It's time for another visit to Los Alamos, New Mexico. While most famous as the birthplace of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos is also a hiking paradise, with hundreds of trails near town. This is Deer Trap Mesa Trail, which starts from a trailhead at the edge of town. At the start, signs talk about homesteading in the area. Then you head down a steep, narrow stairway cut into the stone. The stairway is hundreds of years old.
At the bottom of the stairway is the deer trap (bottom of picture). It's a
shallow pit designed to trap game driven from Barrancas Canyon. It's not deep now,
but perhaps it would be deeper with the debris cleared out.
From there the trail flattens out. There is very little shade, and hiking on top of the mesa would not be pleasant in heavy wind. This would be a great trail for sunny fall afternoons or mild spring days. While most of the trail is pretty flat, the beginning is steep and a bit tricky. The views are great the entire time. I don't know this officially, but we're guessing the early people of the region lived in some of the mini caves in the next mesa (the dark spots dotting the cliff wall).
Officially the trail is three miles, but my GPS tracked us
at about four miles. If you want to stick to three miles, be sure to carefully
read the trail instructions. Otherwise there are several side trails and
viewpoints.
Info
on Deer Trap Mesa Trails, including a map, from the city of Los Alamos.
More on
the trail from The Los Alamos Nature Center.
A more detailed
map.
Kris Bock writes novels of suspense and romance
with outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Whispers in the
Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest
ruins. What We Found is a mystery with strong romantic
elements about a young woman who finds a murder victim in the woods. In Counterfeits,
stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town.
The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico
desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives compete to
reach a buried treasure by following a series of complex clues. In The
Skeleton Canyon Treasure, sparks fly when reader favorites Camie and Tiger
help a mysterious man track down his missing uncle.
Read excerpts
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