Where the Trout Hide

   We needed to go out toward Iron Gate, the far end of the road that follows the Pecos River from the town of the same name up into the mountains where the big rounded peaks rise above the deeply cleft lands of the Pecos Wilderness. We followed the old New Mexico highway 63 through Tres Lagunas and Terrero and on toward Cowles, a place made famous by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Nobody seemed to be on the road, it was silent and bathed in still winter sunlight. We were headed for high country, the cold alone. Would we make it? How far could we get?

   Driving along the Pecos River in the lower end of the valley, ice edged the river with transparent knives over the water. Farther up where the canyon walls leaned in and cooled the river with winter shade, the river was solid ice from one bank to the other, cold water spilling over here and there, the shine of glass where in summer riffles smear water close to the round rocks and people wade for the trout.

   Nobody wading today. Just the cold gurgle of water leaving the high country in beauty.

   On we went, hoping to drive up the Iron Gate Road that climbs above the river along the north west facing slope.  Getting to the intersection of Forest Road 223 and the Cowles Road, I cautiously started the climb in my old truck. And I stopped.

   The road climbs through Douglas fir forest and here the shadow of the woods and the shade of the slope deny the winter sun any access to the surface of the road. The road had been plowed at some point and instead of the gray dirt road I’m used to, the road was a sheet of clear and white ice, inches thick. It gleamed polished like a zamboni had come by to make way for the ice skaters.

   I stopped my truck and carefully got out. I had to cling to the car. Ice skates would indeed have helped. Going up the hill in the truck may have been remotely possible but coming down would have meant being out of control on a steep ice slope with a steeper forested slope off the side of the narrow road. Control would have been impossible.

   My two companions though we should forge ahead. I said no. Absolutely no. I backed slowly down the ice to the safety of the bare pavement. I could imagine myself up there coming down the hill in the cold evening the ice now firm and cold and slick and my truck losing its grip and sliding to the edge of the road and over the side we would go, banging down until we would slam into a tree, the truck ruined, maybe we would get hurt and then we would be miles from help and the temperature well below freezing and the cell phone doesn’t work up there at all.

   So I refused and drove out again into the sunny relatively low lands where the river thawed again mostly and the big open southlands waited for its water.

    Home again. Time for beer. How about Marble Desert Fog , a fine Hazy, New England Style IPA from the heart of old Albuquerque. Now that is a good beer and if you drink most of the six pack you will be fine. Good clean beer that doesn’t lead to a headache like some of the newer Albuquerque micros seem to do.

   I’ll get up to Grass Mountain later in the winter on foot and later in the spring in my old truck. Let the elk and the deer and the ravens have some peace, protected by a very icy road.