Some friends of ours are moving from Arroyo Seco to San Cristobal, and something vitally important is stirring in my bones…
We used to live in San Cristobal, you see, and I will never, ever forget it.
When we first went to the tiny post office to rent a box, Ricky Medina told us, “Welcome to the valley!” I went to my first Posadas there. We literally had elk, deer, bears, and coyotes in the front yard (not all at once!), and I once found the remains of a cougar kill about 200 yards away. I was the only Anglo to take part in the annual cemetery cleaning at the campo santo and raked up human finger bones — when I asked Ricky’s father, the local acequia mayordomo, what had caused the graves to be invaded and scattered the remains, he answered, “Animales! Tusas…” (Prairie dogs, that is.) It was in San Cristobal that I first wrote: “The stars don’t twinkle here, they strobe,” and it was true, so bright they almost hurt your eyes, something few humans witness on this Earth today. At that time, San Cristobal even had (and may still have) a primitive local water system that used untreated water directly from the upper reaches of San Cristobal Creek — it was the only local water system in the entire United States that didn’t require chemical treatment. The ONLY ONE!
(What that says about America may be more significant than what it says about the valley…)
You don’t know what quiet is unless you’ve lived in San Cristobal. The silence of the wilderness is a healing balm. From the moment you wake up until you go to sleep, the quiet envelops you like the soft breath of a loving God. There’s absolutely nothing like it in all the 63 years I’ve walked the planet. I wonder if my friends know how lucky they are? I once saw a golden eagle swoop down and grab a prairie dog not 50 yards away. You don’t see anything like that in the land of curbs and conveniences.
The reason my wife and I haven’t considered moving back up there is simple: the added expense of commuting and satellite Internet. But this morning when I heard the news about my friends’ move, it shook me like a rag doll: San Cristobal, of course! Remembering all that sets things straight. I would rather live in a place like that than anywhere in Taos. Compared to San Cristobal, Taos is like a pathetic southwestern strip mall and tourist trap. Many people couldn’t live there, of course — to make it in the valley, you have to appreciate things like being able to walk out your back door right into the national forest and hearing elk bugling through the kitchen window, and for that, you add another two hours to the round-trip time to Santa Fe.
This pushes all my buttons, all over again. My pre-conceived notion of what’s “possible” and sane has had my life on rails for the last five years, but maybe it’s time to get the hell off the tracks. My wife is with me on this. Just the other day she saw a house for rent up there on Craigslist and nearly swooned, even though she now has a beautiful studio here in town, even though the house in the ad had an attached apartment rented to someone else, even though the drive to Taos would be prohibitively expensive if gas prices go back up. It was just that good to live there.
ELK, chilluns… within sight from our doorstep!
Now I’m excited all over again. Did you know that one can hike over clearly marked trails all the way from San Cristobal to the Taos Ski Valley and into town? It would take several days, but you can do it, passing along an 11,000 foot ridge for much of the distance. I need to make that hike. I need to go back up there and see what happens. If you follow the creek all the way up Lobo Peak, I’m told there’s a spring where the stream just comes straight out of the rocks, a magical power place for sure.
Something is waking up again inside me. No matter what else happens, that’s an extraordinary feeling, and who knows where it will lead?
UPDATE: Thanks to John Martellaro for the Twitter link, and I forgot to mention earlier that a major part of BUFFALO LIGHTS is the section about San Cristobal. Check out the synopsis and give the book a try, if you’re so inclined. Every word is true…
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I could see myself living out there as well, except the wife has to commute daily to town to teach. But for you guys, that might be fine as you don’t commute every day. To get “away from it all” out there could be just what you need. So dark, quiet, and solitary, compared to Taos. Maybe by now they have other options for internet? But even if not, its not that much of an expense for quality of life, right John?
The Internet options, the last time I looked, were wireless via TaosNet or satellite. When we lived there, I had 28 MBps dial-up! Certainly no DSL…
Have you ever visited folks out there? You WOULD NOT BELIEVE what it’s like higher up in the valley, near the old San Cristobal Ranch. There can’t be more than a handful of environments like that in all of North America. Real estate is pricey, too, for that very reason. But oh my Lord is it nice. Actual wilderness, not the fake stuff, is literally outside the door.
