Angel Fire Town Trails
Boondocking rules for the most part, state 14 day maximum in a forest and we usually stay all 14 days before moving on. Our trailer is equipped for us to have enough fresh water and gray/black water space to last the entire time so it works perfectly. For our last ride, we linked up some of the town trails for a good 19 mile loop with 2321’ of climbing.
The latest addition to the town trails is one called Cougar that was completed in 2019. We rode some of the other town trails in the opposite direction from another day to get out to Cougar. It is a beautifully built singletrack that switchbacks up the hill and has some fun berms and fast straightaways. We rode this out and back and had a lot of fun. It dead ends up in a neighborhood so I’m not sure how much use it gets yet.
Derek made an amazing red curry dish for dinner. I have always loved curry whether it’s red, green, or yellow. Yum! Tomorrow we’re sleeping in, having pancakes for breakfast, and moving on down to Taos. I just realized that we have spent the last 5 months above 7500’! Even our spot in Taos will be around 8500’.
Woodpile Loop, Taos
We’re all settled into our new boondocking spot above Taos and even did our first ride. Woodpile Loop was 22 miles with 3013′ of climbing. It’s up the highway from Taos on the way to Sipapu Ski Area, so deep in the forest.
From camp, we rode out some forest roads to get to Amole Trail. This area is the XC ski area in the winter but singletrack for us in the summer. We climbed up through the forest to Ojito Maes Trail and continued climbing on that. Ojitos Maes was super fun trail up and along the mountain. We pedaled through deep forest and then would pop out into meadow traverses with peekaboo views of the entire forest and surrounding mountains. I really liked the character of this trail and the remoteness. There wasn’t another soul in sight. Oh, and when you look at the pictures you’ll understand why it’s called Woodpile.
The ride is a route finding nightmare kind of. There aren’t signs for much, and the area is a maze of logging roads and offshoots. Several times we missed turns and had to backtrack but we eventually found our downhill route and bombed down to complete the loop. Even the GPS signal on our phones was spotty at best.
I finished reading Spies in the Family by Eva Dillon and really liked it! It’s a true story about the daughter of an American intelligence officer and his handling of the CIA’s highest ranking Russian double agent. It was a fast read and very entertaining.
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