Caballo_Guaje_River_Mitchell

by MD MD
3 years ago
Near Los Alamos, US

16 views

Two day overnight trip from the ski-hill up/down Caballo, along Guaje River, and then up and back to town on the Mitchell Trail. Could easily be done with just one night out, or even as a long day-hike, but I enjoyed the time outside. A lot of the area is still recovering from fire. Pretty in the autumn though, as the leaves are changing colour.

The zigzags on the Mitchell Trail are the worst and most non-sensical I've seen anywhere. Making a trail that is 3x longer than necessary does not help the environment. It means 3x more area is changed from the natural environment into a trail. Add to that an increased temptation for everyone to cut corners when, like many of the newer trails around Los Alamos, you spend most of the time walking in the wrong direction to where you want to go. The same mentality has turned the area in Acid Canyon into a mess of multiple intermingled trails that appear to go everywhere. The area has gone from pretty and covered in vegetation to completely washed out and damaged over the last 20 years- directly as a result of such "management" practices.