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| The Map. |
Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" (Texas State Historical Society). While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande. And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque. From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon. That green ribbon is the Bosque.
I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it. It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to my job, taking different routes to Denver to visit my family, etc.. So after largely ignoring the area for the better part of twenty years, I recently started becoming more aware of the bosque (the reason why will be revealed later).
Bosque is a Spanish term for woodlands. My bosque, the Albuquerque Bosque, stretches from the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the south and the Alameda Bridge to the north. After walking many of the areas as discrete sections, we decided it would be nice to experience the bosque from "end to end," Our goal was to walk this bosque over the course of two days. And with solstice approaching we decided we'd walk it as a sort of solstice ritual.
I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it. It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to my job, taking different routes to Denver to visit my family, etc.. So after largely ignoring the area for the better part of twenty years, I recently started becoming more aware of the bosque (the reason why will be revealed later).
Bosque is a Spanish term for woodlands. My bosque, the Albuquerque Bosque, stretches from the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to the south and the Alameda Bridge to the north. After walking many of the areas as discrete sections, we decided it would be nice to experience the bosque from "end to end," Our goal was to walk this bosque over the course of two days. And with solstice approaching we decided we'd walk it as a sort of solstice ritual.
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| Don, Mindy, and Zoe getting ready to head out from Valle de Oro-Photo Credit: Damien Flores |
Our route was pretty straight forward: we would walk up the east side of the river until Bridge Boulevard, cross the bridge to the other side then go up the west side until Central, cross the Central Bridge and go up the east side again until Montaño, cross the Montaño Bridge and go up the west side until Alameda Boulevard. No particular reason for this route other than, in many cases, the map at the Rio Grande Valley State Park website suggested certain areas didn’t have a formal path. Likewise, certain areas (especially Bridge to I-40 on the east side) receive a lot of traffic and one of the major goals was to not see a lot of people. Of course, the weather sort of kept the traffic down a bit, but more on that later. The far south and the far north required, at times, a bit of route finding. In the case of the Valle de Oro section, we ended up walking along the wrong side of the Albuquerque drain and next to acequia and had to find our way through the Mountain View neighborhood back to the Tijeras Arroyo and into the bosque proper there.
Valle de Oro:
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| Valle de Oro |
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| Almost to the bosque in Valle de Oro |
According to their website, the Valle de Oro's purpose is
to “[offer] a unique environmental education and recreation opportunity in a
highly populated area while promoting a wildlife conservation message” (About the Refuge). The map on the sign in the refuge said to walk to the southwest corner and we’d
be able to access the bosque. Being a
former dairy farm the area is a big flat expanse of square lots almost devoid
of trees with the bosque proper due west.
We started walking across the refuge startling Killdeer that nested
along the ditches on either side of the dirt road. We didn’t actually go to the southwest corner
but did access the acequia road and started our journey north (on the west side
of the acequia but east of the Albuquerque Drain, which would present a problem later on). To our right was the acequia and then a river drain to the left,
then the bosque proper, so we walked between the acequia and the drain. On the other side of the acequia, we noticed a series of houses. Some were empty while others had flooded fields from the channels into their properties. Some of the structures
looked like they had been abandoned years ago, and at others we were greeted by barking dogs, but no one was outside.
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| Looking south-but no channels |
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| Dilipadated House |
(Unless explicitly stated, all the photos were taken by me during our hike. Originally, I wanted to use just the pictures from the hike, but as this piece progressed realized I didn't have the right photo to match what I was wanting to write, so I delved into my archives and included some of those as well)
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| Nice house with a flooded yard |
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| Looking south-channels going into private property |
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| Though the owners can access the property, the general public cannot access it from the east side of the acequia |
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| Just past this farm the acequia turns east |
After a couple of miles, we had no choice but to follow the acequia as it meandered east way from the bosque. The houses that we passed at this point looked recent; some even looking like they’d been transplanted from the midwest. And one, looked like a Jewish Temple with a six pointed start jutting out from the roof. It also had a large performance space too. Even after veering away from the acequia to check it out we couldn’t really figure out what it was.
