East Fork Trail between Los Alamos and Jemez Springs is pretty popular in certain sections so we picked midweek to have more solitude. Even then, we passed a handful of hikers. I can’t imagine how busy it gets on a weekend! We rode this trail pretty much as an out and back making it 17.7 miles with 2040’ of climbing.
Most mountain bikers do this ride as a shuttle but we rode it as an out and back. Starting from the Las Conchas Trailhead earlish in the morning we had this glorious scenery to ourselves. It was chilly as we pedaled into the canyon along the Jemez River. Jemez River flows through the rocky canyon in a deep conifer forest and then crosses several meadows before entering the forest again. Several bridges span the river and made for some fun photos. At the end we turned left and headed up some very steep switchbacks to hook into the East Fork Trail.
The East Fork Trail changed character and climate zones as we headed “down” towards Jemez Springs. I put down in quotes because there is still a lot of climbing to get to the other end. Some parts of this trail are fast and flowy, some parts are jumbled rocky boulder sections that are slow going. Further down the trail we crossed over a campground and then the trail got steep, loose, technical, and rocky.
Before long we reached McCauley Warm Springs. Neither of us are hot springs people so we took some pics, admired the beauty of the area, and kept going. After descending a couple more miles, we decided to turn around and head back up. The ride back was pretty tough in spots but again, the beauty of the canyon and forest gave us plenty of distractions.
Derek made spicy Nashville chicken for dinner and it’s always sooo good! I definitely ate more than I needed but that’s ok, we’ve had some high calorie burning days. Tomorrow is a day off the bike.
Leave a Reply