Still Digging, Not Blogging

I have plenty of plans to post summaries of this past summer's trail rehabilitation efforts here, but the ground isn't frozen and there is still tons of dirt to move in a productive way. I've also been trying out Everytrail, a mapping and trail sharing app on Android and iPhones. I'm hoping to find a way to link the Everytrail maps and trips to the official County website, but my employer still lacks a social media policy. So I'll try it here and see if it works.

Below is the new Water Canyon Trail completed last month from State Road 501 to Sawmill Meadow. If you haven't checked it out, go for a hike!

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Valle Canyon Trail Ready for Boots and Bikes

Valle Canyon has long been one of my favorite local haunts. It has history (the road up the canyon has been used for at least 150 years), some running water, an impressive summer collection of wildflowers, and monster conifers to shade parts of the path. Running from New Mexico Highway 501 to the boundary of the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the trail/road also provides a modest challenge by gaining 1200 feet over 3.2 miles. On foot and on bike, I've traveled the length of the canyon maybe 50 times over the past 25 years.

The trip was severely altered on June 28, 2000. About 1.5 inches of rain fell on the upper watershed that 6 weeks before had been intensely burned by the Cerro Grande fire. In less that an hour, a section of trail was transformed into a 6-foot deep trench.

In July 2000, June Fabryka-Martin and Eric Peterson survey the damage brought by the June 2000 storm in the Valle Canyon Watershed

 But wait. It got worse.

Approximately the same spot of the 2000 photo above in May 2011, post-Las Conchas Fire

After a storm dumped more than 2 inches of rain in less than an hour on the watershed in August 2011, many sections of the old road were radically altered.

The old road covered by snowy rocks in November 2011. The trail followed the old road here.

To speed up the rehabilitation process, the Forest Service brought in a mini-bulldozer in April 2012. The first quarter mile of the old road was spared the dozer blade, leaving a rocky stretch, but the next half mile of the old road was restored with the dozer blade.

A mini-dozer called a Sweco graded the lower stretch of the Valle Canyon Trail in April 2011

Near the location of the erosion channel from 2000 pictured above, the dozer was stopped by steep terrain. It was time for old-fashioned trailbuilding with hand tools and the sweat of the young. The Forest Service Recreation staff--Lynn Bjorkland, Jennifer Sublette, and Miles Standish--joined me in the difficult task of laying out a bypass route around the doubly-entrenched erosion channel.We knew that in June, the Los Alamos Family YMCA Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) crew, a highly motivated group of young adults who had cut their teeth building trails for me on County Open Space, would be trained on trail building in burned area on this difficult stretch.

Lynn Bjorklund gracefully balances on a steep sideslope while laying out the Valle Canyon bypass route in May 2012.

Trail layout is a lot like sequencing words in a book. There's a rough draft followed by endless edits.When the YCC crew arrived, the crew leaders had their own version of the story, and the final route was a combination of the ideas of all the authors. We collectively settled on a trail that climbs the north side of the canyon wall for about 100 feet, stays above the erosion ditch and the cliffs that border it, then in 0.3 miles descends to the original road to continue up the canyon. The bypass of the erosion channel crosses a 45-degree slope. The beauty of working with such a skilled, dedicated trail crew is when all is decided, the leader says, "Build it," and through hours of hard work, it happens. 

The YMCA YCC crew was composed of 8 members from Los Alamos and 8 members from outside Los Alamos.  Over the past 4 years they have completed projects such as the Tent Rocks Trail, the Fireline Trail, and the Zipline Trail.

The bypass route was a difficult task, but the crew rose to the challenge and created a legacy project. The trail has two switchbacks to maintain an overall 5% grade as it ascends and descends the slope above the post-fire erosion channel.

The lower switchback on the bypass route

The trail corridor traverses a steep slope. The grades are reasonable, but there are several trees close to the trail that will be a problem for mountain bike riders.

Above the YCC crew's bypass route, the trail returns to its former route along the old road. Sections are washed out, overgrown, or rocky as they pass through the post-fire flood zone. But the entire route is open and easy to follow to the Valles Caldera fence. The uppermost half mile of trail is still intact.

Makeshift crossings, debris flow drainage cuts, and narrow trail treads mark the upper  1.5 miles of the Valle Canyon Trail.

Overall, the Valle Canyon Trail is back. It's still a great trip, moderate on foot and challenging on a bike. I counted 54 species of wildflowers in bloom this week, so it's a great season for exploring the canyon.


UPDATE, November 2012: After three intense summer/fall storms, the trail is holding up very well. Users are wearing in the tread and the trip up the canyon is less rough than it was right after it was rebuilt. In late October, a group of mountain bike riders improved the upper switchback by moving heavy rocks and increasing the turn radius. It's pretty sweet now.

Cañon de Valle Trail at EveryTrail

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50 Hikes: The Classic Returns in 2012

"Many years ago, Frances Arnold, Carol Carlson, and Maxine Ellis created a 50 Hikes trail list for friends who wanted to explore our beautiful mesas, canyons, and mountains.  The Santa Fe National Forest later adopted the list as a convenience for visitors.  Despite subsequent publication of a number of hiking books for the area, the list still serves its purpose as a quick introduction to the east side of the Jemez Mountains. "---from the introduction.