The acequia was actually getting its water from the Barr Drain, and we followed the drain as it veered to a north/south direction after previously traveling east/west. Crossing one road the drain began to circle back to the river and we entered the bosque proper at the Tijeras Arroyo (where the Bosque Bike Path terminates at the south end).
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| Not sure if this is a temple or a performance venue |
Rio Bravo:
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| Tijeras Arroyo |
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| At the Rio-the main channel is to the west of this island |
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| A bridge to nowhere (at least today) |
About halfway between the Tijeras Arroyo and Rio Bravo Boulevard, we come across a fenced in area where, the sign says that the City of Albuquerque’s treated sewage dumps into the river. There is evidence of a lot more traffic (as it is a popular fishing spot), and we can see the line in the river where the treated, dark blue to black water merges with the brown, muddy Rio. Graffiti covered signs boast of the water being cleaner after going through the treatment plant than it was entering the city.
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| Where ABQ's treated sewage meets the Rio |
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| Ghost Bike Winter 2015-2016  |
This bosque is lined north-south with jetty jacks on the rivers edge and, in spots, lines that go east-west. Clearly the Army Corp of Engineers hasn't begun the process of removing them from this area, and with the ones that are along the river's edge plants have grown up and through them.
A Poem:
Jetty Jacks
Like crosses in a veteran’s cemetery,
cross purposes mark an historical time,
Jacks swept up the detritus of a river overfull,
barreling down the floodplain
and spilling tree trunks,
leg and arm sized branches into
fields flooded for irrigation,
houses built too close,
an ecosystem designed around a
continuous, yet intermittent flood.
Oh Rio, your jetty jacks speak to a past that is no more,
a river tamed and forced into a sandy channel,
rising and stranding reed filled sandbars,
crucial habitat for red cane,
invasive tamarisk, fledgling cottonwood,
tufts of wild grass,
flocks of geese
and the dinosaurs that fly,
the Sandhill Crane.
Oh Rio you are tame yet wild.
A river who’s ecosystem seems wild,
but holds the carnage of a civilization's attempt to hide
your effects.
Lines of jetty jacks stand at
the ready,
some covered and overgrown,
buried in sand and protruding like an archaeological
ruin,
or twisted and misshapen like particularly cruel car
wreck.
Nothing remains for you to hold at bay,
Yet you remain, stalwart and always at the ready
for a flood that may never come again
and if it did, the parched desert would welcome it,
embrace the flow of water keeping this parched section of
land alive.
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Spring 2016 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Spring 2016 |
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| Spring 2016 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Spring 2016 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Winter 2015 |
Occasionally, people have clipped
the guide wire so that bikers can pass, or hikers can get to the river. This is a well traveled path, but no one
seems to be out today as we push on determined to get to a specific spot, from having
visited the area a lot, with a good view for lunch.
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| Downtown Skyline with NHCC |
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| -Late Fall 2015- |
In this stretch of the bosque, we always stop and pop out to take a look at the Glass Gardens (though I knew it as as the Glass Graveyard). Scattered from the acequia road to just above the actual bosque the area is littered with small pieces of glass and ceramic that sort of glint and sparkle in the day light. Set up above the bosque proper, there are many ways through this area to the acequia road.
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| The Glass Gardens |
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| Glass Gardens-Winter 2015 |
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| Early July 2016 |
The area is a registered historic sight, but also points out to the other history of the bosque (especially this far south) as a sort of unofficial dump. Besides bits of glass there is concrete detritus and rebar scattered about. One time, I spotted a coyote sort of meandering in and out of the trees, and our dog always seems to stick pretty close to us around here as well.
Many times I get the sense that this section of bosque is a bit more wild than other areas. Yet the area also boasts a very vibrant Yerba Mansa patch under the canopy of trees. Small white flowers, they have some medicinal use but to us, they shimmer in the sun and the patch seems to elude any good photos that I try and take.
