“It’s been so unusually hot and dry. There won’t be good leaf color this year,” I kept reading while doing research into leaf peeping in the Southwest. I went to the forest last week anyway.
Because yes, we do have forests here too: mostly at higher elevations in the mountains.
The desert does have autumn color outside of the forests. The desert autumn palette is more subtle, not as dramatic but no less beautiful.
There are native plants like the chamisa (Ericameria nauseosa aka rabbit brush) which have yellow flowers in autumn, cholla cactus (Cylindropuntia) which offer bright almost neon yellow green fruit and Rio Grande cottonwoods (Populus deltoides subsp. wislizenii) along river courses and flood planes which turn brilliant yellow gold before dropping their leaves each year.
For a bit of midweek forest bathing and autumn color immersion, I mounted a little expedition to the Sante Fe National forest in the Jemez Mountains about two thousand feet higher above sea level than where I live, and roughly 4 hours drive away.
Because some of the area hikes I had researched are on land which belongs to the Jemez native peoples and because I know Jemez Pueblo is closed to outsiders, I stopped at Walatowa visitor center to find out about permits, permissions and maps.
I paid my respects by visiting the little museum, listening to a (filmed) prayer and greeting, watching a 15 minute video on the history of the tribe and, at my request, trying to learn to say “thank you” in the Towa language which interestingly doesn’t have a written form as tribal rules do not allow the language to be transcribed. I discovered this when I asked for the words to be written down as I’m a strongly visual rather than aural learner.
Though there were no dances scheduled, I also spent some time in the beautiful new tribal dance space, with the hummingbird mural, where both ceremonial and exhibition dances take place. It was midday. Shadows were strong. I really liked sitting in the ringing silence of this space. It was hard to leave.
But it was also hot, 15 degrees hotter than mid October should be. I returned to the visitor center cafe where I discovered a delicately flavored chilled cactus drink, all organic, made by Zia Vida, an indigenously owned company headquartered in Taos Pueblo. It was like drinking liquid rubies. Not too sweet. Lightly carbonated. Refreshing. A jewel of a drink. Heavenly! The bottle emptied quickly. More please!
Then I headed twenty or so miles, through cottonwood gold, along the river and up into the mountains where I had rented a small travel trailer under cedar and juniper trees as accommodation for a few nights.
What with my dawdling along the way, it was midafternoon by now and storm clouds were gathering ominously. I decided a meal was in order and my packed bean cakes and pickles could be saved for another day.
I discovered that the only restaurant open on a Tuesday in Jemez Springs is Los Ojos.
A bar whose logo seems to be a longhorn skull isn’t necessarily going to be my happy place but I had researched their menu online. It seemed to indicate a couple of vegetarian options. After all they are day tripping distance from City Different Santa Fe. Vegetarian can’t be that much of a dirty word here, I thought.
My magical thinking and the website hadn’t prepared me for the reality of the interior of this saloon which is an old west themed celebration of guns, killing and the art of taxidermy. A whole mountain goat plus a brace of long feathered birds loom above the cash register most disconcertingly. I almost turned around to leave on meeting that goat, but when in Rome.…and support local economy where I can and all that had me persevere.
But wait. It gets worse. I was seated at a booth under two bear skins all hung about with dusty but cheery chile pepper lights. It was hard to enjoy a vegetarian enchilada when I felt I had to fend off two hungry ursine maws, complete with horribly discolored teeth seeming to drool just a few feet above my plate. I grudgingly give that it was possibly a better angle than if they had been displayed the other way up.
After that unsettling experience I prescribed myself a hotsprings soak at Jemez Springs Bathhouse. Forget trying to hike into a wild hotspring pool in the forest. There was (maybe) a storm brewing and I had a dead animal encounter to remediate.
This historic little bath house is a non profit, owned and operated by the Village of Jemez Springs. One can get massages too, but I just opted for an hour long soak in the really hot water which one taps oneself, mixing to desired temperature, into big old tubs.
Though it is not always so here, on this day the water had a slight sulfur smell. The experience was beautifully and deeply relaxing, leaving my skin silky smooth and all tension soothed from muscles, all aches in joints and bones calmed.
Though my original expedition planning had included an afternoon hike, all I could manage after that lovely mineral water soak was to find my way back to the little caravan, make a cup of masala chai, make up my bed (I brought my own bedding) and retreat under blankets with a book.
The promised storm blew away in the night meaning I could set up an outdoor kitchen and dining area the next morning and not dismantle my bed.
Because there is no water at this little caravan, a biobag toilet system and a solar heated shower have been set up.
I did not use the shower as each day I was in the mountains I soaked in various hotsprings. I found the toilet flimsy and precarious, and soon worked out where the United States Forest Service campsite toilets were. USFS operates almost a dozen campsites and day use areas in the vicinity. Their facilities proved way more comfortable to use than the system set up at my little rented caravan.
In retrospect, and since the storm only arrived after I had left, I might have done better (and saved significant $$) to have camped at a USFS campground. Below is pictured the entrance to the Battleship Rock day use area.
I am a sucker for a vintage caravan/travel trailer though and have mostly had positive experiences. This time not so much. There was a soulnessness, an inauthenticity to this caravan. Uninspired interior decor and even worse dollar store Halloween decorations (big ugh). It felt like the absentee owner (a Texas resident) was going through the motions, checking boxes on a short term stay website by means of big box store Made in China, plastic …stuff…
Though it did look pretty all lit up at night with solar lamps, and the surroundings were superbly maintained by a resident caretaker and Jemez Pueblo native, I will not return to this little caravan but will camp at a USFS site next time.
It was the little camper that couldn’t.
But the best IS yet to come. Tomorrow I will write up day 2 of the expedition: autumn colour, forest hikes and forest hotsprings.