Into the Wind, Up A Mountain

Saturday morning Leif and I hiked Tortugas Mountain, or as it is better known: “A Mountain” (the A stands for Aggie). We took a well-traveled trail that scaled the west side to the top where there are a few cell/radio towers and a small observatory.

The mountain itself is made up of entirely too sharp limestone that feels way to hard and sharp to actually be limestone. It sits on at the east edge of Las Cruces and is mostly undeveloped land. But the small mountain is no pristine wilderness. The aforementioned antennas sprout from the top and are accompanied by rows of temporary metal buildings. There look to be a number of abandoned strip mines down the south side. Finally, the typical New Mexico dessert bullet-pitted trash litters the lower slopes, bigger trails and summit.

So after Leif and I got to the top we downed a few beers to alleviate the onset of altitude sickness, tired muscles, hunger, dehydration, and immense wind burns from the grueling near vertical climb, we decided that it would be “Way hurting if we went down the same way we came up, dude.” And so naturally we abandoned the very vertical path on the west side for a much more vertical path less traveled on the north face.

Not long after we began our decent we ran in to a real life mountain Goat, three actually – one larger mommy goat and two smaller baby goats. The mom was wearing a red dog-type collar that took away from the majestic experience of spotting wild life in the wild. We starred at them from a distance while I cursed and swore to by a camera with my upcoming tax return. When they spotted us they darted up an outcropping and out of sight. It was neat, “Weeee, look at ‘em go!” By the way, a group of goats is called a tribe, a tribe of goats.

Before it was over we managed to spook a herd of Mule Dear. It was flat out amazing how well they camouflaged into their surroundings, if they weren’t moving or smiling their evil grins you couldn’t tell them apart from the rocks.

I’d like to add that the south face if freaking rough, like it was no joke, it was pretty stupid to have gone down that route off the trail. I cut and bruised a shin, and Leif got pinned with a slurry of cactus needles on a multitude of occasions and almost fell from a rock slide. It definitely wouldn’t have been cool to get seriously hurt up there. Seriously though where’s the adventure in worrying about getting hurt?