North Hills is plastered with them. They’re on the sidewalks. They’re in the parks. They’re even in your front yard! And that’s not the dangerous part about this herd of 8 or 9 cows.
“When you’re driving along the road and they just come popping out of the arroyo or something, it’s bad,” said North Hills homeowner Edward Kisner. “There’s cars going both ways. One will swerve into the other one’s lane. I’ve had close calls where I’ve almost made ground beef!”
We found the cattle shading themselves beneath a scrawny-looking juniper tree on the open range right next to the subdivision. Open range means the owner of the cattle doesn’t have to fence them in, It’s up to other property owners to fence them out – and North Hills is not exactly a walled fortress.
While the Arizona Department of Transportation is still trying to determine what exactly happened to cause the ground to shift beneath US 89 Wednesday morning (Feb. 20) the agency continues to assess the significant damage to the highway. Geotechnical engineers are currently evaluating the stability of the mountain slope, approximately 25 miles south of Page.
“This area encompasses close to 500 feet of damaged pavement, but we had the opportunity in the plane to circle the area twice and it looks like the settlement could be a lot larger,” said Robert Samour, ADOT senior deputy state engineer of operations. “The area over the guardrail drops off a couple hundred feet; we saw some cracking in the soil down the slope, so I would say that this is probably a 500- to 700-foot section that we’re going to have to take a good look at for settlement.”
US 89 will remain closed for an extended period of time. There is no timetable to reopen the highway, which has over 150 feet of pavement that buckled approximately four to six feet.
Limestone formations along a hiking trail in the Ojito
The Ojito Wilderness is about 11,000 acres of Sandoval county, New Mexico that was designated wilderness by congress in 2005 throught the 1964 Wildness Act. It is located west of Rio Rancho, New Mexico and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
The glow from Albuquerque can bee seen east of the Ojito. The Sandia’s can bee seen to the left of the short mesa and right of the tall light tower. The small red lights are from the radio towers on top of the Sandias.
People have been going to the Ojito for years before it was protected as a wilderness, it’s not one of the better known outdoor areas near the Albuquerque. The Ojito is a combination of desert; sand, cactus and scrub but also contains some pine trees and grasses. It’s sort of a transition area between the deserts in Albquerque and the forests of the Jemez. What makes the Ojito special is the number of impressive rock formations. There are a number of hoodoos formed by water millions of years ago, badlands and buffs.
Ojito HoodoosOjito Badlands
I have had two trips to the Ojito, once in April of 2011 and this last time in June of 2012 and it will probably be a annual trip for me. Spring or Fall are good times to spend overnight in the Ojito, June is not. It’s hot, most plants have stopped flowering and there was a large number of nats and other flying insects. One of the reasons I like living in the desert is the lack of flying bugs so I was surprised at how many there was. There is no water, lakes or streams and people must bring it with them. As this is official Wilderness land no wheeled vehicles are allowed. Including bicycles. This probably keeps people away but backpacking a short distance in is well worth experience.
Firepit with hoodoos and a pine tree in the background
The area I camped included a group of hoodoos with a large area of sand and trees farther out. In the middle of the sand area there is a fire pit. Believe it or not while the rest of the state was under fire restrictions the Ojito was not. I verified with the BLM and was specifically told that the Ojito was not included with the rest of the state. Part of the reason might be because there is so little to burn. There are some pine trees spotted around the area the vegetation is pretty spares and well adapted to not getting water.
Trying to find out the fire restrictions in the Ojito was difficult. The official BLM webpage for the Ojito doesn’t tell a whole lot about restrictions in federal lands, as they are often different from the state lands. NM Fire Info lists state land fire restrictions and Public Lands Information Center lists federal fire restrictions.
FInally, New Mexico First District Representative Martin Heinrich created the Ojito.org website.
“Thank you for visiting the Ojito website. I hope you find the information here useful as you learn about and explore this unique and beautiful place. As someone who dedicated several years of my life to the creation the Ojito Wilderness, I also hope you will leave the area just as you found it. If we are all good stewards of this wild landscape, generations to come will continue to enjoy Ojito’s opportunities for hiking, hunting, photography and outdoor adventure. Enjoy. This is where the West is still wild.”
“They’re either being brought by the citizens, who are dumping them in Rio Rancho, or they’re wandering in, and that’s just a burden in Rio Rancho,” he said.
Sandoval County leaders said the only animal control officer was transferred after he was involved in a criminal incident that was still under investigation.
Sheriff’s deputies were expected to continue to respond to certain animal control calls. Because they cannot transport animals, county leaders asked residents to take stray animals to local shelters to help with the problem.
In New Mexico and Arizona we are waiting anxiously for some rain. Arizona’s July 5th wall of dust known as a haboob seems to have marked the beginning of the Monsoon. These walls of dust moving into the Phoenix area are not new, I remember them nearly every year when I was growing up. This year it was a particularly large one.
New Mexico State Forestry says exhaust particles from an ATV in the area is what most likely caused the dry brush to catch fire.
According to findings from investigators, the ATV driver or drivers trespassed onto private property then headed onto land owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.
The view of the Sandia Mountains from my front window the last few days has been obscured by smoke from the Wallow fire near the New Mexico border in Alpine, Arizona. This fire is affecting the Albuquerque area by creating a cloud of smoke which besides the smell has caused some ash to fall from the sky.
Normally I have a clear view of the Sandias except when we have a storm.
It’s bad enough that the last two nights I have had to turn off the cooler because it was filling the house with the smell of forest fire.
This is going to be a bad year for fires unless we get some rain, which the Albuquerque area hasn’t received a significant rain storm since early this year.
Update 06/07/2011: The trend for the last few days is the smoke goes away during the day and settles back in during the evening. It feels like a nuclear winter. Here are a few pictures I took from the office building last night, note the red dot which is the sun.
While the smoke here in Rio Rancho and Albuquerque is bad, it’s not nearly as bad as for those who actually live where the fire is. The local paper The White Mountain Independent has information about all of the evacuations in the area.
A Rio Rancho man said he’s lucky to be alive after his car crashed into a cow that walked into a busy street.
Action 7 News has detailed the cow crossing problems in Sandoval County for years, but reports of cow incidents have spiked in recent weeks.
Last Friday, Action 7 News reported on several cows that’d been getting through a cut fence line near King Boulevard in Rio Rancho. That cut fence line is just down the road from where Gill’s accident occurred.
Hard to believe that there’s enough out in the desert of Rio Rancho for cows to eat, but there are many of them out here, epecially near this area which is which is supposed to be downtown.
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