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| Yerba Mansa |
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| Early July 2016 |
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| Early July 2016 |
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| Early July 2016 |
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| Early July 2016 |
We pass the Yerba Mansa patch, a nice shaded spot next to the river, pass a bunch of downed trees and then through a burned area and over a canal coming in from the east.
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| A dead tree in a burned area -Winter 2016 |
As this over growth breaks, there's more evidence of regular use: a couple of benches, some social trails including one that goes up to the acequia road. I've spotted a porcupine roosting a couple of times (I always assume it’s the same one) here. But not today, the waterfowl are mainly ducks and geese and at this time of the hike, we seem to be the only people willing to brave the sun. We're hot and just before the bridge we get into the water and finally coax Zoe into really getting in not just drinking and getting her feet wet.
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Porcupine Winter 2015 |
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| I did say it's hot right? |
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| Paleta! |
Bridge Boulevard:
From Bridge to Central on the east side, the bosque is very well traveled. While it represents the closest bosque to our house, we've grown more fond of the west side at this point. There's not as much traffic and it doesn't feel like it's been entirely manicured. So after our paleta break we cross the bridge and duck into the bosque again on the west side.
From Bridge to Central on the east side, the bosque is very well traveled. While it represents the closest bosque to our house, we've grown more fond of the west side at this point. There's not as much traffic and it doesn't feel like it's been entirely manicured. So after our paleta break we cross the bridge and duck into the bosque again on the west side.
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| View from the bridge |
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| Winter 2015-2016 |
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| Salt Cedar & Russian Olive Spring 2016 |
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| Winter 2015 |
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| Access to Valle de Bosque Park Late Winter 2016 |
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| Parking area on the west side of the Central Bridge |
We're not going to make it as far as originally planned
(Montaño) and we'll be skipping the stretch of the bosque on the west side at Central
heading north, which is pretty fantastic.
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| Spring 2016 |
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| Atrisco Drain Spring 2016 |
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| Spring 2016 |
So it’s back over the bridge to the very well used bosque at the Botanic Gardens.
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Central Bridge
Spring 2016
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| Rio Grande from the Central Bridge looking north |
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| Sandia from the Central Avenue Bridge |
Central Avenue:
The trail
from Central Avenue to I-40 was controversial.
Depending on who you ask, the biggest mistake the city made in widening
it, making it more accessible, and moving it away from coyote dens, the river’s edge, nesting
areas was not entirely vetting the trail through concerned parties. It's a common theme of this mayor's administration. While I believe he has good intentions, he just seems a little impatient and at the end of the day just does what he was planning on doing. From a walker’s perspective, it
is a nice trail-clearly marked, with easy access to the river in spots, and
well used.
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| -Spring 2016- |
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| Sculpted/Manicured Accessible Trail just before I-40 -Winter 2015-2016- |
And then
we’re at I-40 and making a phone call to get picked up. We’d been on the trail since 9 AM and it’s
now just before 4 PM. We’re hot, but the
river is quickly accessible under the interstate, and the parking area is
relatively easy to get to. I’m out of
water; my feet hurt, and I’m hot. Zoe just jump in the river now and though she doesn’t get in over her
head, she does wade in so that the river cools down her chest.
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| Under the interstate |
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| Under the interstate with the bike bridge Spring 2016 |
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| Parking area at I-40 Bridge Spring 2016 |
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| Albuquerque Riverside Drain Spring 2016 |
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| Beginnings of the I-40 Bridge Spring 2016 |
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| Parking area in Duranes next to the Interstate Spring 2016 |
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| Spider at the trailhead under the interstate Spring 2016 |
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| Spring 2016 |
Another Poem:
Deeds are written; titles notarized for water, a
naturally occurring chemical compound.
Conspiracy
Somewhere
in the Rio Grande gorge, cottonwoods conspired with
Russian Olives
pulled as much water out of the
river before it merged with the Red.
Those pesky humans dumped chemicals,
mine tailings,
nitrate laden
water,
agricultural runoff and top soil in their river.
