The Osier Narrow-Gauge Blues

May 27

One more morning in Chama, a town now visibly stirring into life. There were new places to eat breakfast, because restaurants were reopening after their 7-month hibernation. I tried the smothered breakfast burrito at the Boxcar Cafe -- good, but no match for the coffee shop in Jemez Springs. I think I'm becoming a connoisseur of such things.

I squared everything away in my pack, tucking the packraft and paddles down into the furthest recesses, and crossed the street from The Hotel to the train station.

Money for sale. Huh. 

The station was a bustling hub. A crowd munched free donuts and observed blessings for the train both Catholic and Native American. Thereupon followed a rendition of the national anthem that was heartfelt but atonal to the point of being artistically relevant as a modern composition. For once, Ramon was nowhere in sight.

I chilled out by a CDT Coalition booth staffed by a young woman named Cloud, their Gateway Community... Outreach Coordinator? Something like that. She confided to me that she was actually looking forward to an event in Rawlings, Wyoming, later that summer.

"They draw all these squares on a field and then put a cow out there. If the cow shits on your square, you win," she explained. I could see how that would be exciting, I agreed.

 

The call came to board, and I swung up into my car with my pack. It was, and I know what a little boy this makes me seem, so cool. Brass luggage racks, wooden floors, the iron railings on the walkways between cars -- the evidence of craftsmanship and work was everywhere on that thing. We started moving and I went back to the open-air gondola car, waving to the people parked along roadsides to snap pictures or just gawk. There were a lot of those people!

The valley spilled out to our right as we climbed, spewing great gouts of coal ash and smoke. We passed Cumbres Pass, then rolled down to the valley of the Rio Pino. It was wide, deep and fast.

 

This was a matter of more than intellectual concern to me, as I had to cross that river when I got to Osier, my stop. As such, the rest of the ride was -- for me -- a pretty anxious affair, lots of peering into the canyon and asking myself if I felt lucky. I'd need luck to ford that river, the luck of a great wide shallow ford, or a downed tree, or a long stretch of water flat enough to use the packraft.

At Osier, an old train stop that's now just a cafeteria in the middle of the wilderness, we were served meatloaf with instant gravy and powdered mashed potatoes. It wasn't great, but it beat a lot of airplane meals I've had, and there was coffee. I tanked up, looked for someone to say goodbye to,and  was met with the disinterested stares of about 100 fellow passengers idly wondering where exactly I thought I was going with that backpack. I trudged away from the dining hall down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill, I was confronted by the Pino -- just as fast, deep and rough as I could have feared. A mere twenty feet on the other side lay my access trail, and just six miles up it, the Loop itself. But I wasn't going to be able to get across those twenty feet. I glanced up at an ATV rider on a bluff above the river. He slowly shook his head no, and I followed suit. This time, the preferred route would not go.That put me back on the railroad tracks to Cumbres Pass, and then up the same road I'd hiked down. So much for shortcuts. It wasn't crazy far -- like ten miles -- but it was already into the afternoon. And I'd be hiking it this time, not riding it. 

 

Well, if it needs doing, then one must do it, I thought, and started walking back along the train tracks. I wasn't sure that my spontaneous rail-to-trail conversion was exactly legal, so I tried to keep just off the tracks proper. That, plus I didn't want to get smushed by a charming mechanical anachronism. I had to step well off the tracks twice to let trains pass, in fact. The passengers treated me pretty much like any other megafauna -- they pointed me out to their spouses and took pictures.

Couple hours later, I finally crossed the Pino on a low railroad trestle on a large meadow. From there I hoofed it cross-country back to the road and then hustled back to my trailhead. It was then back up through Apache Canyon and onto the ridge on Forest Service Road 87, topping out as the sun set. It got very cold, as evenings at 10,000 feet usually do, and I found a little stand of pines to set my tarp up in. I hadn't even quite made it back to the Loop, I thought. Nothing to be done for it, I reflected, except get a good night's sleep.