25 Years on the Osha Trail

View from the first bench on the Osha Trail

As Dr. K, Becca and I began our hike on the Osha Trail outside of Cloudcroft, New Mexico this morning we wondered about how many times we'd done this trail (at least Dr. K and I wondered about it).  She reminded me that we first started trekking here in 1990 when we moved to El Paso from Tucson.  So we've been hiking the Osha Trail (all of it over 9,000 feet) for 25 years--and we've never grown tired of it.  Today we ran into only one other hiker, a young German woman whose Chocolate Lab wanted to play with Becca.  The dogs had a brief romp before we all went our separate ways.

Old railroad trestle over Mexican Canyon

The highway down to Alamogordo

Steady ascent for the first mile

Above 9,000 feet there are remnants of a recent snowstorm

Scouting the mountain for other critters

Shades of winter in the high country

Heading for a meadow along a snowy trail

Among the tall pines an awesome sky