Rick & Lori

Sunday, January 3, 2016

December 20, 2015

We decided to make a quick trip to the cabin on the weekend before Christmas despite a recent heavy snow there the weekend before we arrived (we had been told there was up to 22" in town--which didn't appear to be correct). Weather problems, Christmas parties, and difficulty getting time off work had caused us to cancel once already and made finding a good weekend almost impossible. Amy & Vince and Randy & Sandra were unable to make it. JD & Jill were available but could't leave until Friday at lunch.

We left early Friday morning and were at the cabin by 10am MST. It was extremely cold in the cabin when we arrived (actually much colder than outside), and we quickly discovered that all of the water to the upstairs was frozen despite winterizing and blowing water out of the lines when we had left on November 1. It took a little longer to get everything situated than anticipated, but we were finally able to leave for a MTB ride in the snow by early afternoon. I had wanted to ride in the High Rolls area, but Rick didn't want to drive that far, and the late start made riding in the very snowy James Ridge area just up the road from the cabin more appealing. We rode a whopping 10 miles in almost 2 hours. It was mostly snow and packed snow with some areas of ice/slush/mud/water/rocks. On the way back, it started getting pretty cold and the areas which had been slush became ice. Rick had two hard crashes, including one which jarred his collar bone. We stopped taking pictures and just tried to get the heck out of there before someone got hurt. We were seeing large cat prints in the snow the size of my hand (most likely mountain lions), and it got a little scary (and cold--the water was freezing in our camelbaks!) before we got back to the car.

JD and Jill had arrived when we made it back to the cabin. After a nice hot shower, we headed into town to The Western Bar for dinner. The food and beer were great. On Saturday, we were craving BBQ badly, so we headed to Mountain Jack's for lunch. It was excellent as always! We shopped around Cloudcroft and High Rolls, watched a movie, and had dinner at The Lodge.

We headed home by lunch on Sunday after cleaning the cabin and very carefully winterizing everything. We'll see if that upstairs water is frozen next time! Reports are that town and the ski area received 30"+ of snow the weekend after Christmas just from one storm, and it's snowed several times since. The ski resort opened on Dec. 28th, and we got an email on Tuesday asking us not to come up this weekend because the roads in the subdivision are so bad, and there's at least 2 feet of snow on the ground. Not sure when the next trip will be.

Lots of snow when we arrived at the cabin on Friday morning--we didn't dare drive the Camry in the driveway until the snow had been shoveled.

Rick shovels a path while I get a fire going. The thermometer said 14.8 degrees INSIDE the cabin when we arrived. This was likely inaccurate, but it took 2 hours to get the temp up to 50 degrees and the upstairs water was frozen for a while despite winterizing and blowing water out of all of the lines before we left last time.

We decided to try some snow mountain biking on Friday afternoon while waiting for JD & Jill. We left from the end of the paved road on 16 Springs Canyon road. This pic is up the trail a couple of miles where the large tree fell across the road last winter and where people gather firewood, just before "Walker Hill", looking toward the south.

Same area, looking south

Same area, looking back to the east on the trail we just rode up.

A little farther up the trail at the bottom of "Walker Hill" where the road cuts back sharply to the right. This is the site of many photo ops. Note the tracks headed up the hill where a deer or elk dragged their feet in deep snow. We saw a large female elk a little farther down the trail and had never actually seen elk in this area before--just elk signs.

Rick took the short cut to get to "Walker Hill". This doesn't look it but is very steep.

Top of "Walker Hill" looking toward the north, where it ties into another forest road, and the site where we meet up with our guests who chose to avoid the steep climbs and start at the top.

Top of "Walker Hill" looking more toward the east down the forest road

Top of "Walker Hill" looking back to the south on the road we just came up

Headed back east from "Walker Hill"

Top of "Walker Hill" looking back to the west where the forest road joins.

Top of "Walker Hill" road looking back to the south (minus me).

Rick spotted a small herd of wild mustangs just west of the forest road.

The mustang herd crossing the road just in front of us.

Snowy forest roads in the James Ridge area

Headed back in deep snow just before everything started freezing back and getting really treacherous. Once Rick started crashing, we didn't take any more pictures!

This was what we saw when we walked outside The Western Bar on Friday night! We stood there for a while and they didn't move.

Tourist shot at Mexican Canyon trestle

Mexican Canyon Trestle a few miles west of Cloudcroft

Looking back to the west toward High Rolls, Alamogordo, and White Sands

Sunday, November 15, 2015

November 1, 2015

Cold, snowy Friday morning in town

Nice clouds at sunset nearing the cabin on Thursday night

The new roof in daylight

Other side of the new roof

Some fall color on the oak trees near the cabin

Fall color on our oak trees

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Looking for the Chippeway Trail on Forest Road 623

Forest Road 623 near the Chippeway Trail

We found it

That rocky little trail headed straight up the side of the mountain was a sign of things to come

Other end of the Chippeway Trail--note the sign says no mountain bikes from this end. The other end didn't specify--guess they thought you'd have better sense than to try it. Parts were 50% grade per the hiking guide.

