2020 Winter Camping Trip Day36 Last Hike in the Trip

 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day36, 2020/12/31

Logo?

Last day of 2020, we had a last day hike of this trip, and last hike of 2020. There is a small trail near the National Forest campground. The trail is in the BLM. Basically the trail has lot and lots of petroplyphs. I had never see that many petroglyphs in a concentrated area. 

As you can see in the first picture, there are many similar logo's drawing. Circle and cross with many dots aronund. There is no way what this mean, but it is fun imagining. Is this something tribe's mark? Or telling not to close to this area to enemies?  Another common thing is face and animals. These are maybe more artistic purposes. Interestingly animals have arrows in this area's petroglyphs.  

After this morning hike we started driving to home for 3 days. It was sad to know that the vacation was becoming over, but now time is counting for adventure in summer! 

face

animal

For those of you who read the trip journal, thank you very much. I saw a lot, A LOT in this trip. We hiked in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky. We covered many National parks, a lot of BLM, National Forest, and some State parks. Although it was really cold, sometimes we camped below 10F, but it was still totally worth it. Every day I had a lot of wow and I was amazed by the scenery. Very happy with hiking in the West! Happy Trails!

Until the summer, we hike in New England. Then, end of August to early September, we will go to Alaska for the adventure. Blog entries will come. 

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day35 Guadalupe Peak and White Sands National Park

 2020 Winter Camping Trip Day35, 2020/12/30

The last night on Day34 after hiking in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, we drove to Guadalupe National Park. The first-come first-served campsites were all taken, but RV site had a lot of spaces. Since we had enough space in the back of car (if we take out stuff), we went there and camped. RV site allows people to camp there if you sleep in the car, it is not required to have a real RV. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunrise

Early in the morning before sunrise we started hiking up to the Guatelupe Peak. On the way the sun rose and the mountain was lightened up gradually. That was quite beautiful. About the half way (around 2.2 miles in) the grey clouds came in and started snowing. Wow! Snowing in the desert in Texas. Sure it is a rare event. 

Morning sun hits mountains

Soon we saw two guys already came back from summit. They started at 3 a.m. to see sunrise at the top. Hardcore! They said that the rest of the way could be slippery due to snow. Indeed it was, but we made it to the top. At the top we saw a guy from California. He had done the peak before and the last time was very sunny day. We took pictures each other. He had a newest version of iPhone as a Christmas gift. 

cactus with snow

When we almost came back to the trailhead (about half a mile from trailhead), we saw two Chinese guys. They asked if we went to the top and asked how long it would take to the top. They wore duffle coats and jeans. Obviously they were not experienced. I highly doubted they could make it to the top on the snow day, but hope at least safely turned back. 

On this trail I first time saw cactus covered with snow. It was very interesting and rare event for me. 

Snow continued and it was cold. So we went off to New Mexico where it was not snowing on the same day. We visited White Sands National Park. I knew a few years back it was White Sands National Monument. Now it is a National Park. Whoa. Driving from snowy Guatelupe National Park, I saw some white hill sand said, "Oh it snowed here, too"

Mr.N replied, "No, they are white sands! Not snow"

I was surprised and said, "Really!?"

Yes that's white. Really white!

For COVID practice the park would close at 6 p.m. We arrived at 3 p.m., so we had only 3 hours, but it was really great. We randomly walked up and down on the white (literally) sand hills and before sunset, we sat on the top of hill and saw sunset. It was amazing. The sky got blue to orange to pink and reflected on the white sand. It was beautiful. 

White Sands

This day we went camping at National Forest Lincoln. This was the last camping in this trip. It was sad and I had mixed feeling. I could come back to a nice comfy bed with heat, but no campfire for a while. Well, life goes on.  Logs were left from previous person and we were able to have a big campfire. Night and morning was below 20F, so fire helped a lot at least for me (even such temperature, Mr.N insisted on relying on fire is not good.....OK why?)

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day6

2020 Winter Camping Trip Day6, 2020/12/1

We had a campfire in the morning. While we were chilling by fire, a dog came over out site. It was a puppy (cute!). We pet her and she looked excited. The next group person called the doggie and she went back. I heard the guy way saying to her, "Good girl" when she came back. Several groups were camping in campers. I saw another person had a morning walk with two dogs. In New Mexico, people like camping with dogs. Nice!

Zuni Mountain in the distance

rocks and snow

After we packed up we hiked 4 miles in El Malpais National Monument. The trailhead was just 10 miles from where we camped. The trailhead was very windy, but soon it got calm. The view was spectacular! Gorgeous Zuni mountains can been seen in the distance. There are many interesting rocks everywhere. 

After a half a mile of walk, we saw a car parked along the road about a mile away and from there a person and dogs were coming to the trail we were on. Dogs were running ahead of a hiker. Actually they were sprinting toward us. A brown lab and a black lab came to us and wagging and jumping to us. They were so happy and excited. I pet them. So cute! Soon the hiker caught up with doggies and asked us if the black one pooped. She said that the black one, his name is Shadow, hadn't pooped for a couple of days. We didn't see Shadow pooped. We talked a little with her with social distancing. She saw her neighbor abusing Shadow for one and half year: Shadow was on leash without any walking outside and not been taken care of well. So she bought Shadow. Shadow with her looked very happy. She is an artist and rescued an abused animal. This reminded me of Ms.H, an artist, who recently rescued Nemty the cat, due to many common traits of them. 

Talking with her on the trail was interesting. She is originally from New York City. After we said we are from Boston, she said that she had lived in Somerville. What!? We live in Somerville! We told her that we came from Boston instead of Somerville (just a couple of mile from Boston), because nobody knows Somerville. She actually lived twice in Somerville close to the place we live! WOW. What a coincidence. In the middle of nowhere, only 3 people in the vast public land in winter, talking about small city in Massachusetts which is far away from the trail. She said that NYC is indeed a center of art, and she is an artist, but NYC is too intense. So she decided to move to New Mexico, even though Mississippi was the most West she had been to at that time. She wanted to go to a beautiful place. So she just jumped on the Amtrak to the West without having a place to live or job. Wow. She lived in Albuquerque for a while and then moved to Grants, the city close to the trail eight years ago. She also kindly taught us that we could find stuff from native Americans. She showed where and how they looked like. 

a lot of broken bowl or something

decoration can be seen!

 

She picked up a piece of bowl or dish from ancient native Americans who live in the area. Pictures above are some of them. It was very exciting to see a piece with some decorations. Wow. On the way back to the trailhead, we found a lot of pieces of these kind. It was exciting. 

One thing not exciting was a Coca-cola can I saw near the trail.  It was abandoned along the trail. It was an old design with 6.5 Fl Oz (192 mL) style. According to the internet, that Coca Cola can design was sold in 1960's. Still the can is intact as it was after all the 60 years. Not good! 
Another thing I thought was...now Coca Cola can is 330 mL.....this explains how much more people are obese now! Sigh. 

Last part of the trail was a bit of scrambling, but it was great view! Love the West. 
Then we ate lunch and went off to Kanab, Utah. 

Nice View