[Volunteers_fosm] CIENEGA PA AND SURROUNDING TRAILS HIKE 5-14-19

[Robert Lowder via Volunteers_fosm]

Hello everyone,

Bob and I had a fun day in Cienega Canyon on Tuesday 5/14/19.  We started the day by doing a survey of the work that needed to be done for the FOSM PROJECT the following day.  We started at the old host site and promptly started trimming some dead trees just to the upper side of the parking lot.  We checked the road way all the way up to the upper parking lot.  We did do a fair amount of brushing along the road.  Further up the road past the reservation area, some of the brush along the road actually tried to kiss our truck--that is a no-no. This was cut back.  The Sandia Fire Crew was to be in Cienega Canyon chipping slash and doing other tasks during the day on Wednesday.  This was a great time to provide them with some more work!!

We headed up the canyon and past the 2 bridges that have been surrounded by brush and slash from the many trees that have been felled in the area.  A great walk around of those bridges is in place to the right of them.  The remaining smaller bridge (I believe built by the Boy Scouts) is in good shape above all that mess.  The trail up to the BIG ROCK is clear.  There had been reported a mess of logs that had slid down the hill and was difficult to get around.  This is no longer the case.  The mess is off to the left side of the rock going up trail.  This section of Cienega is clear up to the junction with Faulty.  We headed up Cienega trail from this junction.

Just at the top of the small hill going up Cienega was a train wreck of small "spring pole" trees that made for a difficult travel through the area if one's height was above 5'1". There was lots of brush along side the trail at this point and while Sally was attending to the brush, Bob was busy taking care of the "spring pole" mess.  It is now safe and clear to pass easily.  This  cleared area is shown in the photo attached.  We hiked a bit further and all information is included in the photos.

We came back down Cienega trail and continued the hike via Faulty Trail headed north.  That trail is in excellent shape.  We did some minor brushing on the trail.  We then headed up the Horse Bypass Trail to be rewarded by beautiful flower gardens along the way.  The winter/spring winds had not been kind to the trees in this area.  Many, many trees were totally uprooted in this area---mostly green trees.  The views this day were spectacular.  We also did some very minor brushing and removed 1 tree that was starting to encroach onto the trail.  Bob also did some work on a broken, twisted branch sticking out onto the trail.
The Faulty and Horse Bypass trails are clear.

We then moved onto the Wagon Trail and the Acequia trails that are all in awesome condition due to the efforts of Galloway's Trail Crew!

We passed through the Cienega reservation area that included the Nature Trail adopted by FOSM.  That area was to be our project area for Wednesday, 5/15/19.  We passed along the section that has had broken planks on a bridge.  Don Carnicom had just repaired that bridge 3 weeks ago and there was now another broken plank. He was alerted to the problem and it is now repaired.

We now had a great idea of what our project was to entail on Wednesday.  Lots of work!

The steams are flowing and can actually be heard on top of the Horse Bypass.  Such a pleasant sound in our beautiful mountain.  There are so many wildflowers blooming it will be a great time for the folks who lead the flower hikes.

All photos by Sally Lowder.

See you on the mountain.

Sally Lowder



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