A Hiking We Will Go!!!

Interview with Hiker Grant--
What did you like best about the hike? "crossing the river"

Why did you like that the best? "I liked jumping from rock to rock."

Was there anything you did not like? "Mommy making us go in the wrong direction."


So here is the story-- We set out to go on a 3 to 4 mile hike round trip to a waterfall. We figured it would take about 2 hours max. We left the house about noon and the trail head was about 1 hour and 10 minutes away. In the book where we found the hike it said that the trail head was to the right of the parking area and that it followed the Rio En Media(river in the middle), crossing over it many times with all paths leading to the waterfall. First to my family back home, we would not call this trickle of water a river. It is more like a tributary running into the Opequeon Creek.

We arrive at the parking location at about 1:20 and start to head off down the road and Aimee says that the book says the path is to the right. So I look and see a small path going up over a hill, but does not look like it is going to follow the river and against my better judgment say ok. We start down the path and it seems like a very hard hike for kids. The book says this hike is an easy hike and a must for kids. After about 25 minutes into the hike we have yet to cross or even see the river but have crossed many dry beds. Eva is panicked about mountain lions and bears since I made the mistake of saying that they both have been spotted in my technician's yard which is about 10 minutes down the road from the parking lot. The hills are "bery ippery" to quote Grant and he has to be carried most of the way. After about 40 minutes and at the top of a peak looking over the Tesuque Pueblo in the Santa Fe National Forrest we decide it is time to stop and eat.

After eating and discussing that this may be the wrong path we continue on further just to "look over the next hill." At this point we have gone up and down over at least 4 hills and have yet to come to anything resembling water. I have noticed on the hike that we had run across some bear dung and was getting a bit worried myself. We are now over an hour into the hike and the kids are starting to get really whiny and we stop for a water break and some chocolate to settle the natives. While we are stopped I see another hiker coming and ask him if the path leads to the waterfall. He explains that it will lead to the waterfall. If, and it is a big if, we would have followed the white path to the green path then followed the green path to the blue path and after about 3-4 hours we would be there. Needless to say we decide we might not make it to the waterfall today and we turn around to hike back to the car.


We make much better time going back, and get to the car and it is now about 3:30. It gets dark between 5:30 and 6:00. Aimee and I make the decision to try and make it to the waterfall. We walk about 10 yards down the road and see the path bearing off to the right with a sign that says trailhead. It is a beautiful hike, easy, crossing the river errrr creek(pronounced crick in my home dialect) many times. The kids enjoy jumping from rock to rock to cross, and really enjoyed Aimee falling in. Not really falling just stepping in the ice cold water(multiple times). The temperature had to be at least 15 to 20 degrees colder where the path followed the water. Anywhere where there was a ripple the rocks had ice on them. It was an invigorating hike. We make it to where we can hear the waterfall and we have to choose between 2 paths. This time I choose and of course I chose the wrong one. We could see the waterfall but the path lead to the top of the waterfall. Eva and Aimee viewed the waterfall from above. I took Grant down to the top down over a very steep embankment, and I heard Eva and Aimee start to come down and had to scream not to do it. They went part way down but scrambled back up. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to carry Grant, Eva and Aimee back up over that hill. Aimee would have definitely had an asthma attack trying to get back up, I think I almost did carrying Grant. We went back down the path and got back to where the trail split and Eva and Aimee kept walking back towards the car because Eva was terrified of getting stuck in the woods at dark, but there was no way I was going to have hiked between 7 to 8 miles to see a waterfall that is 2 miles off the main road and not seen it up close. So I took Grant and I doubled timed it up the other path to see the waterfall. Then I went back and got Eva and took her up as well. Aimee and Grant headed back to the car. Then Eva and I caught up to Aimee and Grant and hiked as fast as we could to get out of the woods before darkness fell. We made it back to the car at about 5:50. It was dark enough that Aimee and Eva could walk 5 steps into the woods and pee and not be seen, not that they did that ;-). Here are some pictures of our adventure.



These are some of the iced over limbs on the first rapid.


This is the first path we took, I am looking for water.



This was on the way back to the car, can you tell it is getting dark?







The rock above the waterfall is where Grant and I climbed down to from the rock in the bottom picture. I almost took a swim when I jumped out onto the rock under the waterfall. It was a sheet of ice.


This is a picture from where Aimee saw the waterfall.