Colorado bid us farewell with a parting glimpse of the Conejos Canyon as we headed south to New Mexico. Hidden at the edge of the Rio Grande National Forest, the canyon was created by the Conejos River running through the valley and the area remains one of Colorado’s last few wild areas. According to the information boards at the overlook, the canyon was home to prehistoric hunters and gatherers during the past 12,000 years who relied on the rich natural resources in the area. Visitors can find campgrounds and lodging scattered through the forest, and of course scenic views abound along Colorado’s Route 17.

After our sightseeing stop, we continued out of the canyon and toward the town of Chama just over the border in New Mexico. The historic Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad crossed Route 17 in the distance, the railway leading from Chama to Antonito and serving as a transition between states for hikers exploring the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). The CDT is 3,100 miles long, spanning between Mexico and Canada, with an estimated 200 hikers attempting to thru-hike the entire trail annually. We spotted a couple of young male backpackers waiting close to the CDT crossing at Route 17, putting on their best smiles while holding their thumbs in the air for a ride into town. I slowed slightly, asking Ashley if we should give the guys a ride, but she said we couldn’t pick up any hitchhikers. I understood her hesitation, and while I certainly don’t make a habit of slowing down for just any random hitchhiker we see along the road, a couple of hikers in the middle of the day waiting beside a small trail parking area while other groups of hikers milled about isn’t automatically a dangerous situation.

A thru-hiker is anyone following a trail from start to finish and spending multiple nights camping along that trail carrying everything they need to survive on their backs (like heading from Maine to Georgia on the Appalachian trail). People seeking to complete a trail in segments could also be classified as thru-hikers, even if they’re breaking the entire length of any given trail into smaller pieces with time off in between. Thru-hikers or multi-day backpackers typically seek resupply locations during their hikes, either at pre-planned caches along the trail or by finding a way into towns close to road crossings. Backpackers seeking rides aren’t really all that unusual where trails cross roads not far from a town. Anyone driving by trailheads or trail crossings close to the Appalachian Trail has probably seen hikers loaded down with backpacking gear looking tired and hopeful, seeking a friendly face to offer a ride into town to allow the hikers to restock supplies, fill their stomachs with high-calorie restaurant food, and maybe even spend a night at a local inn complete with hot showers and a soft bed.

While I’m not advocating making a routine out of picking up every hitchhiker you see (as everyone knows the inherent dangers in such a situation, with enough true stories and urban legends to fuel plenty of horror stories), this may be one of those instances where we let down our guards just a little bit. Returning temporarily to a time when giving a stranger a ride was simply a good deed, not a questionable act fraught with mortal peril, could be good for the collective soul of our nation. If these words inspire you to give a couple of backpackers a ride one day and they turn out to be psychotic axe murderers, please accept my advance apologies and condolences to your family and friends. But just maybe you’ll enjoy a true life experience, meet an interesting person or two, and have an entertaining story to tell at your next evening at the bar with your coworkers.

As we entered Chama about twelve miles from the trailhead, we observed groups of tourists walking along the main street, pairs of backpackers on the sidewalks likely seeking supplies or lodging, as well as a presumed father and son backpacking duo trying to hitch a ride back to the trailhead area we just left. Chama is another small-town tourist destination like Salida or Buena Vista in Colorado, attracting people year-round. With a subarctic continental climate, Chama experiences short, mild summers and long, sometimes severely cold winters. Popular winter activities in Chama revolve around snow, including cross-country skiing (with the cross-country ski event the Chama Chile Ski Classic held every January), snowmobiling, snowshoeing, and ice fishing. Warm weather adventurers can find kayaking, rafting, fly fishing, hiking, mountain biking, birding, and numerous other outdoor activities. Railroad and history buffs can explore the train station in town and the refurbished Shamrock Hotel, which has been in continuous operation since 1939 and is now known as The Hotel and Shops, featuring period architecture, fixtures, and furniture.

Chama’s resident population barely breaks 1,000 and the village covers a total area of 2.6 miles. The town is the western terminus of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, a narrow gauge heritage railway built in 1880 featuring steam-era locomotives offering picturesque train rides through the nearby mountains and over Cumbres Pass during warm weather months. Chama hosts a 15-mile bike ride every August centered around the railroad where cyclists chase the locomotive out of Chama and up the challenging climbs to Cumbres. From there, participants can hop on the train for a ride back to Chama, or continue on a different train to the Cumbres Pass sitting at 10,022 feet elevation, making it one of the steepest rails in the country. The adventurous cyclists who ride the train to Cumbres Pass then hop back on their bikes for the descent back to Chama. Non-cyclists can easily find something to do on a day trip to Chama with a number of restaurants and sightseeing opportunities clumped in the small downtown main street area, in addition to the historic railroad.

