The Tres Hermanas Mountains of Southwest New Mexico. The South Sister.
	After years of living and hiking in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii, then traveling to Canada and Spain, it was time to explore the mountains in the Southwest. This day’s adventure took me to the southern most of the Tres Hermanas, seven miles north of Columbus, New Mexico. There are three separate peaks, and the diversity offered by desert mountains amazes me.

Columbus is a small border town with two bed and breakfasts, three restaurants, a State park with a new visitors interpretive center devoted to early 1900 Columbus and Pancho Villa history, a private RV park and a historical museum. There’s also an Arts League International that’s active in beautifying the Village of Columbus (www.columbusnm.us).

I’m not a hard rock, technical climber. I enjoy mountain trekking and taking pictures along the way. I learned long ago to wear a good pair of leather gloves, a long sleeved shirt and some form of windbreaker pants over my jeans. Layering clothes is part of trekking. If you don’t layer, you’re almost always too hot or cold. Besides, you never know what lies over the next false summit. A good backpack and something similar to a CamelBack® for water is also a necessity. Carrying a pack on your back and water on your chest, you can pack your load in a balanced way. I used to carry water bottles but found a strap-on water carrier far superior. Besides, there are no empties left behind. Pack it out is as important as pack it in.

Winter and early spring is the best time to mountain climb in Southwestern New Mexico. I started climbing the Tres Hermanas in early February and worked my way north, one day and one mountain at a time, weather and time permitting. Cat’s Claw, prickly pear and mesquite take command at different elevations. From bottom to top, there’s something ready to grab, stab or poke holes in the unwary trekker who isn’t in the here and now.

On the first outing up the south Hermana, I made a mental note to try to find some leggings. I don’t like grass seeds, pieces of dry vegetation and stickers in my socks. Even if you wear your armor, there’s no time for being somewhere besides where you are at that particular point in time. A wrong step while thinking about something other than the present, can lead to serious problems and be especially dangerous if you’re trekking alone.

I’d parked my pickup a few miles from where I started the climb and rode my mountain bike to the end of an obvious trail. From there I had to find a passable route, skirt the cliffs and not be more concerned with the possibilities offered for picture taking than where I placed my hands and feet. I’d intentionally gone to the north face, to be on the shady side. Not because it was a hot day, since there was still frost on the ground in the shaded places, but because snakes don’t come out to sun themselves if there’s no sun to heat the rocks.

Where picture taking is concerned, I find it’s best to go up one way and down another. I never know what new opportunity will present itself from another perspective or on a different route. Sometimes that can be the long way home. I trek without a watch and with a very loose schedule, so it doesn’t matter. I’ve been asked many times if I carry a cell phone or take a GPS. Doesn’t that take some of the adventure out of the adventure?

Once on any of the summits, it’s possible to see almost forever. To the east are the Franklins on the other side of El Paso, TX. To the west are the Chiricahuas in Arizona. Smaller Hershey Kisses shaped extinct volcanos line the western side of the Tres Hermanas. From the summit of the southern most mountain the view is ONE MILLION BC. It’s easy to imagine smoke and lava coming from the extinct volcanos and dinosaurs walking through the valley below. It’s an amazing view from the top, and well worth the effort.

It takes a long time to summit and get back to where you start because photo opportunities are everywhere. Trees defy gravity, huge boulders balance on points of rock no bigger than the end of your thumb and rock faces swept clean by wind attest to the extremes of the weather.

Standing alone on a mountain top I can hear tales and questions from the past, mysteries about my future and memories from deep within my DNA. Where did I come from? Why did life take the twists and turns it has? Where will it take me from here? What was life like before a sense of false security, comfort and the belief someone else can take care of us better than we can take care of ourselves became our first consideration?

Each of us will see a mountain experience differently. Some remember it for the small things, flowers and multicolored rocks. To others the same mountain offers panoramas, giant boulders and gnarled trees. Others would see the adventure as uncomfortable and unbearable, physically and mentally. Mountains are a lot like life. We can see them as an adventure, a new learning place, or we can see them as something to be endured but not enjoyed.

Are we living in the present? Or, are we living in the past and dwelling on something we can’t do anything about? Are we living in the future that may never come? What’s the most important thing in our lives? If it’s freedom, we need to ask ourselves if we’ve given, or are giving our freedom away out of fear of something unknown, something that will probably never happen?

Freedom doesn’t mean we have license to do anything we want, to forsake others for our personal goals or to shirk our responsibilities and commitments to those near and dear. Freedom begets freedom. License produces laws, dictators and tyranny.

What do we seek from life? What’s truly important and what are we supposed to learn from our experiences? We’re all different, and so are our mountains. Maybe from the top of our personal mountain, whatever that may be, with our vision clear and our thoughts beyond the horizon, the answers will come.