This little handout guide is a popular item at the Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce and is routinely given to new arrivals to town. The tireless Dorothy Hoard revised the guide for at least 20 years, and she and I just completed a 2012 revision. Of course, in the post-Las Conchas fire world, some of the trail descriptions are a bit fuzzy (what will be the fate of the Water Canyon Trail?) but overall the short descriptions are up-to-date.

You can go to the Chamber to pick it up, or download a copy by clicking the link below:

50 Hikes in Los Alamos

Partial Lifting of the Las Conchas Fire Closure Order

The Santa Fe National Forest has lifted the closure order on some additional trails in the Las Conchas burn area on the Española Ranger District. The Cañada Bonita/Guaje Canyon Trail is open from the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area to the drop off into Guaje Canyon. The Nordic Ski Trails are open. Also, the Nail Trail is now open.


The lifting of the closure is due to the hard work of the Recreation Staff at the Española Ranger District, and Southwest Nordic Ski Club volunteers who removed hazard trees along the trails and did so much more to prepare them for use. Great work, all of you!

Some Good News At Last

As of sunrise on November 24, 2011, most trails on Bandelier National Monument, including trails in the backcountry, are open. Exceptions: the Falls Trail below Upper Falls on Frijoles Creek is completely washed away, and although the trail to Alcove House is open, the ladders and the cave remain closed.

Access to Bandelier via Forest Road 289 and other roads on the Santa Fe National Forest is closed.
It's not pretty out there, so enjoy but be safe. In the burned areas, watch out for hazard trees, wear old clothing, and keep an eye open for stump holes.

Nail Trail/Pajarito Canyon Loop

This one is repairable. The Las Conchas fire seemed to seek out any tree that survived the Cerro Grande fire and burn it, but in the Pajarito Canyon area there wasn't much left to burn. The trail tread on this 4-mile loop is either intact or repairable. There are plenty of hazard trees along both trails, but once they are removed, the loop is a candidate for some worthwhile trail work in the spring.

Much of the Nail Trail is in moderate burn severity, but the trees are mostly killed. It would be great to add some erosion controls this spring to stabilize the trail in preparation for the summer rains.

The post-Cerro Grande aspen regeneration here was set back 11 years.

Ruts are forming along the trail where the forest above was burned.

Volunteer-built retaining wall in 2005 and 2011. The wall held.

This side canyon in the section of Pajarito Canyon near the climbing area was hardly noticable until it was the focus of a small storm cell in July 2011.

The section of the Pajarito Canyon Trail just above West Jemez Road will take the most work to re-establish.

Los Alamos Reservoir Road

The voodoo hex on the Los Alamos Reservoir continues. Just when reconstruction of the dam got underway, the Las Conchas fire burned almost 100 percent of the watersheds above the reservoir and forces a halt in the work, abandonment of all activities in the canyon, and more flood damage downstream. Dam construction was resumed in the fall of 2012, and is expected to be completed by summer 2013. The road remains closed as there is lots of heavy truck traffic. 

 The road to the reservoir in October 2011: the top of my head is road level. 

The road has been regraded and is now a wide cut through the canyon (November 2012)

Alas, Jersey Falls has been regraded (October 2011).

The outflow from the reservoir always preferred the road over its natural channel (October 2011).

The reservoir itself didn't change much since before the Las Conchas fire (October 2011). It is currently drained.

Another pulse of sediment and gravel filled the impoundment (October 2011). 

The material from behind the dam has been trucked out and dumped at the old wastewater treatment plant site in Bayo Canyon. (February 2013)

Cañon de Valle Trail

Note: the Las Conchas Fire Closure Order is still in effect and the burned area is closed to public entry. I have been assisting the Santa Fe National Forest with trail assessments and identifying hazard trees and have permission to enter the closed area.

Cañon de Valle looks to be the victim of bursting debris dams. High flows in the post-fire world move around the logs in a stream channel. At constriction points, the logs can interlock and form a dam. Water backs up behind the dam until the weight of the water breaks through the dam. The resulting flow can be many times the flow generated by runoff and the erosive power of the surge of water can gouge out many feet of stream channel in a short time. Places in the post-Las Conchas fire Cañon de Valle appear to have had stacked debris dams: when the uppermost dam broke, the flow surged to the lower dam and burst that one, resulting in incredibly high flow volumes.

The lower, road portion of the route up Cañon de Valle is totally unrecognizable. The surface is concealed by a jumble of boulders. Near the junction with the Perimeter Trail, the road is completely gone. The trail that heads up the canyon is alternately washed out and just eroded with deep ruts. The western 1.5 miles of the trail is in good shape.

Just above the highway, I think this is the road in Cañon de Valle. It's tough to tell where the road is under the rocks. The first three-quarter of a mile are like this. Makes for tough mountain biking, and hiking isn't much fun.