Southern Colorado and most of New Mexico were under fire restrictions in early June and numerous wildfires were popping up throughout the national forests, forcing the closure and even small-scale evacuations of certain areas. Our initial plan was to remain in the northeastern section of New Mexico, enjoying the cooler temperatures of the higher elevations for the summer months. The Ute Fire changed our plans as Cimarron Canyon State Park was closed due to the fire, and nearby Eagle Nest State Park was temporarily converted as a base for firefighters working to control the blaze. The entire Santa Fe National Forest had been closed at least through July 4th because of the extreme fire danger, which meant Hyde Memorial State Park outside of Santa Fe was also off limits as a result. We decided to return to Heron Lake State Park for a couple of weeks with our trusty New Mexico Annual Camping Pass while awaiting the arrival of the monsoon season which would hopefully bring with it enough rain to quell the threat of more forest fires.

Having never experienced a summer in New Mexico, we were naturally apprehensive about the wildfire threat as well as the approaching monsoon season. According to locals and random sources on the internet, the monsoon season isn’t as extreme as the name implies, typically bringing a couple months of afternoon and evening thunderstorms with heavy, brief rains, and occasionally strong winds. Isolated cases could produce tornado-like gusts as the cooler air in the atmosphere rapidly mixes with the warmer air closer to ground level, but this isn’t a typical occurence. Much like heavy hailstorms in the northeast, tornadoes in the midwest, hurricanes along the southern coast, and earthquakes in the west, the southwest part of the country also experiences its fair share of natural threats from Mother Nature.

Since we weren’t in any rush for the summer, we didn’t mind a two-week detour in an area of the state we’d visited briefly on our trip north through New Mexico just a month earlier. We returned to Heron Lake to find the Blanco Loop completely filled, which was where we parked the RV on our previous visit. The Willow Creek Loop, just next door to Blanco, had plenty of vacant spaces and we luckily found a partially shaded site with electric and water hookups as well as a large “backyard” area where we promptly set up our screen room. Our goal for the summer was to spend two weeks using utilities and two weeks dry camping, since solar power is a reliably viable option in this part of the country, and we decided to let the site availability guide us in either direction. Our refrigerator and freezer were stocked to the gills, the Verizon signal worked well enough with the signal booster so we had internet access, and we didn’t have to worry about running out of propane (we didn’t need it to run the fridge since we were plugged in to shore power), so we settled in for a two-week stay.

Heron Lake features ten distinct camping areas – two primitive campgrounds, six with developed sites (no electricity or water hookups), and the two I mentioned previously with hookups available in most of those sites. The Wheeling It blog features a full review of the Blanco Loop written seven years ago, but not much has changed in that time so take a look at that site for more info on Blanco. Willow Creek has a mix of developed and water/electric sites, so not only do you need to find non-reservation sites, you also need to pay attention if hookups are available (if that matters to you) when choosing a site. The sites in the Willow Creek Loop are also smaller and slightly closer to each other than in Blanco, but if you have a smaller RV you shouldn’t have any trouble fitting somewhere in Willow Creek.

The other six loops are located further away from the “main” part of the park, although you really aren’t missing anything if you choose to stay in those areas, and you have better views of the lake from these more remote loops. The catch is the sites are much smaller and two of the loops don’t allow RVs over 24 feet in length. I took a little biking tour one day and snapped a few photos for reference, maybe they’ll help a little if you decide to visit Heron Lake. If you’re at all concerned about fitting into a space or driving around the access roads (some are quite tight with low-hanging branches), scout out the loops without your RV before committing. Of course, if you have a larger RV you’re probably used to doing this anyway and you don’t need some guy on the internet giving you unsolicited advice.

The nearby village of Los Ojos is a sleepy tiny community that doesn’t really have any services to attract the average tourist, unless you happen to enjoy making things out of yarn. Los Ojos is home to Tierra Wools, a small business that transforms raw wool from locally raised sheep into hand-dyed yarn of the highest quality. For those of you just joining us, Ashley is a professional knitter, crocheter, and pattern creator – so that’s why we were visiting Tierra Wools in the first place. We rode the nine miles from the park to Los Ojos on our bikes, which is a pleasant ride along NM-95 with a few short hills and not a lot of vehicular traffic.

Founded in 1983, Tierra Wools evolved from the wool committee of a grassroots, non-profit organization created to empower “rural people to create sustainable economies by building on cultural and agricultural resources” (taken from the Ganados del Valle mission statement). The wool is graciously provided by sheep raised in the traditional manner, pastured in the high mountain meadows surrounding Los Ojos. The flocks are comprised of Rambouillet and Navajo-Churro breeds, the latter being a threatened breed whose population was bolstered by a breeding program established by the Ganados del Valle and Dr. Lyle McNeal from Utah State University in the 1980s and 1990s. As a result, the Navajo-Churro flock now thrives around Los Ojos, providing a steady supply of wool for the weavers of Tierra Wools.

