Vista Linda Campground, June 12th
Saying goodbye once again to Elephant Butte Lake State Park (EBLSP) was bitter sweet. We love the energy, the soothing water, the magnificent Butte AND the Quintessential Quiche … We are not sorry to leave the mobs of people that arrived on Friday evening to escape the sweltering city heat or the hustle and bustle of jockeying for space in the campground and on the water– Adios to EBLSP…
We are headed up north and west of ABQ to Fenton Lake and Jemez Springs in the Santa Fe National Forest. We hit the road by 7am, thinking early Sunday would be a great time to travel through the multilevel, spider interchange of I-25 and I-40 – we set our wheels north. It was a gorgeous, cool morning, 70 degrees at 7am and no traffic to speak of. It is always more stressful to pull Rosalita through mega-cities than on the 2 lane highways through the country. We like to avoid the ‘frantic’ freeways, whenever we can.
As we approached ABQ the traffic mounted, thank goodness for our GPS that tells us what lane to be in (in unfamiliar territory)… Thank you GPS. I consider myself to be a courteous driver, having left the road-rage behind years ago; yet I’m always so amazed how very little drivers ‘give way’ to let us in – esp. with a trailer in tow.
When we reached Bernalillo highway 550 we thought it would be smooth sailing, leaving the congestion & impatient city drivers behind… Not so! I guess being a beautiful HOT day; everyone within 200 miles was out for a Sunday drive. Motorcycles by the hundreds (Harleys, Hondas, and Ducati’s to name a few): and what looked like a car club also by the hundreds… There were two lanes each way, so at least the impatient ones could go around. I often mutter my famous saying as the cars line up behind me: “You should have left earlier” (if they don’t like traveling behind an RV). Ah, life in the slow lane…
We left Bernalillo in the rear view mirror, and we were breathing easier, then I looked down at the petro gauge and realized we were at ½ tank – this always makes me a bit uneasy. Pulling a trailer we get, at best, 10mpg and we were climbing to 7,000 feet in altitude, which means closer to 4-6mpg. Soon after leaving town, it turns to condos on the south side of the road & nothing but shrubs and cactus on the north side. Then we leave all buildings, homes and businesses behind – “uh-oh”… We contemplate returning to Bernalillo for gas and Patti says, “surely there’s gas up ahead”! Shortly thereafter, we are under ½ tank and I keep silently asking the universe for a gas station soon… Luckily, at the junction to Jemez Springs there was a small gas station. In this small gas station the pumps and every available parking space were filled with 150 motorcycles, 50 small car club cars, and 2 RV’s waiting to put from 3 gallons to 50 gallons of gas in their tanks. It was tight quarters! We managed to squeeze up to a pump and Patti went in to pay for our gas. When she came out she said the lines for the bathroom were longer than the ones to pump gas. LOL. We decided to hold our bladders till we found Fenton Lake.
Getting out of the only gas station for miles was just as tricky as getting in… Patti had to stop cars from pulling in front of the truck to get us away from the pumps. Whew, that was an ordeal – thank goodness, after more than a year on the road, I now know how wide and long the truck and trailer are, as a unit.
We thought we had left behind all the ‘Sunday drivers’ – again, not so… As we headed into Jemez Canyon the motorcycles and car ‘clubers’ pass us or they form a very l-o-n-g line behind us on the “do not pass” portions of the road. We had no idea there were this many ‘wheels’ in this part of NM!
At this point, we decided to take the first campground we came across, because if there was this much traffic at the beginning of the canyon – they must all be going to Fenton Lake on this very warm day. We decided to experience Fenton Lake as a “day trip” (there were only 5 camping spots at the lake with electricity anyway). So about 14 miles in, we opted for Vista Linda Campground and found a nice spot. We knew this camping area had no electricity and that was OK with us. After setting up, it was lunchtime so we made our meal, and ate by the Jemez River as it makes its way swiftly to the Rio Bravo. This canyon is beautiful and reminds us of Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch from last years travel.
The landscape rises from the creek bed to the dark red rock block formations, then changes to the familiar red-orange brick red horizontal formations, then to a soft pastel red, which has sheered off with weather and time forming secret mystical doors which lead to the innermost sanctum of the mountain.