The Lucas Canyon Trail looks easy enough from here! :)

Easiest area of the Chippeway Trail

Thumbs up near the top of the Lucas Canyon Trail after a 5 mile climb on the bike and on foot in mud on some steep slopes with snow at the top.

It was starting to get cold!

Rick popping a wheelie on Sunday after coming down the wet and cool single track

Some fall color on the Switchback Trail near the pedestrian bridge

End of the Switchback Trail on Sunday

Thursday, October 22, 2015

October 11, 2015

We made another trip to the cabin on Thursday night. We were able to get away a few hours early and had great enchiladas and beer at the Western before Amy and Vince arrived.

The forecast wasn't very favorable, but Rick had been able to schedule a crew of roofers from one of his buddies in Lubbock, and we had the trailer filled with the metal roofing, so the old roof was coming off! The roofers had decided to arrive Friday morning despite an 80% chance of rain. They changed their minds on Friday morning, moved the start time to early Saturday morning, and said they would try to finish in one day.

That cleared us to ride but it was quite cool, foggy, misty and windy. Rickey, Vince and I decided to give it a shot in the early afternoon. We drove out on Sunspot Highway, parked at the entrance to Russia Canyon Road, unloaded the bikes and were about to take off when it started raining. We waited in the truck for a while, then just decided to skip it, and met Amy at the Western for nachos and beer. We cooked green chile stew at the cabin later that night.

The roofers actually did show up around 9am on Saturday morning. The weather was warmer and clear, but they had neglected to bring ropes and supplies needed to work on a steep roof despite being told to do so by both Rickey and the roofing contractor and being shown pictures of the roof the week before on the iPad. Instead of leaving some of them at the cabin to work from the ladder, they all loaded up and headed to Alamogordo for supplies. They arrived back in 2 hours with still limited supplies but started tearing the roof off. The roof was apparently the original roof, and the cabin was built in 1978! They worked for the rest of the day tearing the roof off and getting new tar paper down on one side. Words can't quite describe what it was like watching them work on the roof. Their use of the ropes to secure the guys working on the roof was a bit unconventional and most likely unsafe, but somehow no one fell off the roof during the weekend. Rick decided to stay at the cabin to keep an eye on the roofing, but Amy, Vince and I did a MTB ride from town early Saturday afternoon on the single track and Switchback trail. We finished the ride and headed to the bbq place but were extremely disappointed to find they had already sold out and were closed--at 3:00! Allsups burritos weren't what we had in mind, but they had to work. Rick got a motel room for the roofers a few miles from the cabin, and they told Rick they would start working at daylight so we called it an evening much earlier than usual on Saturday night.

They showed up at 9:15 on Sunday morning and still had a LOT of work to do to get finished. Vince and I decided to go on a MTB ride in the Benson Ridge and Russia Canyon area while Amy studied and Rick kept an eye on the roofing. The weather was clear and about 60 degrees, and we had scouted out a very basic route of about 24 miles. We were having a grand time and riding along a ridge at elevations from about 9000' to 9600' in beautiful fall foliage. Everything was great until I checked the GPS app and discovered we were not on the right trail anymore. We looked it over and both decided to take a trail which also wasn't on the app but appeared it would go the correct direction and take us to the desired area. Well, that didn't work out as expected, and we got into some areas so isolated that we ended up wearing our bright yellow rain jackets in full sunlight to avoid being shot by elk hunters. We finally made it back to the top of Benson Ridge after a 6 mile detour up, down and around multiple mountains. It ended up being a 26.3 mile ride with 2700'+ of climbing. It was a great adventure, but the sad part was that we drove out to Russia Canyon Road two different times and have still not ridden on that road yet! I have since studied the maps thoroughly and know the area much better now. We'll try it again next trip.

Our ride took longer than expected, but we were back in town before 3:00 and starving for bbq. I saw the "Sold Out" sign from across the street and was devastated, but we lucked out and were able to get 3 brisket plates and a pulled pork plate with all of the sides and were their last customers of the day. We had late bbq lunch at the cabin, Amy and Vince left around 4:00 for Vince to catch a flight, and we had to stay and wait for the roofers to finish. They finally finished after 7pm, which was almost dark, and we headed back to Lubbock around 7:30 with the big trailer and arrived home around 11:30pm. I was totally exhausted on Monday!

Riding was questionable on Friday afternoon with temps at 48 degrees with fog, mist and wind. We decided to try it anyway. We drove out to Russia Canyon Road, unloaded the bikes and got ready to take off. It then started raining.