These Churro sheep were a mainstay of Spanish ranches and villages through the Rio Grande Valley in the 17th century, having been acquired by Native Americans for food and fiber which spurred herding and weaving as a major economic asset for the Navajo. Early Rio Grande, Pueblo, and Navajo textiles made from Churro wool are highly prized by collectors for their luster, silkiness, durability, and natural color. By the 1850s, thousands of Churro were trailed west to supply the California Gold Rush and in 1863 the US Army destroyed Navajo flocks in an act of retribution, further endangering the now sparse Churro population. True surviving Churro were found only in isolated northern New Mexico villages and in remote canyons of the Navajo Indian Reservation. By the 1970s, preservation efforts began to save the Navajo-Churro, leading into the breeding program mentioned earlier.

Starting with raw, freshly shorn wool from these two breeds, Tierra Wools follows the entire process from fleece to finished product. Wool skirters clean the raw fleece, removing unusable bits and environmental debris, before the hand-cleaned wool is then scoured – a wash, rinse, and spin process. After scouring and a final air dry, the washed wool is carded (a process that straightens and separates the fibers) and then spun into yarn. This fresh yarn, still the same color as it came from the sheep, is then hand-dyed in large pots heated by piñon wood fires. The fires are built early in the morning as the dye pots are filled with clean water and then brought to a boil. Dyes are added to each pot, then the un-dyed yarn, which has been soaked in cold water overnight, is distributed among the various pots. The pots boil until all the dye is absorbed into the yarn, leaving the water clear and colorless once again. After cooling and a cold water rinse to set the colors, the dyed yarns are hung in rows of skeins and left to dry completely in the sun’s rays.

In addition to producing spectacular yarns (a statement I never really thought I’d write), Tierra Wools also hosts handweaving workshops, houses a workroom with looms and spinning wheels (although I’m not sure how you get access to use them, but people were definitely weaving when we visited), and provides displays for local artisans to sell their handmade blankets, rugs, and other yarn-crafted goods.

Tierra Wools proudly maintains a long tradition of shepherding and wool production done in a time-honored, labor-intensive manner. The people behind the business are choosing to do things the “hard” way, rather than quickly producing inferior goods in large volume with little care for the finished product. I can’t pretend to know much about yarn, but I think Ashley could have spent the entire day examining all the various weights and colorways of yarn available, maybe even convincing someone to let her test-knit a few choices before deciding what to buy. She eventually settled on a richly-dyed deep orange and golden yellow skein, adding it to her growing stash of yarn earmarked to one day become her “traveling sweater” made from yarn acquired during this meandering RV journey.

Los Ojos is scattered with historic buildings, some well-maintained, and others slowly succumbing to the relentless ravages of time. The general store now sits vacant and has likely seen better days. Numerous smaller structures are boarded up and abandoned. Mixed among these buildings and located across the street from Tierra Wools, Robert Archuleta quietly fills his days creating rubber floor mats, truck bed liners, and painted flower pots from reclaimed discarded tires in his shop Otra Vuelta Tire Recycling. We entered his tiny storefront for a look around and he quickly engaged us in friendly conversation, greeting us and asking where we were from. After learning that Florida is technically our home base, he quickly replied, “That’s a long bike ride!” I guess the sight of two strangers riding bikes into Los Ojos isn’t hard to miss.

Like Tierra Wools, Mr. Archuleta is also deliberately making a product by hand with focused intent, painstakingly giving new life to old tires one item at a time. He claims he’ll retire when he runs out of tires, but the mountain of discarded rubber beside his shop doesn’t look like it’ll disappear any time soon. His products are available through mail order, over the phone, and directly from the man himself in his tiny shop.

If you happen to be in northern New Mexico, squeeze a little time into your travel schedule for an hour in Los Ojos. Unless something opened since our visit, you won’t find a fancy brewery, shiny restaurant, or bustling downtown square. Instead you’ll witness a first-hand return to tradition featuring proudly handmade goods and a rich sense of history. Whether you’re staying at Heron Lake State Park, or at the lodging offered by Tierra Wools, take the time to slow down and simply enjoy where you are. Chat with a local turning tires into flower pots, watch people creating blankets from locally produced wool, maybe even visit a nearby sheep pasture to see the wool in its natural habitat. One thing’s for certain – there’s no need to rush anything in Los Ojos so you might as well relax, cast off your daily distractions, and let the world unwind around you.

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SOURCES

https://www.handweavers.com/our-story-1/

I used the Tierra Wools website for most of the history of the native breeds of sheep as well as the yarn making process.  Check out the link for more detailed information.