Take a drive to see New Mexico's fantastic fall foilage

N.M. 4 to Jemez Springs.

There may be no better time to take a drive than when New Mexico’s aspen and cottonwoods trees are ablaze with fall colors.

One of the best Albuquerque area road trips to see the fall foliage is to Jemez Springs after the leaves of streamside cottonwood trees turn a deep orange.

It’s just a little over an hour’s drive from Albuquerque to Jemez Springs on U.S. 550 to N.M. 4 and the trip offers visitors great fall scenery amid towering red cliffs topped by stunning blue skies.

The village also boasts several good places to eat and drink, a hot spring bathhouse and the Jemez Historic Site featuring the stone ruins of an ancient Indian pueblo and San José de los Jemez church. 

Jemez Springs Bathhouse.

Travelers can enjoy even more spectacular scenery in the surrounding national forest by continuing up N.M. 4 to N.M. 126. The road spans 40 miles between La Cueva and Cuba and is a typical graded gravel forest road for much of way.

Check with the Santa Fe National Forest’s Jemez Ranger District Office at (575) 829-3535 for current fall foliage and road conditions. 

Another easy fall drive for Albuquerque residents is up into the mountains above Santa Fe to see the fall colors from the ski area chairlift. Rides are available 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends in September and every day during Balloon Fiesta, Oct. 6 through the Oct. 14. Visit www.skisantafe.com for details.

Travelers returning from the ski area also can enjoy an extended tour of the woods by taking Forest Road 102 down to Pacheco Canyon Road to emerge near Tesuque.

Aspen trees in the forest off Hyde Park Road.

Another great fall drive near Santa Fe includes taking the High Road to Taos and returning along the Rio Grande.

Take U.S. 84/285 north to the Nambe turn off at N.M. 503 and follow to the Chimayo turnoff at Santa Fe County Road 98.  Drive through the village of Chimayo to N.M. 76 and then head up the mountain past Truchas over to Peñasco and on to Ranchos de Taos for the return trip along the Rio Grande on N.M. 68.

Cottonwood trees along N.M. 68 between Espanola and Taos.

But probably the best drive in northern New Mexico to view the fall colors is a 50-mile jaunt on U.S. 64 from Tierra Amarilla  over the mountains and through the Carson National Forest to Tres Piedras.

The highway climbs into the high country past the impressive Brazos Cliffs and offers plenty of unmarred scenic beauty including bright yellow aspen groves and stands of brilliant red oak trees.

Brazos Cliffs of U.S. 64 between Tierra Amarilla and Tres Piedras.

Travelers heading up to Tres Piedras on U.S. 84 will see over 90 miles of spectacular scenery including the stunning red rock cliffs near Abiquiu Lake. Upon returning on U.S. 285 from Tres Piedras travelers will pass by a lengthy cottonwood bosque between Los Ojos and Espanola and could see even more brilliant fall colors.

Aldo Leopold Cabin Rental Stalled by Zinke Administration

A  U.S. Forest Service proposal to allow public rental of the historic Aldo Leopold cabin in Tres Piedras has stalled due to political gridlock at the U.S. Department of Interior.

“What a shame, it’s a great attraction that could really help bring more visitors to northern New Mexico,” says Deb Graves, owner of the Chile Line Depot restaurant off U.S. 285 in rural Tres Piedras.

The cabin was built by Leopold, a founding father of the nation’s wilderness conservation movement, when he was the forest service’s district ranger back in 1911.

The forest service first announced the proposal in September 2016 noting that it wanted to offer the public a unique recreational experience while also providing funds for maintenance of the historic building. Money earned from cabin and other rental properties stays within the district where it is raised and is a valuable tool in helping the cash strapped forest service pay for maintenance and other costs. 

Forest service cabin rentals are popular and plentiful in Colorado and other states but New Mexico doesn’t have any available.

The Leopold cabin features 4 furnished bedrooms and can accommodate up to 11 guests. It has a fully equipped kitchen and dining room, a library and fireplace and would rent for $175 a night. The cabin’s wide, covered front porch offers sweeping views of the surrounding countryside and is perfect for whiling away an afternoon.  Outdoor recreational opportunities abound within nearby forest and wilderness areas including the Rio Grande gorge.   

