Bandolier Wilderness

First Physics test is done Thursday morning. Time to hit the food store, and head off to the woods for a long weekend camping trip. We called the park service for info on the Pecos Wilderness, 8000' - 13100' elevation (2500 - 4000 meters). "Nope snow is gone" they said. 

Dave C and I head off to to car camp the first night and head up the next morning. 3 days of rain, sleet, snow, hail have been hitting the car camp area and lot's of snow further up. Had we known, we would've brought snowshoes and actual winter gear. Instead we were prepared for less severe stuff. 

Eating oatmeal for breakfast while getting hit with a lovely wintery mix of rain and sleet, which then twisted into hail, and finally a several minute blast of snow, I suggested we descend in altitudeto that lovely canyon country we had seen on the drive where the sun was...so we changed plans and headed into the Bandolier Wilderness. 

Bandolier Wilderness is 30000+ acres and is tucked next to Sante Fe Nat'l Forest and other wilderness lands. It's a series of canyons created by massive volcanic activity. Much of the canyon wall is pock marked by holes from exploding hot gases at cooling time, it's very interesting to see, and made a great home for pueblo dwellers along the way. 

We averaged 5 miles a day on canyon bottoms, up and down canyon walls, and on the ridges. That was plenty at altitude with packs. Made for a lot of spare time to watch, listen and have a taste from a flask. 

The first day we got hit with some t-storms along a canyon floor, and then the temps dropped and got a nice blast of hail about the size of rock salt, which felt a bit like rock salt too. We found a rock overhang to get out of the weather and stayed relatively dry. Where was that sun? 

The weather shifted the next day and had more typical beautiful blue skies and lot's of sun. Very few bugs and brilliant star filled skies made for great sleeping outside the tent. 

It is bear and mountain lion country, so you have to hang your food up and away from where you sleep. There was obvious sign of many elk nearby. After the moon rose I awoke to something tugging on my sleeping bag. From a deep sleep I could only think bear or mountain lion, and in one fast motion I unzipped my sleeping bag as I bolted upright, ready to yell like hell, and jump up in front of some unknown beastie. A coyote had stumbled on me in a goose down bag and gave it an exploratory tug. At the sound of the zipper he jumped sideways about 10 feet and then went into quick recovery mode, flashing that coyote grin and loping around a bit before heading off into the night. Adrenaline was coursing through me and my heart was in high gear so it took a while to calm down and go back to sleep. Pretty much every noise for the rest of the night made me perk up a bit to check it out.