They stopped
it.
The trees conspired to change the flow of the river,
stored it up in new lakes,
had a highway
of deer teamsters
carry the water down to the
cottonwoods and Russian Olives
in small
quantities and bottles
and not let
anyone else have it.
Somewhere
in the depths of Elephant Butte, bass conspired with
trout.
They tired of Jet Skis, tow boats,
water skiers
and tubers,
top water lures
and crank bait,
casual swimmers, three day weekend
barbeques,
and drunks.
The fish nibbled toes,
dragged innocent children down
to the depths,
stuffed and mounted
them on water
made walls.
Somewhere
in the Rio Grande Bosque, cranes conspired with ducks.
They turned on dogs,
horseback riders, and
joggers.
The cranes ignored
the grain that BLM rangers left behind,
posted memos and trail signs,
organized field
trips,
and erected
educational walks for viewing:
bureaucrats,
bird watchers,
tourists,
and the elderly.
Somewhere
in El Paso, Texas and
New Mexico water managers conspired to take more of the Rio water away from
human farmers, pueblo communities, and the desert. If the courts can
mediate a settlement,
Albuquerque can sprawl even more; El Paso can grow even larger; and the natural communities and habitats that depend on the Rio can fend
Albuquerque can sprawl even more; El Paso can grow even larger; and the natural communities and habitats that depend on the Rio can fend
for themselves.
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| American Kestrel |
A Dog Story
The
last thing I want to be is someone who writes or take pictures of their
dog. It's a relationship that is only
interesting to a segment of population that owns one and rarely are the stories
or photos anything but normal run of the mill dog stories. But here I am giving you fair warning that
this is a story about my dog.
After
sixteen years together, three of them (some six years ago) trying to have kids,
my wife and I adopted a six year old Australian Kelpie. She's a beautiful dog mostly black with dark
brown coloring, ears that stand up and swivel like a pair of satellite dishes,
and very energetic. Since she was an
adult when she joined our house, we didn't have to house train her, put things
away or out of reach, or any of the routine things one has to do with
puppies. But she has her quirks, which I
won't go into now.
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| Late Fall 2015 |
Part of the reason we adopted her, frankly, is because I'm not going to exercise unless I have to. And she wants to exercise, full throated
runs, most every day, twice a day.
There's a part of me that believes that she knows she only has one job
and that is be annoying enough so that I'll walk her and by walking her I'll
get my exercise. And it worked. At first, I started having random pains from
walking more than usual but after a while the weight started falling off and
pants that barely fit now have to be held up by a tightly cinched belt.
Over time, she warmed up to us, was excited when we came home, and behaved so well we begin taking her for walks off the leash in the mountains or in the bosque. While I'd been aware of the bosque for years, I rarely spent much time there. Yet, it was the closest area to our house, had plentiful water (the Rio Grande) and in certain sections you could walk for a couple of miles with minimal interference. I’ve fallen in love with the area, began snapping pictures with an old digital camera, and installed Photoshop on my PC at work. In time, I was thinking that maybe this photography gig was really the art form I should've been pursuing the whole time. Of course, I get no more encouragement for my photos than I get for my writing, which is to say some positive, enthusiastic responses, and some responses that are best described as "Bleh." Part of that is that, in both art forms, I'm not really doing anything new. I know that there really is nothing new, but I also know that I'm treading ground that has been walked before, many times, and my photos seem technically solid but lack a certain sort of surprise.
Frankly, this critique, as I write it, is not all that new. I've never set out to write, now photograph, anything that I don't think my mother, given enough patience or rudimentary explanation could enjoy. My work passes the mother test, which though Freudian, is really the only test or audience I'm really interested in. Strange that she's my perceived audience yet I show so little of my work to her? It's as if I know she'd get it and with that knowledge secured I can go out into the world knowing that I'm creating work with intention.
