Tome Hill

Tome Hill is a volcanic hill which rises almost 400+ feet above the Rio Grande Valley in Valencia County about 7 miles from my home. As a natural sentinel point it has a long history as a religiously significant landmark.


Located on the Camino Real or "Royal Road", Tome Hill was a way marker and at one time was supposedly the south border of Isleta Pueblo. There are a couple of interpretive signs near the south end of the hill next to a sculpture depicting early visitors to the site.


We accessed the hill from the south parking lot which is far more steep and shorter than the trail head at the west.


Supposedly nine anthropological sites have been discovered and cataloged by the University of New Mexico on Tome Hill and over 1,800 petroglyphs. However, hiking with my little hiking buddy kept us focused on the steep trails and leaving glyphs to find on another occasion.


My little hiking buddy with an image...


An image of perhaps corn or an ancient utility pole?


Interlocking circles (I was quite impressed with the uniform shape of the circles)


They say one can see almost 50 miles up and down the valley. The view in the above picture is looking north. In person you can see the skyline of Albuquerque nearly 30 miles to the due North.


Throughout the year (and particularly on Good Friday) many people ascend and make the pilgrimage to the three crosses. (For more information on the pilgrimage click here).


Me and my hiking buddy.


I find it amazing that four-year-old's can find such joy making a gun from a stick and shooting at cows miles away.

It took me and my four-year-old hiking buddy about two hours to hike to the top, scramble on some boulders, pretend to shoot cows with sticks and make it down again. It's great to have a short hike with such an amazing view in our "back yard".

******January 2010 Update*****
Got to spend an afternoon exploring more of the hill and found some wonderful petroglyphs. Enjoy the slide show.

Running in Los Lunas

Since living in Los Lunas, I've had the pleasure of running about three times a week with a great friend.

Almost down to a routine, I'm up at 6:15am, get dressed and drive across our small town to meet my friend at 6:30am.



In the beginning, our run is quite and cold as we take off in the dark and run south along a dirt road running parallel to a small canal.

Soon shapes emerge from the shadows and life begins to awake. The sounds of roosters and barking dogs begin to greet us but usually they are ignored as we are lost in conversation.



We reach the halfway point at a dairy where the cows are aloof and not willing to engage in humoring our pontifications and conversation. This particular morning the only interest in me is from a curious bovine with one horn who is ready for her close-up.



Heading north we can gauge whether we are ahead of schedule or behind as the Rail Runner morning train passes us on our left just as we reach the municipal building.



The fall colors "pop" as the sun as the sun greets the earth but it will be another couple of hours before the dew evaporates from the fields. By now I'm ready to stop from exhaustion- admittedly, it's hard to keep pace with my long legged running partner. Another half a mile and we end up in the driveway where we began.



It will be another 10 or 15 minutes before I head back home, usually the conversations last longer than the actual run. These are mornings to be remembered.

What a beautiful way to welcome a new day.

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…