Time for a Hike

El Paso Hiker is back and fresh after a month’s rest.

Do visit, bookmark and join the El Paso Hiking Group. More new hikes are now being posted including an easy one-hour beginner’s hike tomorrow morning at the Stoney Hill Trailhead. Plan to leave at 7 a.m. sharp. Hikers can begin gathering at 6:45 a.m.  There’s a Women’s Only hike on Friday at Tom Mays and a more difficult Tramway Trails Hike on Saturday. Also on Saturday is a Ranger-led Interpretive Hike to Guadalupe Peak. You can find details about this hike at the El Paso Hiking Group or the Guadalupe Mountains National Park Meetup Group. In fact, visit, bookmark and join the Guadalupe Mountains National Park Meetup Group.

If you would rather ride to the top of Ranger Peak on Saturday than do the Tramway Trails, Interpretive Park Ranger Nancy Scarantino will talk about wildlife on a Wyler Aerial Tramway trip at Noon. This event co-sponsored by TecH2O includes free refreshments. Check out details online because reservations are necessary.

Two other places to bookmark: Las Cruces/El Paso Adventurers Meetup and El Paso Ridgewalkers. You will find much useful information at Ridgewalkers including GPS tracks of local hikes that you can download.

Hiking, mountain biking and mountain climbing in our area are all getting more publicity because of you, a variety of groups and Peak Fitness Challenge. Check it out. Like them on Facebook. Read a recent shout out from Austin360. There’s a Peak Fitness Challenge hike on the Aztec Caves Trail this coming Sunday.

El Paso Hiker can no longer recommend nor endorse Las Cruces Hiking Meetup events. Word has come back to us that hike leaders are telling groups to find their way back to the beginning of a hike and then abandoning the group to go off alone. Also, we have learned that hike leaders are not familiar with a scheduled trail and that they have not even hiked it before resulting in getting lost, going too far and having to ask for help. When El Paso Hiker learns that the Las Cruces group is once again leading hikes in an ethical, responsible manner, it will again promote their events. Until then, all the groups mentioned above sponsor events for all levels of hikers and do so with the health and safety of participants in mind.

Learn more about this beautiful place on earth which we enjoy whenever we get outdoors.  There are some good online newsletters.  The Southwest Environmental Center’s Summer 2012 Mesquite Grill is now available online. Look for great links at Chihuahuan Desert Education Coalition.  Plan visits to the Centennial Museum on the UTEP campus and to the El Paso Museum of Archaeology.

The new August 2012 Franklin Mountains State Park Hiking Schedule is posted. Check it out! It includes movie nights in McKelligon Canyon, a Peak Fitness Challenge hike, a Women’s Only hike and more.  Ranger Adrianna Weickhardt is simply the best!

Finally, if you like this e-letter, please forward to all your friends. The El Paso Hiker tries to present in one place what you can get only by visiting multiple sites or receiving multiple emails. If you aren’t  a subscriber, please reply to this email and ask to be added to the list. Please also visit elpasonaturally and join that email list too.

Excelsior!