And I am. So on most afternoons Zoe and I can be found piling into the truck: her attached, at first, to her leash and two plastic bags, and me draping the digital camera over my neck. In the bosque, she'd bound down the trail toward the river, hunt for a place to defecate, and after cleaning it up I'd take her off the leash and we'd make strides into the bosque. Zoe loves it.
Boasting a variety of habitats, I've stumbled upon porcupines descending from their day time hiding places in tree tops, seen coyotes waddle off into the brush or bend over young mulberries trying to find some food, and seen muscrats burrowing into banks as we walk by. In most cases, Zoe sticks around and follows our lead, but when it comes to rabbits all bets are off.
Rabbits must be the size of the prey she's bred to kill, cause if she stirs one up, which she often does, she'll rip out after them with no concern of where we are or where we're heading. She usually lets us know that she's on to one by letting out a high pitched bark. Clearly this bark is communicating that she is on to something and not distress so we move on in our general direction whistling and calling out her name to let her know where we're at. Eventually she'll reemerge, tongue wagging and join us with a very big smile on her face.
When I told my other dog owning friends of the sheer joy she experienced upon chasing a rabbit, they all nodded in agreement and said, "Oh yeah. They love to chase them. My dog has never caught one so I don't get too worked up."
Until
she does, and Zoe has and brought the dead rabbit to me as if to show me she'd
done her job. I was horrified, and for
the next half an hour spent the better part trying to get her to drop it. She didn't want to, and she understood that I
was a bit horrified at her actually catching and killing one but also a bit
proud. I suppose, it’s was like having
your son win a fight with a bully. On
one hand you don't want him to resort to violence, but on the other maybe the bully had it coming. This isn't all that
different: on one hand you don't want
her to actually catch the rabbit but get a good chase so she'd tire out and sleep
through the night, but on the other she caught a fucking rabbit. How cool is that? None of my friends can claim that their dogs
have snagged one, and people who are a bit more sensitive to the needs and
nurture of wildlife in the bosque were impressed.
So there it is; there's my dog story. My dog laid around all that weekend, perma-grin on her face as if to say, "Now that's what a dog is supposed to do."
Rio Grande Nature Center:
So there it is; there's my dog story. My dog laid around all that weekend, perma-grin on her face as if to say, "Now that's what a dog is supposed to do."
Rio Grande Nature Center:
This area of the bosque basically
bumps right into the Rio Grande Nature Center.
In our walks in this area, we've come across more horses and a lot more
people. Though on the other side of the drain,
the Nature Center is close to being the centralized hub for the bosque on the east side. Inside the visitor's center there are
displays. a viewing area, and an outdoor amphitheater. Unfortunately they don't allow dogs and even
a couple of the nature trails are off limits for dogs as well.
So we look at the map and end up
walking up the Aldo Leopold Trail, which is dog friendly. We follow a side trail that takes us to the
river and can see the Oxbow on the other side.
Though not directly on our route, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this
area as one of the true gems in the bosque.
The Army Corps of Engineers has
been trying to recreate some of the natural functions and characteristics of the
river before it was channelized, diverted, and managed. It's not easy to get
to, but well worth it.
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| Looking west into the Oxbow |
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| Sandia from the Oxbow Spring 2016 |
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| Looking across to the West Side |
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| This memorial is not an obvious area, but is along the Aldo Leopold Trail |
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| Cottonwood seeds covering the ground like snow |
In and out of the tree cover,
east and west across the flood plain with some easy access to the river,
some ducking under or moving
around jetty jacks, the area doesn't really feel like a desert and then,
suddenly, we run across some
cholla in full bloom, a big patch of prickly pear, and tumble weeds caught up in downed trees. When Zoe stops now, it is to pull a random
goat head from her paw, which she sometimes lets us do.
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| Cholla in bloom. |
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| Buffalo Gourd |
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| Montaño Bridge on the East Side |
Montaño:
The Montaño Bridge is the last new bridge to be built over the Rio Grande in Albuquerque in 1996, and only recently (2006) was it converted from a two lane to a four lane bridge (though the bridge was obviously originally built to become four lanes and just needed to be re-striped to make it so). I'm not going to get into the deceptive politics of it, but expanding it to four lanes was probably in the original design. The view of the river from the bridge includes some observation decks and toward the west side, people have started putting "love locks" on the bridge.