The proposal hit a snag due to the forest service’s need to have it vetted and approved by the public before it can be implemented, says Amy Simms, a public service staff officer with the Carson National Forest in Taos.

The forest service needs to use an existing U.S. Interior Department Bureau of Land Management Resource Advisory Committee to vet such a proposal in New Mexico.

The committees are comprised of members of the public that represent various industries, recreation and government. Members apply for appointment by the Secretary of the Interior and routinely meet to provide public input on federal agency operations.

But Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke soon after his appointment by President Donald Trump suspended use of the RAC committees, then reinstated some but failed to appoint members to others.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of the Interior.

The Farmington District Office committee which heard from U.S. Forest Service staff about the Leopold House rental proposal during a recent meeting in Taos is one of those RAC committees operating without a full roster. It can’t conduct any official business such as approving the forest service proposal due to its lack of a quorum.

“I’ve got the feeling they’re just going to let them die on the vine,” says committee member Mick O’Neil, a retired New Mexico State University agronomy professor and one time Peace Corps volunteer who served in Africa. “It seems this administration just doesn’t like public input.”

The interior department isn’t saying if or when those who’ve applied to fill the vacancies will be appointed, O’Neill said.

The department’s press office declined to answer several inquiries seeking an explanation of what was going on.

Meanwhile the Leopold house often stands empty despite the forest service’s best effort to put it to better use.

Share With Wildlife program relies on public support.

New Mexico’s wild critters and natural environment benefit greatly from those who give generously to the state’s Share with Wildlife Program.

“We’re very thankful to the public for their generous support of the program,” says Ginny Seamster, Share with Wildlife program manager for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. “Without them it wouldn’t exist.”

The public contributed over $90,000 to the program last year through tax refund contributions, specialty license plate purchases and donations to the department.

Donations qualify the department to receive matching funds from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which brought in another $82,000 last year.

The program funded a total of $165,000 worth of projects this year including much needed financial support for wildlife rehabilitation centers, including the non-profit New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española, where sick and injured animals receive veterinary care, treatment and rehabilitation before being released back into the wild.

The program also funds research, including a study of the success of the North American river otter reintroduction effort that was conducted 2008-2010, and evaluation of the current size and health of the river otter population in New Mexico.

Another 2018 project involves assessing the reproductive success and survival rates of a turtle species currently under review for potential listing as a threatened or endangered species. Also funded this year is a project to study habitat associations and distribution of a species of chipmunk found only in mountain ranges in southeastern New Mexico.

Another research project involves the study of white-nose syndrome, a devastating fungal disease wiping out many bat colonies in the eastern United States.

The fungus that causes white-nose syndrome has been detected in Texas and this project will help determine whether the fungus is now present in some of the most heavily visited caves and mines in New Mexico that also are roost and or hibernation sites for bats. This is an important precursor to being able to take more proactive steps to protect our state’s bat populations from white-nose syndrome, Seamster says.

“People who contribute to the Share with Wildlife program make all these wildlife projects possible,” she says.

Biologists from other agencies and organizations volunteer to review and select applications for each years’ projects and all donations to the program are earmarked for projects, not administrative costs, she says.

To see a complete list of funded projects, updates and program highlights please visit the department’s website at 

http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/conservation/share-with-wildlife/.

The program received the majority of its donations last year from its share from the sales of popular wildlife license plates by the state Motor Vehicle Division. The license plates feature either a graceful Gambel’s quail, an impressive buck mule deer or a colorful Rio Grande cutthroat trout. The plates can be ordered by mail or purchased directly at an MVD office.

The Share with Wildlife program was started in1981 to help those wildlife species that do not receive funding from any other source.

In the past decade more than $1.5 million has gone to research, habitat enhancement, education and rehabilitation projects that benefit nongame species in need of conservation.

To contribute to this important program please visit the department website at www.wildlife.state.nm.us/share for more information or contact Seamster at (505) 476-8111 or virginia.seamster@state.nm.us.

Spring caddis hatch on the Rio Grande should be good for fishing in 2018

This year’s caddis hatch on the upper Rio Grande should be great for fishing if the warm days and low water flows continue.

“It’s looking good,” says Nick Streit of the Taos Fly shop.

Low snowpack levels in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado means less high and muddy runoff in the big river.

