Running With The Dragons

This month I was supposed to go to Lake City, Colorado to run the San Juan Solstice 50 miler, but like most events, it was cancelled. This is the second year in a row the race was called off. Last year was because of flood risk due to melt from a heavy snowpack in the San Juan mountain range and of course this year was due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. 

Greater earless lizard

Mt Cristo Rey and W. El Paso, TX foreground
Juarez Mexico background

Normally I would be disappointed, but I’m so lucky to have travelled every year to run in many beautiful places all over the west including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, the Front Range in Colorado and the Sierras in California and Nevada. While I love going on epic running adventures, there is a lot of planning and logistics involved; not to mention stress. 

Here lately, I’ve actually enjoyed the travel break and have grown to more appreciate what I have close to home. The Franklin Mountains State Park in El Paso, TX is the largest urban wilderness park in the United States and the trails start at the edge of my neighborhood. I can drive 10 minutes to the trail head or simply run from my house to reach a single track trail at the base of S. Franklin Peak (6791’). 

Cholla cactus, Franklin Mts background

Turk's head cactus

While I enjoy the challenge of finishing an ultramarathon in the highest ranges in America, I can be equally content running my six mile loop in my little neck of the desert. There’s something comforting about running the same familiar route on a daily basis especially in these uncertain times when the world seems to be crashing down around us. Out here in the quietude of the wilderness there are no worries except the occasional rattlesnake encounter. 

Collared lizard

Lady bug colony, N. Franklin Peak

It takes a lot of work though, to check your anxiety and wandering thoughts at the trailhead parking lot, but it is well worth the effort. Several years ago I read Sakyong Mipham’s Running With the Mind of Meditation and have been learning to focus on being present on the trail instead of letting my mind wander aimlessly. I stop frequently to watch a bee buzzing around a flowering shin dagger (lechuguilla) stalk or to closely inspect the tiny leaves covering an ocotillo cactus stem.

Bee and lechuguilla (shin dagger)

Wildflower

Besides rattlesnakes, I run into all sorts of wonders on the trail and enjoy the most amazing sunrises and moon sets. I greatly enjoy the gentle breeze in my face and am equally in awe of the raging gusts that roar through Smuggler’s Gap almost knocking me off the ridge I'm running. Bursts of color pop up all along the trail when the cacti and wildflowers bloom in the spring bringing a smile to my face. Songbirds serenade me and the fragrance of sweet acacia or the musty aroma of wet desert after a rain is therapy in itself. 

Sweet acacia blooms

Skeletonleaf Goldeneye

Phlox

I ran into a dinosaur several weeks ago. This thing looked like a mini triceratops, but the horns were facing backwards around its neck frill. There were pointy scales all over it and on its back were indentations about the size of a pencil eraser. Surrounding these holes were black spots with a white ring around them like a bull’s eye and a white thin stripe ran down the back of this dragon like creature. The overall color was brown, white and black and its body was flat and round like a desert rock causing it to blend in perfectly with its surrounding. 

Thistle

When it saw me it froze, but I expected to see, at any moment, a burst of flame shoot from its nostrils in true dragon fashion. Well, this wasn’t to be, but Texas horned lizards can actually shoot blood out of the corners of their eyes as a defense mechanism. Once when I was running near our family’s ranch with a pack of dogs, I encountered another horned lizard. Several dogs sniffed it but kept running. Since we were on a paved road, I picked up the horny toad to move it to safety and that’s how I learned that these lizards can squirt blood from their eyes. Sadly, they are a threatened species so I feel grateful for the opportunity to have encountered them.

Texas horned lizard

I’ve also seen some beautiful green collared lizards as well as the greater earless and whiptail lizards. The greater earless is very colorful with orange spots and a rainbow pattern of black stripes enhanced with green, yellow and orange on the side of its belly. When it feels threatened it wags its tail, rubs its head on the ground and does pushups to make sure you know how badass it is. 

Watch it do pushups!

Several times this month I ran to the top of N. Franklin Peak (7192’) from the edge of the neighborhood, logging between 20-23 miles. I’ve been to the peak many times, but drinking in the vast view from the top never gets old. Surrounding the largest urban wilderness park are the sprawling cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. You can see the entire Franklin Mountain range and some of the Organ Mountains in neighboring New Mexico. Far in the distance, on a clear day, you can see all the way to Sierra Blanca Peak (11,981’) on the Mescalero Apache Tribal Land.

Apache plume

Lyreleaf jewelflower

Whether I’m doing an epic peak climb or a simple lowland loop, I’m equally content these days and just try to stay in the moment. A colony of thousands of lady bugs at the peak is as enjoyable as a millipede with thousands of legs crossing my path. In Zen on the Trail: Hiking as Pilgrimage, Christopher Ives writes, 

By directing our attention to how we hike as opposed to where we’re headed, and taking as our goal sitting quietly in a beautiful spot rather than summiting a gnarly peak, we can begin to shift from ego-driven doing mode to spirit-filled being mode, from proving something in nature to exploring how we are nature. In this way we can complement views out across the landscape with views of what’s going on inside.

Sometimes, just a simple walk around my neighborhood with my family and our little buddy Taz brings me much peace. I can still look up at the moon rising above the Franklin Mountains in all their splendor thinking about the 12 astronauts  who’v walked amongst the moon craters including the first two who hopped around in the Sea of Tranquility. Wouldn’t it be nice to get off our crazy planet and take a dip in this tranquil sea for a few days!

Franklin Mountains with the Organs in the background

Nevertheless, it’s what you make of your world that matters. In these most unprecedented times, get outside and enjoy all that nature has to offer. For your own sanity, John Muir says it best,

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

See you on the Trail