We’re going to think about it and do some brainstorming. I don’t see how we can swing it, practically speaking, and we don’t have any place to rent there, either — they come up only very seldom — but the things I feel this morning can’t be denied. Someone or something is trying to tell me something. The question is, will I listen?
Yes, indeed. No place is perfect. Will your level of peace be higher there? Seems like the peace level is rather low in Taos for you. I know the internet thing is important for your livlihood, so that is a factor, but there must be SOMETHING to do about it. Got pictures of San Cristobal you can share on Fotofeed?
I have zillions of San Cristobal pictures. Some of them are probably on FotoFeed, but I’m not sure how to tell you how to find them.
What I can do about Internet access in the boonies is go with satellite. Download speeds are okay, but I do lots of UPLOADING, and that’s really slow with wireless or satellite.
There is no “peace level” in Taos, BTW. That’s an oxymoron.
The energy here is just too wild…
I have driven up towards the ranch, but never really spent much time up in the hills. But oh what I wouldn’t give to live up there! I saw that house you were talking about for rent – you should definitely check it out, it looks pretty nice.
That’s the one my friends rented. They’re used to having someone sharing a wall with them, but we could never do that: two musicians making noise all the time? Wouldn’t work!
If you follow the road that goes by the ranch (Camino del Medio, turn left just past the P.O.) all the way to the end, it leads to a parking area for the Lobo Peak Trail. Verrrrry lonely up there, not sure about how a vehicle would fare left alone.
Anyway, that trail goes all the way to the origin spring and connects to trails going to the peak and a wide circle in that wilderness area. You can also hike all the way to the Ski Valley, as I indicated. Looks like the Lobo Peak circle hike would take a couple of days. I’ve never done it, but maybe this year. I might leave my car at the post office and hike all the rest of the way, though. That could make it a THREE-day jaunt.
Is that the road that has all the No Trespassing signs as you get closer to the ranch? I think I turned around at one point, at a gate that was open but had NT signs. And yea, not sure about leaving the car alone in such a desolate place. I don’t really need to go car shopping anytime soon.
There’s only one road. When I was last up there (about seven years ago), it was VERY rough. It does go past the ranch, all the way to an official Forest Service trailhead, but it ain’t easy to locate, and before you get there, you’ll swear there can’t possibly be anything up that way.
That’s why I’d park at the P.O. and just tack the extra three or four miles onto the hike.
San Cristobal is exactly 9 miles to the plaza. An extra 2 hrs RT to Sta Fe? Would you have to use satellite broadband?
I don’t think you have the distance down right, but maybe you do! The actual driving time is something else, however, and remember that we made the drive back and forth to Taos almost every day for a couple of years:
1. Time to navigate the rocky dirt road from a typical San Cristobal house to the highway: 2-10 minutes, depending on location.
2. San Cristobal to the north end of Taos on the highway: 20 minutes or a little less, depending on traffic.
3. Time to drive from the north end of Taos to the south end: 20-30 minutes under normal traffic conditions, sometimes longer.
So there it is. We live on the south side now. San Cristobal is roughly an hour away, regardless of what the actual mileage is. From San Cristobal to Santa Fe and back takes 90-120 minutes longer than from our present location on the south side of town. The broadband options would be local wireless via TaosNet or satellite. Either of these top out at 1.5 MBps, which is never really that fast, with much slower upload speeds. Half of what I do is uploading, so this would be a concern. Either of these costs at twice as much as in-town DSL.
I rented a place in San Cristobal about 8 years ago. It had internet connection that was OK, though I think back then it was still dial up… I don’t recall which service it was with, though. I really enjoyed living up there. Although, for solitude and peace, my ultimate was when I lived up in Sunshine Valley. I also lived down in Ojo Sarco for a couple of years, back in the early 1990s, and that was very sweet and peaceful.
Sunshine Valley! Most people don’t know that the water table is really high there…but it’s so far away… The thing about San Cristobal is that it’s a real community, something one hardly ever experiences any more.
It is a real community out there? That’s refreshing, might have to consider looking there next time we need a new place. Would be nice to be part of something, rather than just floating on our own.
Well, it was five or six years ago, and I’ll bet it still is. You quickly learn who your neighbors are and see them a lot at the P.O., there are various community events and meetings, and even “THE cows.” I’ll have to dredge up my earlier writing on the subject and do a post…