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| Love Lock |
Once on the west side, there's a nice park, a couple of compelling access points into the bosque including the drain road that goes south to the Oxbow.
While the area around Central may be developed to accomodate a lot of traffic, the west side bosque at Montaño is beautiful and wide. Though it moved too fast and was too far away, it is also the only place where I saw a coyote on this trip.
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| The Giving Tree (my name) |
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| The Giving Tree (my name) Winter 2015-2016 |
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| Late Fall 2015 |
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| Sandia from the west side bosque Winter 2015-2016 |
Another Dog Story:
Just
north of Montano and over the newest bridge to cross the Rio Grande is a wide
grassy expanse of cottonwood, Russian Olive, Coyote Willow, sage and scrub
grass. A dog walkers paradise and the
sandy trails cross the area like highways in a Texas metropolis. The remnants of the late sixties attempts to
tame the river stand guard like misshapen crosses that run in parallel lines
from the flood plain to the acequia.
Rusted steel and metal wire they run down these long slopes, confusing signals
that mark a time long gone. The west-side
bosque is, simply put, beautiful and you can share the path with business
executives tearing up the trail on mountain bikes, yoga moms talking on cell
phones, teenagers looking for some hidden crevice to make out, and the
occasional homeless just looking for a place to crash among the coyote willow
on the river's edge. The ducks and geese
hold court on the sand bars that break the river in to channels and the view
erupts at points of the reflective mud brown river, pink of the mountain miles
away to the east, and lines of towering cottonwoods.
Zoe,
my dog, liked to tear off down a path of unfamiliar scents in the same general
direction that I head, steered down paths by my sharp whistle. I'd
been trained to look at tree tops and branch nooks, looking for a nest or, if
I'm lucky, a porcupine. In the winter
I'd realize that I'd seen the same, small one twice in the polluted and trash
filled bosque of the south valley. But in
this bosque they eluded me.
The
sun was setting, and the shadows stretched out east as the birds chirped and
the cicadas kicked in. We were headed
back and Zoe was worn out, walking with me, tearing down paths but coming back
quicker and with much less hassle.
I
spotted it before she did, but not quick enough for her not to investigate. Thinking it might respond like rabbit, she
snuck up then lunged to land a few feet from it-a sort of visual
"A-Ha."
It
didn’t move, and she held up.
I
erupted in a frantic bit of, "No. Zoe.
Come here." Then remembered she might not be inclined to come my
way if I sounded like I was mad at her.
"Zoe," I chirped.
And
she took a few tentative steps my way such that I could reach her in two quick
steps and clip the leash on her and drag her back to the path, both of us
watching the porcupine.
He
didn't seem bothered by the intrusion and slowly moved toward a sloping single
trunked cottonwood and begin to climb.
Never letting up, I took my phone out and tapped the thing awake,
figuring I'd preserve the moment for posterity (though none of the pictures were very good).
He
was black with grey tipped quills, and in the dying light I was losing sight of
him as he sort of melted into the bark
until he was twenty feet up the tree and tucked himself into a big black
ball.
Zoe
chose then to push against the leash, finally brave enough to get even closer,
but I held her back, called her name, knowing that some day, today, I'd write
this brief story of the porcupine, that thankfully, got away.
Open Space Visitor Center:
This bosque has a couple of well
established trails, some simple signage, and boasts being connected to the Open
Space Visitor Center. The Center is not
really connected to the bosque but separated from it by the Corrales Drain. Being the bosque affiliated with the center,
it also has some art (installed as part of the Land-Art Exhibit).
While it would be nice to stop, we
press on.
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| Bob Wilson's "The Cube" Spring 2016 |
Paseo del Norte:
We'd gotten an earlier start, but the heat of Summer Solstice is beating down. My blisters from the day before start to act up again and the trail from the Visitor's Center to the Paseo del Norte bridge goes no where near the river. The only indication that we are getting close is the massive power line that cuts through.