The high ground here is where the road and trail used to be. When the debris dams upstream broke, the water ponded here before it breached the old road.

The trail was on the slope at the left side of the photo. This is just below the stacked debris dams. Although I know this canyon very well, there are many spots that are so radically altered that I don't recognize the location.

Above is the post-Cerro Grande erosion channel in June 2005; below is the same location with the post-Las Conchas channel in November 2011.

After about two miles, the canyon is like it has always been.

Assessment: Like in Water Canyon, it may be time to move the trail onto the slope above the canyon floor. Lots of work, but crews may be available this summer to begin the reconstruction.

Guaje Ridge Trail

Upper Guaje Ridge between Pipeline Road and the Mitchell Trail has been repaired and is in really good shape. Below the Mitchell to the Cabra Loop, the trail is really eroded. We re-built most of it in 2005 following the Cerro Grande fire, but we didn't move the trail into better spots. I think this trail needs to be relocated on about 60% of its length. It's not easy trail work--a two-hour hike to get to the work spot. We need a new plan!

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On July 4, 2011 former Los Alamos Fire Marshall Mike Thompson and I walked a long loop up the Mitchell Trail and down Pipeline Road. The Las Conchas fire was actively burning in Guaje Canyon and to the north, but most the loop we walked was fire-free. The exception was a hot spot along the upper Guaje Ridge Trail near Pipeline Road. The fire had burned through the day before left smoldering logs, fallen snags, and fire creeping through the duff. Most of the trail had been untouched by the fire, but there were some ugly spots.

The next day, smoke billowed from the north of Guaje Ridge in the area Mike and I had walked the day before, and the area continued to push out smoke for the next four or five days. I expected that all the areas that had been untouched were now burned. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that the upper Guaje Ridge Trail was much like I had seen it in July. Some areas did burn, but most of the trail and surrounding forest is intact.

East of the Mitchell Trail, most of the Guaje Ridge Trail escaped the flames. Above the Mitchell intersection, the burn is patchy and much of it was a re-burn in the Cerro Grande burn scar. I did mark 73 hazard trees along the upper 2 miles, so the area isn't completely untouched.

Hiking in July in full fire gear isn't much fun. Mike Thompson walked through this aspen stand on July 4. The aspens are re-growth following the Cerro Grande fire and were a welcome relief from the sun. The green spot gave me hope that the ridge would be spared by the Las Conchas fire.

The intersection of the Guaje Ridge Trail and Pipeline Road on July 4, 2011. It is the most devastated section of the Guaje Ridge Trail.

Looking into Quemazon Canyon from Pipeline Road near the pipe rack, October 2005 and November 2011. The fire came up this canyon and burned the western portion of the Guaje Ridge Trail.

The Cerro Grande fire spared a half-mile long stretch of the Guaje Ridge Trail just below Pipeline Road. The Las Conchas fire burned through that stand of firs and spruce with a mosaic pattern. There are small patches of blackened forest, but most of it was a moderate burn that do not effect the essential feel of the trail. 

Aspen regeneration after Cerro Grande burned hot in Las Conchas, and this stand of aspen is regenerating again. The soil here is exposed and that might create erosion problems in spring and summer.

New Mexico locust dominates this slope along the ridge trail about a half-mile from the Mitchell Trail. It completely burned off above ground and will be back with a vengeance!

Updates on Trail Closures Around Los Alamos

Las Conchas Fire Recovery
Trails Update, March 21, 2012

All trails on the Los Alamos County Trail Network are open.

Most trails on Bandelier National Monument, including trails in the backcountry, are open. This included the trail to Alcove House and the cave itself. The Falls Trail below Upper Falls on Frijoles Creek is completely washed away
.
Access to Bandelier via Forest Road 289 and other roads on the Santa Fe National Forest is closed. 

On the Santa Fe National Forest, the following trails are OPEN:

• Mitchell Trail from Arizona Avenue to the Guaje Ridge Trail
• Guaje Ridge Trail from the Mitchell Trail east to the Upper Guaje Road (Cemetery Road)
• Cabra Loop
• Rendija Canyon Trail
• Pajarito Trail from the trailhead near the Sportsman’s Club to Guaje Ridge
• Perimeter Trail north of Los Alamos Canyon
• Quemazon Trail
• Pipeline Road from the trailhead in Quemazon Communities to Pipeline Road

• Nail Trail• Cañada Bonita Trail to the drop off into Guaje Canyon
On the Santa Fe National Forest, the following trails are CLOSED:

• Mitchell Trail the Guaje Ridge Trail north to Guaje Canyon
• Guaje Ridge Trail from the Mitchell Trail west to Pipeline Road
• Guaje Canyon Trail
• Pajarito Trail north of Guaje Ridge
• Upper Guaje Road north of Guaje Ridge
• Los Alamos Reservoir Road
• Pipeline Road from the Quemazon Trail to the Cañada Bonita Trail
• Pajarito Canyon Trail
• Cañon de Valle Trail
• Water Canyon Trail
• Perimeter Trail between Water Canyon and Pajarito Canyon
• Forest Road 181