The rocky wash leading to the bench between Comanche and Candelaria.
The old red flag was flying again today, so instead of cycling Herself and I scrambled into the neighboring Sandia foothills, working our way along bits and pieces of the Candelaria Bench Loop.
Herself bouldering upward. There’s a bit of singletrack off to her left but it’s a slippery sonofabitch.
It’s only a four-mile hike, but there’s a fair amount of vertical at the beginning and the end, much of it on crumbly gravel switchbacks lined with sharp rocks and cacti.
After the first steep, loose climb east of Comanche we stuck to a stair-stepped, boulder-studded wash that was a whole lot more fun than the narrow singletrack I took a digger on last year, slamming my left thigh into a big round rock.
Oddly, the winding descent to Trail 365 near Candelaria seemed less challenging than I remembered.
Once I met another hiker on that stretch who said she simply sat and slid down some of the steeper sections (glissading, for the aficionados among you). I’ve done this a time or two myself, but never on purpose, or without consequences.
Didn’t happen today, to either of us, so yay, etc.
And we didn’t see another single solitary soul, either. Unless you count the three circling crows who seemed to be tracking our cautious movements downward and providing an appropriate soundtrack. Haw … haw … haw.
Herself inspects the Greater Duke City Metropolitan Area
from the Candelaria bench.
Tags: Candelaria Bench Trail, Herself
Mad Blog Media 
April 9, 2021 at 5:38 pm |
Was a bit windy up this way too. I braved it and rode the Rail Trail down to Eldorado anyway. Had to do something.
April 10, 2021 at 7:52 am |
The wind is my least favorite weather feature. I don’t know how Charles Pelkey bears it up there in Wyoming. That’s where wind comes from.
April 10, 2021 at 11:06 am |
Wyoming blows and Texas sucks and we’re stuck in the middle of it.
Wind is the only thing that will keep me inside, and when it does it’s thing here, I’m curled up in the fetal by the fire under a dozen blankets, begging for my binkie and a lullaby.
April 10, 2021 at 11:10 am |
The infamous
Wyoming Wind Sock
April 10, 2021 at 11:12 am |
What the what? Fat-fingered the copy/paste.
Try Wyoming Wind Sock
April 10, 2021 at 11:14 am
I give up!
Just Google it!!
April 10, 2021 at 11:22 am |
So let it be written, so let it be done.
Click here for a larger version.
April 10, 2021 at 12:38 pm
I’m going to blame the wind on that one!
You can take the man out of the editor’s office, but you can’t take the editor out of the man.
Mahalo!
April 11, 2021 at 8:54 am |
Yeah – the Wyoming wind. I worked and lived in the Red Desert in the mid-70’s. First thing I did was cut my hair off. As a side benefit that new look improved my image with our drilling crews.
April 9, 2021 at 9:44 pm |
I sure remember the spring NM winds! We have had a windy spring here in norCal too.
April 10, 2021 at 8:00 am |
It’s a small thing to bitch about, but still, damn. When you’re crouched over a handlebar getting pollen blasted up your snout and your skin peeled as you grind along at -5 mph the cycling indoors starts to seem vaguely appealing.
April 11, 2021 at 6:20 am |
Key word for me anyway is “vaguely” …. very vaguely!! 🙂
April 10, 2021 at 1:09 am |
It twas a beautiful day up here in the Cascades. We also had some wind so I gave the bike the day off to recover from the day before.
Glissading. Yep I know about that and I’m wise to the ways it can turn bad and get ugly.
April 10, 2021 at 8:03 am |
Back in high school we used to do what we called “screeing,” which was basically bounding down gravelly hillsides in hiking boots, usually up in North Cheyenne Cañon in Bibleburg. Drugs often played a supporting role. It often ended badly.
April 10, 2021 at 4:33 am |
Any buzzworms? We didn’t see any on our last river outing, but little lizards were dashing about. So, they are probably stirring. Have you seen them on that trail?
April 10, 2021 at 8:21 am |
I’ve seen a lizard scooting around on the woodpile, but so far no serpents. I watch where I put my hands and feet, though.
Last year I don’t recall seeing a single buzzworm. A couple-three bull snakes, but no rattlers. But we had years like that up to Weirdcliffe, too. One year you wouldn’t see a single one, and the next you’d be wishing for stilts so you could walk to the truck without getting nailed.
Sierra Club guidebook said rattlers mostly weren’t to be seen above 8,000 feet. But the buzzworms weren’t big readers so they did as they pleased.