Trail Running: The Great Cibola Bushwhack

This post written by Jim.

Depending on project schedule, we get to do a trail run or hike almost daily so I have been wanting to describe what it is all about for over a year now. So here it is.....

One of the great pleasures of living out here in New Mexico is that there is a lot of public land (we are rated 9th in all the 50 states with 47.5% of land being public). This is in part because NM became a state in 1912, a time in US history that we started to realize that we needed to preserve and manage our land rather than allow it all to be privatized. In fact the national forest service was established just 7 years earlier in 1905. I realize that not all of this “management” is good, but having lived in Texas for 10 years (with only 4% of its land being public), it is very good for anyone that enjoys the outdoors.

The upshot of all this is that we have endless opportunity for hiking and trail running nearby. We are surrounded by thousands of acres of national forest and BLM land within walking distance of our front door. The forest that surrounds us is the Cibola. We thought that Cibola was a misspelling of the Spanish word cebolla for onion because when the monsoon rains moisten the soil the onion sprouts literally look like a lawn, but as it turns out it may be Zuni for tribal lands/pueblo.

The Cibola is odd in that it is broken up into 8 separate pieces that are scattered across New Mexico. Our part (the Magdalena ranger district) has 800,000 acres including the Apache Kid Wilderness. All of this area lies between 6,000 and 8,000 feet elevation with several mountain peaks up to 10,000 feet ranging from grasslands to heavily forested areas.

While all this land is easily accessible to us, this area has very few developed trails. There are several 4wd roads that can get you into the back country, but aside from one nice park system trail near us called Datil Well, or running/hiking these 4wd trails, the bushwhack is pretty much our only option. Also I have to give a shout out to the elk, deer, coyotes, and other wild life for the excellent work they do on building game trails. These can be very nice, but generally lead nowhere, and if they could work on clearing the occasional low hanging branch that would be an improvement.

Bushwhacking can really slow down your running pace, but at this point, I’m not sure you can call what I do “running” anyway. In spite of the lack of development out here the experience is worth the effort. Some of the arroyos run for miles through cactus, junipers, pinyon, ponderosa, and even some spruce, and fir trees further up into the peak assents. We frequently see deer, elk, coyotes, jack rabbits, but almost never any people. After exploring here for 2 seasons I feel like we are getting the lay of the land, but there is still a lot of adventure ahead.