Hiking the Dog Canyon Trail at Oliver Lee State Park, NM

It’s 2.9 miles to Frenchy’s cabin via the Dog Canyon Trail … and 1,500 feet up (Frenchy used the trail to move his cattle between his summer and winter grazing fields). Lisa mentioned the elevation change when we were starting, but it took a while to compute. Not until we started to make our way back down did I realize we had basically just climbed the staircase of the Sears Tower (1,451 feet) … but it was covered in loose gravel and uneven footing and bordered fairly consistently by a sheer drop into the canyon below, with the only vegetation available to stop your fall both prickly and infrequent. It’s an awesome trail.

It’s still weird to be in this environment. It reminds me of the Desert Dome in Milwaukee and seems a little fabricated because it’s so foreign.

Lisa snapped a bunch of great pictures: