Manzano Mountain Wilderness - Outdoor

Manzano Mountain Wilderness. Photo by Tisha Broska.

photo from: http://www.nmwild.org/wilderness/manzano

Despite its proximity to the population centers of Albuquerque and the Rio Grande Valley, the Manzano Mountain Wilderness retains its wild and remote character. Ask people if they've hiked in the manzano mountains, and many will say yes. They've been to Fourth of July Canyon in the fall to see the foliage display, or perhaps they've been to John F. Kennedy Campground and hiked a portion of the Trigo Canyon Trail. But ask about Comanche Canyon, Manzano Peak, Pine Shadow Spring, or the Jacquez Trail- no, never been there, never even heard of it. The Manzano Mountains are the mountains everyone knows about and few people really know.

Much of that can be blamed on the Manzano Mountains' sister range to the north, the Sandia Mountains situated on the outskirts of Albuquerque. The Sandias are easily accessible from all directions, with a paved road to the summit, a ski area, an aerial tram, and abundant trails for hiking, mountain biking, and cross- country skiing. The Sandias readily absorb most of the outdoor recreationists in the Albuquerque area. The Manzanos, on the other hand, are difficult to get to know. For one thing, the entire northern part of the range is closed completely to the public because the land belongs to Isleta Pueblo or has been withdrawn by the U.S. Department of Defense for Kirtland Air Force Base. That leaves only the more remote, southern section open for public exploration. Even there, only one trailhead, at John F. Kennedy Campground, allows access to the dramatic western escarpment, and to get there you have to endure along, traffic-congested drive from Albuquerque to Belen followed by a 19-mile drive over a sometimes-rough dirt road. Of the four trails accessed from the trailhead, only one, the Trigo Canyon Trail, is well-known to hikers. The others- Comanche Canyon Trail, Salas Trail, and Jacquez Trail-are long and difficult. On the east side, access is somewhat better, but even the closest wilderness trails involve a long drive from Albuquerque.

Furthermore, the Manzanos are more forbidding than the Sandias, bigger and wilder-40 miles long as opposed to the Sandias' 28 (with fewer roads and far fewer trails). Treasure hunters believe the mountains still guard the secret of a silver mine worked by early Spaniards and concealed by Indians following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Mountain lions and desert bighorn sheep find refuge in the mountains.

The inhabitants of Isleta Pueblo believe they originally lived at the mountains' base, to the east of their present pueblo on the Rio Grande. Spaniards in the 1600s found several inhabited Piro and Tiwa pueblos in the Manzanos' foothills; at these pueblos the Spaniards established missions whose ruins survive at the Abo and Quarai units of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Famine and persistent raids by nomadic Indians forced the missions and pueblos to be abandoned, even before the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Following the reconquest in 1692, Hispanic villagers reoccupied many of the sites, and other rural Hispanic villages, which sprang up as land grants, were given to settlers who had the tenacity to occupy the harsh, dangerous Manzanos. These villages survive today in the mountains' eastern foothills, where their inhabitants pursue traditional uses of the land such as fuelwood gathering and hunting. Indeed, it was one of these villages, Manzano, that gave the mountains their name. Tradition says the village took its Spanish name from apples (manzanas) grown in ancient orchards here, and the name spread to the nearby range.
In the 1970s, members of the NM Wilderness Study Committee became involved in the Forest Service's Manzano Land Use Plan, with people such as Tom Green and Phil Tollefsrud checking boundaries and verifying wilderness conditions. The Wilderness Study Committee recommended setting aside 37,000 acres as wilderness (the present total is 36,970 acres). Although this proposal was included in the Endangered American Wilderness Act, introduced in 1976 into the 94th Congress, final enactment was delayed until the 95th Congress of 1978.

Today, the wildlands of the Manzano Mountain Wilderness exist as they have for centuries. Logging that once fed sawmills such as that in Kayser Mill Canyon ceased even before wilderness designation, and if you believe the legends, mining ceased in the 1600s. Local people still gather firewood and hunt deer and elk, but recreational development has remained minimal. The Manzano Mountain Wilderness requires determination to explore, but people willing to make that commitment will find true wilderness.

New Mexico Wilderness Alliance
202 Central SE Suite 101
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Phone 505-843-8696
Fax 505-843-8697

Distance from the hotel: 54.94 miles - 1 hour