New Mexico! Arizona! Utah! The Southwest Trail Extravaganza!

Canyons, red rock, lava, ancient ruins, petrified wood - it was quite a trip with lots of running, walking, vista viewing, gazing upon ancient cultures - and three more states completed on the quest to run a trail in every state!

New Mexico - State #33!
We decided to stay north in New Mexico and meandered over to the Farmington area where I had read about a trail with wildflowers and stunning views. We must have been too early in the season (or it had been too dry a winter) for the wildflowers, but the views were most definitely stunning. The trail was Kinsey's Ridge and it was a fabulous ridge taking the runner from easterly to northerly to westerly views. A great way to start the trip!

The trailhead:

There are two trail names on the sign, one for Kinsey's Ridge and the other for Rigor Mortis. Along the ridge part of the trail about the time I figured it should be swinging back toward the trailhead, there was a confluence of trails with no markers mentioning Kinsey's Ridge so I followed Rigor Mortis in the direction that I thought would take me back to the trailheads. It is an aptly named trail with lots of dipsy doodle ups and downs.  The views throughout the run made every dipsy doodle worth it!

After the run and before leaving New Mexico, we visited the Aztec Ruins National Monument east of Farmington, near the little town of Aztec. The National Monument offers a phenomenal Pueblo site, occupied between 1100 and 1300 AD and exceptionally well-preserved. Well worth a visit!

Arizona - State #34!
The trails chosen for Arizona were short, very different from each other, and remarkable.
First: Canyon de Chelly National Monument and the trail to the White House ruins - 1 hour 22 minutes down from the canyon's edge to the bottom (including time for photos, talking to a fellow who offered to take my picture, found out I was from Boulder, said he was a friend of the Folsom family - the CU stadium is Folsom Stadium - and gave me a brief history of the family, as well as time for viewing the ruins) then 22 minutes to dash back up to the top - I do love to run an uphill!

Canyon de Chelly from near the top

The photo the Folsom family friend took - near the bottom of the canyon

The White House Ruins - a Puebloan village built into a 500 foot sandstone cliff and occupied between 1060 and 1275 AD

My return trip (the spot of pink) as captured by Kendall up at the top

 From Canyon de Chelly we moved on to the Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert. We did a lot of walking on trails through the Petrified Forest (the slower the better to view the petrification) - but Taz was finally able to accompany me on a run - on the Painted Desert's Tawa Trail. (It had been a too hot/too long run in New Mexico and dogs weren't allowed on the trail at Canyon de Chelly.)

But wait! There's more to Arizona! First some sightseeing:

Then it was on to Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and some lava running on the Crater and Lava Flow Trails!

There's a Kendall up there (walking a trail inside the loop trail I ran)

The cinder cone of Sunset Volcano. It last erupted around 1085, shooting lava 850 feet high!

Utah - State #35!
Utah was interesting. I had not done much research of Utah trails since I didn't quite know where we would end up in the state (we were very footloose and fancy-free on this trip). And it turns out there is not a lot of connectivity in Monument Valley where we ended up camping our first night in the state so finding a trail was a bit of a challenge. One trail I had heard about was in Gooseneck State Park near Monument Valley but, upon arriving at the park and getting directions to the trailhead from the ranger, it turned out that the final dirt road we were supposed to turn onto just was not a good road for Hedwig. So back to the highway we went, heading north to the first town that had a Visitor's Center figuring we could get maps and trail information there. Nope. It was a Sunday and the Center was closed. But! They had WiFi which doesn't care what day of the week it is! We reviewed the trail information for Canyonlands National Park and decided to go there where I would run a 7.5 mile Big Spring to Squaw Canyon trail loop. I checked at the Park's Visitor's Center and asked if they thought a solo run on that loop would be o.k. and they said yes except for getting "over the saddle" where I'd have to slow down. So off we went to the trailhead. Silly me - I told Kendall to figure I'd be back in about two hours. Ha! Said "Saddle" was a huge chunk of the trail and runnability was a miniscule part of the trail.  Canyonlands offers amazing country to explore - but plan on a whole lot of rock scrambling, rock climbing, and much time allotted to careful cairn searching to please-oh-please not get lost! 4+ hours later I returned to the trailhead and a much worried-then-relieved Kendall and Taz.

Naive me at the trailhead

Can you spot the trail-marking cairns?

Following what would be a river bed if there were water

From near the top of the saddle from the Big Spring side

And on to the other side, Squaw Canyon...

 I definitely earned my trail stripes with Utah!

All was well after many Kendall hugs and Taz rubs, a bottle of Vernors, followed by a bottle of water, followed by a bottle of iced tea, and a shower. And all was absolutely fantabulous after a breakfast the next morning with friends Dan and Randall who were in Moab celebrating their anniversary!

 

Next up: BolderBoulder and perhaps a Kansas trail to or fro a trip to Petoskey!