Paseo, like I-40, is a bridge that doesn't have it's own access to the bosque because you really can't get off Paseo until Coors. Paseo is designed to move cars, lots and lots of cars and they make the bridge sort of thunder above you when you walk under it.
That said, the easiest access to this area is to go to the Calabacilla Arroyo. It's a nice parking area with an informational sign. They've added art to the arroyo, but we don't walk up that way because we are on a mission, so it's drink some water, walk down to the river, cool off, and then find the trail north.
Paseo, like I-40, is a bridge that doesn't have it's own access to the bosque because you really can't get off Paseo until Coors. Paseo is designed to move cars, lots and lots of cars and they make the bridge sort of thunder above you when you walk under it.
That said, the easiest access to this area is to go to the Calabacilla Arroyo. It's a nice parking area with an informational sign. They've added art to the arroyo, but we don't walk up that way because we are on a mission, so it's drink some water, walk down to the river, cool off, and then find the trail north.
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| Finally a bridge |
According to Google, it is only two miles from Paseo del Norte to Alameda. I want to believe it, though it doesn't suggest that you walk those two miles in the bosque, which may mean it's a bit longer (of course). But the end is near.
Just past Calabacilla Arroyo is the Rio Grande diversion damn for the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. Yep the area where we get our water.
From the west side, you can access the area pretty easily.
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| Diversion Damn |
Alameda Bridge:
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| Pedestrian Bridge |
At the end of the second day, we are basically at the boundary of Corrales. Originally, we thought about pushing on and pereginating there as well, but decide against it. Largely because my feet hurt, the day is heating up, and Boxing Bear Brewing Company is just up 528.
Zoe really doesn't like walking along the street. There's too much traffic and at the first driveway she really starts pushing to get off the road. We try to coax her to move on, but she doesn't and, finally, I simply just pick her up.
We're both really hot. And I, for perhaps the first time in a long time, really feel like I've earned a beer.
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| Photo Credit Reid Maruyama |
Epilogue:
Short of a couple of miscues, we set out to hike the bosque from Valle de Oro to at least Alameda. On the way we became more familiar with how the city and the river interact with each other. From the city giving back much of the water it uses via the treatment plant to the south to the city taking water from the river to the north; from the drains, arroyos, and acequias we've peregrinated along the waterway This waterway is how people can call this desert home. We call it home.
Seeing the bosque as a complete whole is not an easy task. Too often the bridges seem to parcel sections and the sections all seem to have their own character. I essentially did the same parcelling by using the bridges as a way of breaking up this narrative (with the exception of the Rio Grande Nature Center and Open Space Visitor's Center). In reality, the bridges do divide the bosque but also connect one side to the other (at least structurally) and represent the easiest access points and most immediately used areas of the bosque. From the forgotten and discarded nature of the bosque south of Bridge to the manicured trails and expansive areas around the "official" visitor centers north of Bridge I can't help but see the bosque as mimicking the economics of Albuquerque itself. The bosque in the south valley seems decidedly rural and much poorer. The bosque in the north valley seems middle to upper class while the west side seems almost suburban.
While we didn't see a lot of wildlife (mostly due to the season and the time of day we walked), I can't help but notice the invasive Russian Olive, Salt Cedar, Trees of Heaven, and Mulberry now and wonder if there is anything I could do to eradicate them. Their numbers seem pretty overwhelming. Likewise, though they've begun removing some jetty jacks, I'm not sure they could, or should, really get rid of all of them.
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| Jetty Jack in north of Bridge, east side. Early Spring 2016 |
Mindy, Zoe, and I plan to hike it end to end again in September, hopefully around the equinox and possibly heading from the north (Corrales this time) to the south (actually coming out where we are supposed to on the Valle de Oro). Fall seems to start a bit later every year so we may not notice much difference, but we'll see.
June 30, 2016
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