A few miles north of Pinos Altos, New Mexico, the Little Cherry Creek trail begins. Distance is 8.4 miles (in/out), and elevation gain is 1450 feet.
About a mile past the above photo, I was rounding a switchback when I encountered a full-size bear about twenty feet away. I felt like I jumped two feet up in the air, but I doubt that I cleared two inches. Meanwhile, the bear, which was a beautiful blonde/gold color, was running up the mountain as fast as it could. And Callie, mild-tempered Callie, began barking furiously but couldn't run off after it, being on-leash. No camera was involved, but Julia will confirm that it was a beautiful light color. After the hike was done, we learned that black bears come in many colors, and this was a very light one.
The trail continued to climb until it met the intersection of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT).
As a former Appalachian Trail thru-hiker (Quid Pro Quo, GA>ME '96), I was pretty excited to be walking along the CDT and may have skipped and hopped between a few blazes before we headed back down. The hike down the mountain also had its share of excitement when a group of javelinas ran across our trail. Thankfully, they didn't mistake Callie for a coyote, and no harm was done.
5 comments:
Bear on the trail. That will get your blood pumping! And in my case, make ya kinda stupid too. I once turned around from getting geared up for a hike to discover a grizzly standing at the trail-head behind me and promptly tried climbing back into the front seat of a rented Ford Taurus with a full pack on my back and hiking sticks in my hands. It was pretty ugly. Not my finest moment.
JoooohhhhHHHHHHnnnnnNNN! Where the devil is this? We need gps coordinates or more description.
I’ve never had a black bear act aggressively to me. And this one didn’t either. The problem was that I couldn’t reconcile the bear’s color with the black bears that I’ve seen in Wisconsin. In my head I knew it couldn’t be a grizzly in that part of New Mexico, but I was pretty surprised.
GPS for the trailhead is 32.89614, -108.2335. It’s close to a small campground and on the right side of the road.
Yeah, that mustuh been strange about the color.
Thanks for the coordinates.
That's living...when skip & hop mode kick in!
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