Today’s bike exploration is a success. After passing what might have been a no trespassing sign on a dirt road heading north from Rancho Viejo, I intersect a dirt jogging trail, as I hoped. This bends east, climbing to the Santa Fe rail line to Lamy, which has another rutted dirt track along it. I’m…

There are an intriguing number of dirt roads surrounding my new neighborhood. My recumbent bike is no mountain bike, but I can usually handle a trail on it if things don’t get too steep or rocky. I have some high hopes for old railroad beds in the area, but the first I investigate is quickly…

Mom takes me on her favorite hike north of Bay City. Many different kinds of trees are turning here. Mom finds a few mushrooms, but she says the harvest has been much better in past years. We see swans from the boardwalk near the marsh, but we decide they’re the introduced variety rather than the…

There are miles of trails right out of Los Alamos that I haven’t touched yet. Most of the town is surrounded by burn areas from the 2000 Cerro Grande fire, which gives it a unique flavor. Burn areas are often pretty, but horrendous to hike through due to piles of deadfall and thorny new undergrowth.…

I park near a tiny paved road in the remote mesas of this part of New Mexico, find the cairns that mark the Continental Divide Trail here, and start hiking. It soon occurs to me that this is a strange place to take a long hike at the height of the fall aspen season. It’s…

Hoping to see some colorful aspen, I return to this area where I trained for the Pacific Crest Trail in early 1996. Back then it took me six tries to summit Truchas Peak using snowshoes much of the way, and getting back so late my girlfriend at the time had called the state police. Even…

Dad and I orchestrate an earlier start on the Windsor trail toward Santa Fe Baldy. I know it will be our last hike for this visit, so I savor the time and try to appreciate how having Parkinson’s Disease affects his hiking experience. It takes courage to plan a hike at all. Dad’s desire to…

I’ve done quite a bit of hiking in Bandelier National Monument, but my reluctance to pay for it has kept me away from the visitor center area in Frijoles Canyon. My Dad is overdue to get his National Parks Senior Pass though, the one screaming good deal offered at the gate – the last ten…

I join my dad and Sarah at their campsite, and from there we embark on this pleasant loop hike. Ascending a forested ridge, we debate whether it is acceptable to pass a trailside bench without testing it. A few times we glimpse the smoke from a prescribed burn still pouring into the neighboring Santa Fe…

My dad is visiting and is interested in seeing some of our local mountains, so we drive to the Santa Fe Ski Basin and start up the Windsor trail heading for Santa Fe Baldy. When we reach a decision point at Puerto Nambe it seems a little too late and cloudy to try for Baldy,…