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Hiking in New Mexico

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We live surrounded by worlds we barely know.

This may be especially true in the desert West. That bare, stony, apparently nondescript land, waterless and often desperately overgrazed, that we glimpse as we pass on the freeway? It looks like  whole lot of nothing.

Stop the car. Lace up your boots, my friend.

Walks in the wilderness are the writer’s, the artist’s, the human being’s balm.

Take your map—it will tell you which lands are public—and walk out into the plains and mountains nobody knows about. You’ll have to crawl under a fence or two. Take plenty of water, and keep an eye out for snakes. Put a pencil and a couple of three-by-five cards in your pocket, because you’ll see things you’ll want to remember.

Go on foot, quietly.  Click here.
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