Valles Caldera and a night with no safety net.

The place I described as "The land where the elk bugle" is now officially called the "Valles Caldera National Park", perhaps the newest of the federal parks. For many years this land was the privately held Baca ranch, consisting of over 89,000 acres. You can google "Valles Caldera" for some amazing geological information about this special land. Barb and I first discovered New Mexico as bicycle tourists. And this is the one place, over many years of cycling, that we got ourselves in serious trouble.

We had been following our planned route. We were well conditioned and experienced cyclists. From the Albuquerque airport we had biked to Sante Fe. We left Sante Fe for the high mountain community of Truchas. I was coming down with a bug, and struggled mightily that day. As you approach Truchas from Sante Fe the last eight miles of the trip are steeply uphill, and at high altitude. What would normally have been an enjoyable challenge turned into a very hard day, and all of my physical resources were spent by the time we reached Truchas. We had no vehicle, and no option except to get on the bikes the next morning and head out for Los Alamos (another steep climb) and then a steep assent out of Los Alamos to a small campground adjacent to the borders of the Baca ranch.

The previous day had taken a big toll, and I was totally spent when we got to Los Alamos. I was laying on the grass in the park long past the time when we should have headed up the final mountain climb. Staying in town that night wasn't a very viable option since we had to pedal ourselves and our bicycles all the way to the airport in Albuquerque by the afternoon of the next day. When I knew we couldn't possibly wait any longer for me to recover we got on the bike and started the long steep climb.

As we got a few miles out of town a ride that I expected to be difficult had become impossible. This was 25 years ago, and there was much less traffic than you would experience today. We were now walking the bikes, which is a pretty grim prospect when it is too far to go back and you are several miles from your destination in a wild mountain area you have never seen before. A cowboy driving back to the Baca ranch stopped to pick us up, throwing the bikes in the back of the truck. He was the silent type, and the only thing I remember him saying was he never picks up people just standing by the road. He liked the idea that we were still trying to get over the pass, even though we were reduced to walking.

He let us out before he turned into the long dirt road leading to the bunk house. It was only a few miles, somewhat down hill, to the campground that was our destination. Though utterly exhausted we managed to get our little tent up and sleeping bags unfurled. It was already cold, but we had no idea that it would get much colder before morning. You can't carry a lot of equipment on a bicycle trip in the mountains. Our bags were not nearly warm enough, and our physical resources were spent. We heard the strange sound of elk bugling all around us. I knew this was going to be a bad night, but we had run out of options. The campground was empty except for our little tent, and it was too dark, too cold, and we were way too tired. We were going to spend the night with what we had, there was no safety net.

We did everything we could think of to stay warm. Coming from Minnesota I knew the signs of hypothermia, and they were there in our little tent. Everything was slowing. My life felt like a rheostat, and the power was being turned down. The next thing I remembered was the sun hurting my eyes through the tent. As I stirred and bumped the tent a little ice storm, the remnants of the nights frozen breath, fell on us.

The warmth of the New Mexico sun was going to bring us back from the brink. We laid out on a picnic table and it felt wonderful. I think Barb said something about us having a new bond with the little lizards we had seen out on their rocks, and now we really knew how good it could feel. We were thirsty, and our water bottles had frozen solid. They were frozen but intact, and we knew the sun would solve this problem as well. We got on our bikes and got into the Albuquerque airport with a little time to spare.

Twenty five-years later we still love to hear the bugling of the elks. And when we drive up the road to Valles Caldera, we always take warm clothes.