Christmas in Las Cruces NM! With all the presents and feasting over, my brother Dirk and I decided to go for a run. I have been planning an attempt of the Jornada del Muerto or the Journey of the Dead (Man) for quite a while and thought it would be a good time to give it a partial go. The
Jornada del Muerto is a desolate, waterless 90 mile section of the
El Camino Real in southern New Mexico.
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| On the Camino Real |
While at some point I would like to run the whole length, we only trail blazed the first 28 miles. Gearing up our Raidlight packs with some food and about a gallon of water each we started at the Ft. Seldon ruins.
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| Ready to roll |
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| Fort Seldon Ruins |
Jogging along the Rio Grand in the cool 28 degree weather was quite refreshing and little like what those traveling this road would have experienced centuries ago. After crossing under I-25 we swung north and started our cross country journey. While the trail is over 400 years old there are very few remnants of it remaining. One can see
portions of it on Google earth, these showing up as dark lines of vegetation across the desert. We dipped and dogged around the thorny mesquite bushes for almost 18 miles, stopping occasionally to alter our course to try and stay on what we perceived was the trail.
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| Heading North to Point of Rocks (just above Dirk's head) |
At around mile 11 we were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of four nice Oryx about 250 meters away. These African antelope were introduced into New Mexico in the 1970's as an exotic hunting species and have adapted well, no real predators like lions to worry about! They are very good to eat!
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| Wary Oryx (third one just visible on the right) |
Pushing on we eventually ran across the first human we had seen since the start. A polite Border Patrol agent which we had a two minute chat with. I think he thought we were crazy after explaining our plans. We continued on and since we were making some good time over open country, Point of the Rocks was finally getting closer
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| Looking Good - Feeling Good |
About at mile 20 the trail merged with existing county roads and the going got much easier. Our stopping point was to be the Point of the Rocks Trail Head and the last 7 or 8 miles was quite uneventful.
About 2 miles from the end my wife Lisa, my daughter Megan and Tawny the dog along with Dirk's daughter Claire met up with us. We jogged into the trail head and called it a fine run.
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| End of the trail - for now |
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| Me and the girls |
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| Tawny Dog overlooking the Jornada del Muerto (sandy swell in background) |
Next up will be the section from Point of Rocks to Engle...
