Day 19: Ride for the Sopapillas

 The final stage of the Ridge of the Rockies tour took us 80 miles from Santa Fe to Albuquerque via NM 14, the "Turquoise Trail" scenic route running east of Sandia Crest. I said yesterday that the Sangre de Cristo mountains are the southernmost section of the Rocky Mountains. The southernmost significant peak in that range is Thompson Peak. By riding southwest from Santa Fe we were leaving Thompson Peak and the Rockies behind. 

However there are some unexpected, to me, uplifts down toward Albuquerque. The first is the Ortiz range (not "Madrid Mountains" as I mistakenly remembered during the ride) just south of Madrid which has a top elevation of almost 9,000'. The second is the Sandia range including Sandia Crest topping out at 10,680'. Both ranges are the result of the Rio Grande Rift. A rift is where the plate is pulling apart, and the North-South course of the Rio Grande is following this rift from Colorado to Mexico. So perhaps the last three days of our tour could be called "Rift of the Rockies" instead of "Ridge of the Rockies". The Sandia range was uplifted in the last 10 million years; that makes them a similar age as the Grand Tetons, and might explain why the west face toward Albuquerque is so dramatic.

 

 We left Santa Fe on the southwest side of town using roads that did not exist when I lived there in the 1980's.  The 1-2% down grade with tailwind gave me the feeling that Santa Fe had seen enough of me and wanted to roll me out of town, which I did with a pleasurable 25mph average for 7 miles. This photo is looking back toward the town and the mountains behind that were included in yesterdays post:

The land to the southwest of Santa Fe is pretty flat as it follows the Santa Fe River to its junction with the Rio Grande.

The signs announcing that this was the "Turquoise Trail Scenic Highway" had me shaking my head in amazement, especially when we were riding by the State Penitentiary. Talk about hype!

But after many miles the traffic started to thin and we entered a more artsy area that was more scenic:

The road getting a bit narrower:

Typical vegetation in this part of NM:

The first rest stop was at a monument for the "Garden of the Gods", which I guess is referring to these rocks:

And a plaque:

 

Looking south across the arroyo that goes thru the little town of Cerrillos:

The Ortiz Mountains on the far side of Madrid

The church in the small town of Cerrillos:

I think I took this picture because of the rocks, but who knows?

This sign says "Founded 1891 - 1957, Re-established 1970". The re-established part makes sense, but how exactly does a founding occur over 66 years?

Looking back down the road, just for fun:

Ortiz mountains again. The longest climb of the day was getting over the shoulder of this range to the right of what's shown below.

After the climb we could look over the Rio Grande Valley to the north of the Sandia mountains:

Rod B and John G, the remaining fast riders on the tour. They took it easy on me for a few miles so that I could have fun pulling them down the hills as I am wont to do.

Speaking of hills... The distant ridge here is the east side of the Sandia Crest:

I think this is down hill after climbing over the shoulder of the crest. But its hard to tell - it might be up hill! At any rate you can see what kind of road we were on as we got closer to Albuquerque:

And what kind of road we hit once we got into town:

Completed route map with rider signatures:

Final banquet dinner with good food and sopapillas. That made all the city miles riding through Albuquerque worth it!

The finishers were each given plaques for our home self aggrandizement wall, with alternate pictures to mount if we didn't like the socks in the one they choose:

My actual stats are a bit higher than the standard expectation on the plaque. Over 19 days riding I had 1,937 miles and 98,100' climbing. Susan N made me a label to stick over the standard stats but we'll see what that looks like.

Thanks for following (or reviewing) the tour! 

-Robert

Day 18: The Land of Enchantment

The course today was 77 miles from Taos to Santa Fe mostly using the Taos High Road scenic highway. The amount of climbing - 6900' - wasn't too bad by itself but on a per-mile basis was higher than any other day. The combination of climbs and descents was more like the roads I ride in my Madison County NC home. And especially the tiny road we took out of Rio Chiquito reminded me the Cutshall Town road in the Shelton Laurel area. 

Between the climb to over 8500' going out of Taos, to Nambe where the elevation was 5800', we crossed four of the seven NM life zones. From highest to lowest: mixed conifer, ponderosa pine, piñon-juniper woodlands, and grasslands. 

First rest stop at 8500':

An inquiring mind:

After descending out of the Carson National Forest lands we went through several small communities and the Picuris Pueblo. Along the way I saw a couple of land grant signs like this one:

 

The Spanish/Mexican land grant history is pretty interesting.  Although the Las Trampas grant no longer exists as an administrative entity, about 35 other grants in NM do still have acreage and boards of trustees. The land grant system allocated large tracts of land, providing title of small valley parcels to each individual in the community but placing the majority of land into a common trust for the benefit of all. Needless to say when this system intersected with the US takeover of New Mexico in 1846, titles and such got sketchy and, as typically happens, the poorer part of the population got ripped off through legal shenanigans. In the case of Las Trampas this happened around 1900. Most of the common land ended up owned by a timber company which traded it to the US Government in the 1920s for land in the Grants NM area. The US Government included the Las Trampas common land into the Carson National Forest which is what we see today.

As we cut across the valleys carved by small west-flowing tributaries of the Rio Grande, the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo mountains came into sight. As I stopped to take a photo the most important vehicle of the tour came by: the lunch truck!

Clear shot of Pecos Baldy and the Truchas Peaks:

The ridges were interspersed with wetter bottomlands:

If the ridge was high enough we'd get into the Ponderosa Pine life zone. It smelled SO GOOD in the morning sun. This is the olfactory delight that pine air fresheners are trying but failing to reach.

When are we going to get scratch-and-sniff screens to read blogs on?

 

 

More bottomlands and a view of the Truchas Peaks from farther south:

 

 

From the PeakFinder app: 

Northeastern view:

  

Southeastern view

 

After riding through a small group of adobe homes, we plunged off the high plateau. The sign half way down the hill schooled me that I'd just been through the town of Truchas:

Looking across the Rio Grande valley to the Jemez Mountains, the most prominent feature of which is the Valles Caldera, an ancient volcano. The sand-colored land in the mid-range is the Nambe badlands:

At the bottom of the descent from Truchas we turned onto a dinky road to cross the Rio Chiquito which had a nice looking valley:

The dinky road:

A settlement along the road

Bottomlands below the settlement:

For perspective, the Jemez Mountains and Nambe badlands again. You can see this picture was taken from a lot lower elevation.

An erosion feature in the Nambe Badlands:

After taking that photo, I arrived at the lunch stop and partook of an egg salad sandwich. From there the road continued to descend to the west until reaching the main artery - US Highway 285. And from there the route rode up the US 285 frontage road for 8 miles. The main attraction on that stretch of road these days seems to be casinos. Back in the day it was Camel Rock, which I'm happy to report hasn't fallen over yet:

Since I was familiar with the roads around Santa Fe from having lived there, I departed from the PacTour route in Tesuque by taking the quaint Bishops Lodge Road into town instead of more highway frontage.  I thought the new Tesuque Elementary School was striking because it looks great and its new. I sure wish more school systems would follow this example and build nicer looking buildings.

At the top of the Bishops Lodge Road climb, I rejoiced as I caught sight of our old stomping grounds - the hills behind Santa Fe. Monte Luna (left) and Monte Sol (right)

Mount Atalaya:

From the PeakFinder app which does not use the Spanish designations:

All in all a very nice day in the saddle.