View during a hike along the south rim of Pueblo Canyon. Photo by KayLinda Crawford/ladailypost.com
By CINDY LITTLE
Los Alamos
As dread looms once again over us, La Mesa, Cerro Grande, Las Conchas, Cerro Pelado, I head out for my morning walk. More than 30y years I have done this, before there were bridges, when the trails were almost invisible.
Every day I go out into the rocks and trees, sometimes in snow or ice, sometimes in glaring sun, sometimes in rain.
I see the mountain lion tracks in the snow, and the bluebirds flitting about. Occasionally a bear lumbers in the path below me, or a fox is sunning on a rock, or the bobcat, strutting across the high bridge like the king of the jungle.
The people are hikers and runners mostly, many of us with dogs. Occasionally I see a bike, but the bikers are usually out in the afternoon. I know the dogs, Willow, Snoopy, Roo, Wanda, Tater, but often not the people. Typical dog person. Four dogs have shared my life and my love of the canyon, Penny, Abby, Nellie, and now Annie.
The canyon is my solace, my sanity, my joy. In times of grief, it offers beauty and consolation. In times of fire, it is a place to still be outdoors. In the time of pandemic, it was an escape. Every day, it is my steadying force, giving me strength and hope to go on. But it doesn’t belong to me.
Pueblo Canyon, and all the beautiful canyons and open spaces, belong to all of us, and to the children who haven’t even been born, and to the Pueblo people who were here long before us. But most of all, the canyon belongs to the animals and the trees and the rocks and the stream.
It is a miracle that this natural beauty is still around us, right in the middle of civilization, in spite of civilization. I know it could all be gone in a day by fire, or across decades by the County, with unnecessary roads to overkill tunnels under Diamond Drive, and staging sites for paving projects in so many trailheads that never get remediated, and dumping areas for fill dirt, and sewage plants and so many other things, even housing or a bike racetrack.
My plea is that everyone who can, go out there and see what we have, before it is lost. Get out of your car and walk across the Pueblo Canyon fill bridge. Look out at the trees and the cliffs, and the views of the Sangre de Cristo and Jemez mountains. Stop at the overlook on the Main Hill Road and get out and look at the mesas and the endless vistas. Better yet, go hike the Pueblo Bench Trail loop, and go toward Acid Canyon, where the cliffs are both terrifying and glorious.
Really look at what we have and glory in it, because in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, it will all be changed.
