Bosque Trail Morning Walk – 05/28/2018

A late post of a “hike”, typical of our -walks- in the neighborhood, in the Bosque along the Rio Grande. 

The Walk

Bosque Trail Hike.Pat.2018-05-28

On this route, we go through Albuquerque’s Country Club (or Huning Castle) neighborhood, then along the Bosque Bicycle Trail and into the Rio Grand Bosque itself, then back into the the northern end of the South Valley neighborhood, then north on 8th street, past the Albuquerque Zoo (and ballfields), and back home again.

Highlight

The Bosque, Spanish for woodlands, line the Rio Grande river. It is a forest of mainly cottonwood trees, with some elm and other types of trees. Most of the year, the river runs low (as in the photo above), very shallow and revealing sandbars. Then the Bosque is dry; after a winter with lots of snow in the mountains of northern New Mexico, enough water is released from the upstream dams to flood parts of the Bosque.  On the trail, in some sections we wend our way through thick growth of willows. In other sections we walk among huge, wonderfully sculptural cottonwoods – whether alive or even dead. It is really a treat to have such a wild area so close to home.

Statistics

Total Distance:  3.08 miles
Elevation: start  4,951 ft, maximum  4,960 ft,  minimum  4,943 ft
Gross gain:  17 ft.  Aggregate ascending  96 ft, descending  96 ft
Maximum slope: 8% ascending, 12% descending, 0.7% average
Duration: 1:47

I urge you to explore our hiking tracks with Google Earth. With the virtual 3-dimensional presentation, achieved by panning and tilting the view, you can get a much better idea of the hikes and terrain than you can get from the 2-dimensional screenshot above. For assistance: Using Google Earth Track Files.