Columbine Canyon to the Meadows

On Wed Jul 26 00:06:13 2006 D. Lee from Amarillo, Texas said:
Just got down from our annual hike up Columbine Canyon. Took us 3 hours this time. The refreshing rain turned us back, and we were soaked by the time we got back to the van. Each year for the past 24 years we have hiked Columbine and we push ourselfs up further each year. Most hikes, we'd carried our children, and coulden't make it so far. Now, we take turns with our gear and packs. Our kids are now 15 (Twins) and a 7 year old. We will be back on Labor day 2006 to make the entire hike. We hope to teach them to make the yearly trip long after either we're too old to make it or onto our own greener paster.

It is a beautiful hike and the medows were full of wild flowers (mostly yellow) and have some great group photos to preserve our hike.

Thanks for your site to help answer some of the questions we had drying off on our way back to Angle Fire.

Dlee On Fri Jun 25 02:13:37 2010 Amarillo Family from Amarillo, TX said:
June 24, 2010: Our family of four and our jack russel, have been making the trip up to Columbine to hike the trail it offers for the last few years. We just got back from taking the hike and it was beautiful. We hiked to the sign that said to either go left to Gold Hill or go straight to Lobo Peak. We chose to go to Gold Hill. We started the hike in the middle of the day. My husband and I are 47 years old and in decent shape. The hike was easy until we made the turn to go to Gold Hill. After about 30 minutes, the trail turned into a much steeper climb with switchbacks. The hike was wonderful even though we "flat landers" were out of breath at times. My pedomiter said we had hiked about 3.8 miles (4 switchbacks up/beautiful view of the mountains) when we came across some of the park trail workers. They told us that we were only about half way to the top. We had been hiking for about 3 hours and thought we had better take a short rest then head back down before it got dark. Our dog was getting worn out and we had to carry her most of the way down.... her feet hurt from the sharp rocks. We saw some poison oak and poison ivy but managed to keep out of it. We were a little disappointed that we didn't make it all the way to the top, but are determined to start our Trek earlier in the day next time, and take more water, as well as a flashlight! We saw many of the plants you have posted on your sight. Thank you for labeling them and for posting great pictures.

We will visit this website again before we go to brush up on our plant names. Thanks again!

On Tue Jul 27 14:27:34 2010 Jon from Norman, OK said:
We're in Taos for a few days on vacation and your trail descriptions were invaluable for finding good hikes nearby. We went on the Columbine Canyon trail this morning and had a great time. Thanks!

On Fri Apr 8 03:29:36 2011 Michael Love from Pampa Texas said:
I used to live just across the highway from columbine in 1976 to 1978. There was a park there at that time called Cottonwood Park. It was owned by a couple named Cliff and Betty Hitchcock.there was a store and a stables,a small motel ,some fireplace cabins and rv hookups in the back.I and my cousin ran away from home and ended up there where Cliff and Bety took us in and put us to work. Cliff was a volenteer new mexico mounted patrolman and he contacted our folks and let them know he had us and he was going to make men out of us if they would let him.Those were the best couple years of my life.Cliff put us in a nice little 2br trailer said he would pay us $500 a month,He gave us a jeep cj7 to drive and all the gas we could burn, we thought we were in hog heaven .I ran the stables and took hundreds of folks up that trail. we had several diff rides to choose but my fav was if there was a group of 10 or more we went all the way up the backside of gold hill to goose lake. There is an old ranger cabin we used to stop at above timberline ( dont know if its still there).The trail was full of switchbacks ,cliffs and sceanery that can't be described.I was 16 years old when I had to leave,Cliff had to sell the park.I'm 50 yrs old now and have been all over

the world,I am also retired.My wife and some friends took a motorcycle trip up there last fall and the park is gone.They said molymines bought it .I did find on a tree by the river a sign that Cliff painted long ago that said (Fishing for Guests Only).We couldnt believe it was still there!It hangs in my den now. If anyone reads this that remembers the park and time or vacationed there during those yrs , drop me a line at luckyluv_40@yahoo.com mabey you remember me if you rode the horses. To this day I think about that place nearly everyday. Tks for reading,Mike Love.

ses

Date:	2004-07-15
Time it took us:	4:22. Expect to spend 2-5 hours on this hike.
Usage (people/hour):	7.79. Some of the people were with llamas.
Cleanliness:	9.

Waypoint	Type	Description
CLMBNTWNTH	Trailhead	Columbine Canyon trailhead

Map name	Cartographer	Year	Scale	Topo map?	Online access	Notes
Carson National Forest	US Forest Service	2002	1:126720	N	From the National Forest Store (purchase)	Camino Real and Questa ranger districts and Valle Vidal Unit side of the map
Guide to Indian Country of Arizona Colorado New Mexico Utah	Automobile Club of Southern California	1998	1:0	N	Arizona Strip Interpretive Association (purchase)	Good overview road map for northwest NM. No scale is given on the map. The corner coordinates are approximate.
Valle Vidal Unit, Carson National Forest	US Forest Service	1999	1:63360	Y	From the National Forest Store (purchase)
Wheeler Peak	BLM	2001	1:100000	Y	Public Lands Information Center (purchase)
Wildernesses of New Mexico	US Forest Service	1981	1:1000000	N	No online copies.	Base map with national forests, wilderness areas and highways.

	The trail starts along the Columbine Creek, where you may find sights like this one---An American Lady, Vanessa virginiensis, butterfly on a sunflower in the sun. Butterfly identification courtesy of Bruce Neville.
The trail is relatively flat, with a gentle climb. If you turn around, you will see a view similar to the one in this photo---The pine/fir forest, and the Molycorp mine tailings.
	The trail never strays far from Columbine Creek.
This trail was the first that we had hiked that had real bridges over the stream. You will cross four on this hike. Diana also liked that the bridges gave access further up the tree for looking at leaves, flowers, etc.
	This Sapello Canyon Larkspur was one of the many wildflowers along the trail.
Unfortunately, many of the aspen have been the victim of graffiti. Besides being unsightly for years, cutting the tree like this opens it to pests, especially when it is stressed in years of drought.
	This insect was checking out the geranium.
Because you are walking along a wet area, you will also see sights such as these butterflies drinking. They are after minerals.
	This cowparsnip has giant (for NM) leaves. They are up to 18in (46cm) across.
This monk's hood flower is aptly named. You can easily imagine this being part of a monk's robe.
	Talus slopes like these are good places to see animals such as pikas. unfortunately, we did not see any on this hike.
After hiking for about 1.6 miles, you reach this junction. It is a sign that you are almost at the meadows.
	If the conditions have been right, the meadows will be full of flowers.
If you have not already, turn around when you get to the second junction (the trail to Gold Hill). You have hiked about 2.1 miles so far. After this point, the trail gets much steeper. When we reached this point, it had begun to rain. Later in the day, it hailed and poured buckets of water. We were glad we had stopped hiking when we did. Unfortunately, since we put the camera away to avoid soaking it, we did miss some nice photos of the return scenery.
	Here, you can see the storm clouds that were to get us after we made it back to the trailhead. You can also see the Molycorp Questa mine tailings.