhow to replace it (thanks Ford for including a full-sized matching spare) it still managed to take us longer than expected to replace the tire. A combination of semi-soft ground mixed with a slight grade and a 2,000lb slab of steel in the bed made the swap tricky. But eventually we swapped the tire without incident. However we were spent and now without a spare decided it best to come back and try to get to North Baldy another day when we had two vehicles with two spares.
We decided to head to Datil for a late lunch at the Eagle Guest Ranch. While I’ve had the prime rib in the past and been very pleased the winner today would be the steak sandwich. Literally a steak on white bread Mike was beside himself with how good it was and how “the bread really does just add something!”
Since we had to go back by it we decided to head to the nearby Very Large Array to show Sarah this must see attraction. Unfortunately, we were chased off by a security guard who informed us that it was closed to visitors due to the State of Emergency declared by the governor in response to the COVID-19 situation. We got some pictures of the array from far away and where the tracks cross Hwy 60 but didn’t get to do the walking tour. I was able to confirm though that the array, now in the C configuration, did not have a dish in the location that I was thinking was most interesting for legal night time astrophotography of the array… Looks like I need to re-evaluate the positions used in each configuration again, but that the B array might be more interesting to me which it will be in next. After the VLA we headed back to the hotel, with Wiktor and I taking the off-pavement route of course, met again for dinner locally, and called it a night.
Sunday
Everyone was pretty wiped from our Saturday adventures. Wiktor and I headed to M Mountain Coffee for breakfast. I stayed to do some work, he stayed for a bit but then left to do laundry. Around lunchtime he came back to pick me up and we headed to Blake’s Lotaburger for some grub where Justin met us.
After lunch Wiktor and I decided to go out and see what The Box Recreation Area had to offer. We’d stopped by here in January but hadn’t really explored it. We parked the truck and got out to explore the box canyon itself. The canyon is quite impressive up close, and it’s easy to see why it’s appealing to rock climbers. We saw a group of climbers clearly setup for a day of climbing which was pretty cool to watch for a bit. We hiked the whole way down to where the canyon opens up at Hwy 60. There were a few small pockets/caves in the walls that also got our attention. But overall we stayed on the ground in the center of the canyon.
Back at the truck we decided to drive along some of the dirt roads for a little while just to see what we could find. The road we took went south from The Box and eventually passed several small ranches with various cows and horses. It’s a little hard for me to imagine what life would be like this secluded from your nearest neighbors. About 40 minutes south of the box we came to an intersection. Continuing south offered another 40-60 minutes probably on the dirt before we’d hit pavement and take a large loop back on interstate back to our hotel. But there was a leg to the east that went to a canyon. Our map said it was a dead end but a very old BLM sign indicated that the route could intersect with I-25 again.
We decided to see what there was to see in the canyon. This ended up being the best decision from the entire weekend!
Again we found another small ranch, this one further from civilization that any others we’d seen so far. This one also was located between two places where our route would cross the same arroyo. In other words, it appears that this ranch is probably cut off from the outside world due to flooding sometimes! At the ranch we also saw some very old ghost town era looking structures. Very cool.
We continued on and eventually made it to the mouth of the Nogal Canyon. As we continued to drive into it the walls got taller and the path between them got narrower. The route was very windy and the floor was a soft sandy silt. I tried to keep my momentum up at especially soft spots to avoid getting stuck. While out of the vehicle at one point we found what looked like a large piece of fossilized wood with pockets with crystals in them! Wiktor was determined to find some petrified wood so we took the 80lb rock with us to identify it better later.
Eventually we popped out of the canyon on the other side after passing through the narrowest spot yet. Then we were looking at wide open area in front of us! The drive back to civilization took us a few more minutes. We stopped a few more times for pictures. The area was beautiful, partially because the sun had finally cooked off the clouds that had hovered over us all morning.
Valley of Fires Hike
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Kelly Ghost Town
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Kelly Hike
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VLA-Old Hwy 60
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The Box-Nogal Canyon
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Rock Identification
When we got back to town Wiktor had 3 days to get his rock identified. He wanted to confirm it was something unique and not repeat what I did in January when I took home what I thought was a geode but was really just a normal rock. He reached out to the Mineral Museum at New Mexico Tech in Socorro and connected with a professor who is apparently “the guy” to have help identify your rock for you!
Wednesday afternoon after we had finished packing for our return trip home, and in full accordance with now common social distancing measures, we met the professor in the parking lot outside of the museum. He identified Wictor’s rock as rhyolite, an igneous rock that forms as highly viscous lava is extruded through openings to the surface. While the texture/grain that we could see was not a sign of it being petrified wood as we thought it was a neat sign of the way it was formed. The geologist was surprised at how big his sample was (about the size of a basketball) and so we shipped it home with our other gear.
Travel During a Pandemic
This trip was also unique due to the COVID-19 situation that was occurring around us. We flew out to New Mexico on March 8th and our trip was extended so we returned March 19th. A few days into our trip, on Wednesday March 11th the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. That same day the governor of New Mexico announced the first cases in the state and immediately issued a State of Emergency. Two of the four cases she announced were in Socorro county where we were. They had recently returned from a trip to Egypt. The other two had just returned from New York City. On Friday March 14th President Trump issued a State of Emergency for the entire nation. On Monday March 16th we heard about San Francisco being instructed to shelter in place.
While we felt relatively safe and isolated in the small town in a fairly rural part of the state we could see the US descending into pandemic mode while we watched from what seemed like the sidelines. As I mentioned earlier when we flew to NM the US had very few confirmed cases, travel was unrestricted, and it was business as usual everywhere. Throughout our stay in NM new restrictions were implemented. Most notably for us were the rules going into effect impacting how restaurants were allowed to conduct business. First it was rules declaring no occupied tables less than 6ft from each other, no occupancy higher than 50% max allowed by the Fire Marshall, and no groups of 6 or more allowed to sit together. We saw the impact of this as restaurants in our small town either moved tables to other parts of the restaurant or put chairs on tables to indicate that table was off limits. The morning we departed the most restrictive rules went into place meaning restaurants could only offer take out. This was oddly implemented at our hotel that morning which was forced to offer food that had to be taken back to your room.
The other thing we noticed during our second week was that the hotels were much less populated. The hotel we stayed in from week one had dropped to probably less than 15 rooms occupied. This is way lower than normal. Our hotel for one night in Albuquerque was clearly nearly empty as the parking garage had only 1 other vehicle in it.
The final change we noticed was at the airports themselves. I talked to an employee in the airport that said they were expecting roughly 20% of the normal traffic on that particular day. Many flights had been canceled leaving multi hour spans through the day where they would expect no new customers coming or going! The TSA line was non-existent. The food court was empty despite the fact that we were there around lunch time. The tables in the food court were off limits apparently in response to the governor’s order. Houston and Dulles had more people than Albuquerque, but still clearly way fewer than normal.
As I write this I’m now working from home as much as possible. I’ve instructed my department to do the same. Not sure when our next trip will be since we’ll be doing our part to flatten the curve!