The dark red rocks give the appearance of hand-hewn blocks used for walls and stone houses; the red-orange brick colored rocks are horizontal striations carved into circular undulations which, in time, become cliff dwelling abodes. The sheer vertical columns slide off the face of the mountain in slabs, eventually becoming soil. As the slabs fall, they expose the underneath cliff dwelling structures – yet, another deeper layer.
Further up, a different type of vertical rock face reaches to the mountaintop. It appears to house many, many ‘tiny-caves’ for birds, bats and other small creatures. It looks like rock ‘acne’ from the far away distance of the human eye. Ah, the wonders of Mother Nature!
As the temperatures descend from the 90’s and the sun slides behind the canyon wall, we move inside to prepare dinner, tonight… shrimp and pasta with avocado, which we consumed by our campfire, with the sound of the bubbling creek in the background and one generator humming a few campsites away from us.
As our fire turns to embers, we see dive-bombing bats make their deadly appearance to the insect world and one blond toad traverses her way to the river. The evening is cooling down nicely and we are looking forward to sleeping under something besides a sheet. Tomorrow we will explore Fenton Lake.
The night was lovely and we slept soundly under the coolness of night and covers, for the first time since we left Safford, AZ. It has been hot, hot, and HOT across the southern states of Arizona and New Mexico and although we are still in New Mexico, the cottonwoods and the creek give relief and shade.
Today, Monday (13th), we are in search of Fenton Lake and Jemez Falls, so after our leisurely breakfast and journaling, we set off to explore the area.
This is a gorgeous canyon; the red walls are etched as they climb to the sky: changing from shrubs to cottonwoods along the meandering Jemez River. We pass through several villages and the Jemez Reservation. There is a beautiful Cultural Center with ruins of an adobe Indian dwelling – which was fairly well preserved, yet, missing the roof. I wish we could have toured this cultural, historic site, but sadly it was closed on Monday and Tuesday.
Winding our tracks up the road we enter Dark Canyon. I assume it received its name from the steep canyon walls, giving just a few hours of sunlight a day… Yet, legend has it there are 2 reasons it is called ‘Dark’. The first is the steep, narrow canyon walls: the second reason is: the ancient Jemez People lived in many villages along the river bottom and mesa tops. One such village was Giusewa, which contained the San Jose de los Jemez Church. During the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680, the Jemez People attacked the church to eradicate the Catholic presence from the area, setting the church on fire. Today within view of this historical site, the large modern chapel of the Fitzgerald Center stretches toward the light of the sky, as if to reach beyond the shadows of Dark Canyon.
Further into Dark Canyon we come across an unexpected sight for this area: Soda Springs. The spring is a short section of the Jemez River that is probably fed from numerous underground hot springs. The cascading river has flowed over years, maybe even eons, leaving soda sediment in its’ wake and stalactites hanging from a cave-like crevasse. It surely reminds me of Yellowstone Soda Falls in its’ structure, only on a much smaller scale. Climbing around these soda formations, I had to be extra careful for I had forgotten how slippery the wet ‘soda’ surface could be.
Safely back in Gypsy, our Tundra, we proceed further up the canyon road and at the junction of 126 we head 8 miles to Fenton Lake. The terrain has given way to a canopy of ponderosa pines and lush green grass. As we climb in altitude it becomes cooler and fresher reminding us of Sibley Lake or Meadow Lark Lake in WY. The altitude is just under 8,000 feet.
We find a space to park, and discover that the lake is crowded on this Monday with plenty of ‘fisher-people’. We are very glad we didn’t venture up to this hidden mountain lake yesterday with the motorcycles and car ‘clubers’. By the lake we find a table and we eat our picnic from home. After lunch, I take a walk around the lake enjoying the marvelous scent of pine and the “eye candy” of the azul lake. It refreshes our souls to be by this cool, peaceful mountain lake.
After I return from my circuitous wandering around the lake – we venture on in search of Jemez Falls. There are no road sign markers for the falls – so when we think we have missed it, we turn around. On our way back we stop at the Ranger Station and learn that we stopped just short of finding it. As it is getting late, we leave Jemez Falls for our next exploration through this amazingly beautiful area, probably in the fall.
We will spend this night at Vista Linda and then move on up highway 550 through Cuba and then East to Abiquiu Dam and Riana Campground, one of our favorite spots from last year.
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