El Cerro de Los Lunas

I’ve wanted to climb and explore “El Cerro de Los Lunas” (or for you gringo’s like me- that big honking hill/mountain that looms outside of my neighborhood). So last week, my wife let me entertain my foolish ambition and let me wander on a mountain in the desert as long as I promised to be home by dinner.

Legend has it, or at least the kind folks at the Los Lunas Parks and Recreation informed me, that a local landowner donated over 1,500+ acres to the village as “a nature preserve” to be enjoyed by all those who wish to enjoy the rugged, desolate, steep, and rocky outcropping. (BTW-New Mexico likes to call cities “villages”- I guess hiking alone in the desert on a mountain makes me the village idiot?)

It probably took me about an hour to hike up crude trails and scramble up lava rock and dry beds to reach the summit; my “map” which was given to me by the Los Lunas Ranger upon request says the peak is 5,827 ft. Admittedly, I “meandered” quite a bit looking for petroglyphs and signs of ancient civilization, and spaceships. Although, I was bummed I didn’t get to see a spaceship I did see two C-130’s from Kirtland AFB fly overhead, which if you haven’t seen them they are huge!

On my descent, I stopped at the Los Lunas High School letters on the southeast side of the mountain and ran into a couple of high school kids ditching school. They were nice, just wanted to hide out for awhile… note to self, if you want to hide-out don’t pick a mountain face visible by the whole Rio Grande Valley…

After wandering for about two hours I found some really amazing petroglyphs which only increased my interest to take on the mountain again sometime soon…