And that makes for good fishing especially during the annual caddis hatch when millions of the bugs emerge from the water to mate along the river.

Streit expects the hatch could start as early as the first of April and suggests anglers be ready to go fishing when the time is right.

Anglers should call or monitor their favorite fly shop’s fishing report to keep abreast of the latest news about the hatch.

Once the hatch begins anglers are urged to fish it early on or when it’s waning and move further upstream as it commences.

The key is to avoid fishing it during its height because there are so many bugs on the water that an angler’s fly may be end up being ignored.

Late afternoons are the best time to fish on the Rio Grande and a combination elk hair dry fly with an caddis emerger pattern suspended below it is a good set up to use. Skating and twitching the dry fly across the surface is a good method for attracting strikes from fish.

For more information about fishing the Rio Grande check out the article “Lure of the Gorge” at http://karlfmoffatt.blogspot.com/2014/06/on-fishing-rio-grande-gorge-with-john.html.

The big river’s best fishing can be had between the county line takeout off N.M. 68 above Embudo up through Pilar and above and below the John Dunn Bridge at Arroyo Hondo.

Ivan Valdez of the Reel Life Fly Shop in Santa Fe says anglers also can float the river to get to at even more fish in hard to reach areas of the river.

Reservations are being accepted at both the Reel Life and Taos Fly Shop for professionally guided, overnight trips on the river during the hatch.

Caddis occupies almost every healthy river or stream in the West and is a primary food source for trout and other fish.

A fishable caddis hatch on the Rio Grande provides anglers with a great opportunity to catch fish from what is widely regarded as a typically stingy river.

Also see http://licensedtofish.blogspot.com/2014/04/fishing-new-mexicos-spring-caddis-hatch.html

Spring best bet for good fishing in drought plagued 2018

Anglers planning on doing some fishing this season may want to get it done sooner rather than later while most of the state’s reservoirs are still full.

“Our lakes are in the best shape they’ve been in years,” says Eric Frey, sport fish program manager for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF). “People should get out there and enjoy the fishing while they can.”

The state’s reservoirs stand at just over 70 percent of average storage which is about a 10-percent increase over last year, according to the latest Basin Outlook Report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NCRS) in Albuquerque.

But with the farm irrigation season commencing and continued municipal use much of the state’s reservoir storage is expected to be depleted over the spring and summer with little or no replenishment anticipated from snowpack runoff.

The NCRS monitors and reports on the state’s snowpack, precipitation and reservoir water storage data. The latest report can be downloaded from the service’s website at https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/nm/snow/waterproducts/.

According to the latest report the state’s overall snowpack levels have reached or are approaching historical lows and drought continues to expand across the state and into southwestern Colorado.

With above average temperatures and high winds expected to quickly dry out what little snowpack exists, spring runoff is probably going to be well below average statewide, says Chris Romero of the NCRS.

“Then we’ll be waiting on the monsoons to hopefully save us again,” he says.

In the meantime excellent fishing conditions at many of the state’s popular east side reservoirs such as Conchas, Sumner and Santa Rosa and Ute lakes will provide anglers with plenty of opportunities to catch bass, walleye and other warmwater species this spring, Frey says.

A long running drought that caused the walleye population at Santa Rosa to crash several years ago has since rebounded due to the lake refilling and the department’s restocking efforts, Frey says.

“I fished four or five times out there this time last year and it was amazingly good,” Frey says.

Frey’s tips and tricks to fishing for warmwater species can be found in a past issue of the department’s “New Mexico Wildlife” magazine that can be viewed online at http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/download/publications/wildlife-news/Volume_56-Number_3-Fall-2011.pdf.

Stream and river anglers also can expect to enjoy good fishing conditions for trout this spring with little or no runoff to impede the action, Frey says.  The Rio Grande is expected to produce a fishable caddis hatch for the first time in years and some fishing guides are already booking trips in anticipation.

Anglers are reminded to obtain a new fishing license before venturing out to their favorite fishing hole. Licenses are good for one year between April 1 and March 31. Anglers can purchase a new license this season beginning March 22. Licenses can be obtained online on the department’s website, www.wildlife.state.nm.us, over the telephone with the department’s information center at (888) 248-6866 or through a vendor. The department’s information center will be open 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 31, to sell licenses and answer questions.