March 29, 2026
by David Ryan
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2026 Albuquerque – Jane’s Walk Coming Soon

The fifth year of in-person Albuquerque Jane’s Walks will be held on the weekend of May 2 and May 3. Registration for the walks begins on or around April 2. Walks tend to fill up fast so please register early. To check out walk details and to register just click on the following link: https://linktr.ee/walkalbuquerque

What started out as two separate walks in the Wells Park/Mountain Road neighborhood in 2022 has now expanded to nine different Albuquerque neighborhoods in 2026. They are:

Wells Park (northwest of Downtown)

Historic 4th Ward (west of Downtown)

Raynolds Addition (west of Downtown)

Barelas (south of Downtown) – NEW in 2026

Huning Highlands (east of Downtown)

Spruce Park (west of UNM) – NEW in 2026

Nob Hill (east of UNM)

Parkland Hills (south of Nob Hill)

Highland (east of Nob Hill)

Jane’s Walks are held in over 200 cities around the world to celebrate walkable urban neighborhoods. They are named after Jane Jacobs whose 1960s book – Death and Life of Great American Cities – is credited with starting the Urban Revival movement. They are also a fantastic way of exploring a neighborhood that you might not normally visit. You’ll find Albuquerque’s older and more walkable neighborhoods to have wonderful architecture, murals, and little personalization’s that let you discover something special with every turn you make.

If you can’t make on the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd, you can click on the Janes Walks tab at the top of this page for maps and walk descriptions from previous Albuquerque Jane’s Walks.

2023 Walk Scene – photo courtesy of Jeffry Hertz

January 12, 2026
by David Ryan
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Checking Out Meteor Craters and Other Unusual Holes in the Ground

Like millions of others, I have been wowed by Meteor Crater just off of Interstate-40 between Flagstaff and Winslow in northern Arizona! Because it’s only 50,000 years old, it is still very much intact.

Google Earth image of Meteor Crater in Arizona. As you can see it’s huge!

And by accident, several decades ago, I stumbled upon another meteor impact crater in Odessa, Texas while on my way back from a camping trip at Big Bend National Park. Several years later I revisited that same crater with my dog Petey and featured it in this BLOG POST.

As you can see from this ground level view the Odessa Crater has been severely eroded and is surrounded by oil wells.

Even though the Odessa crater is not much older than the Arizona crater, it is heavily eroded and difficult to discern. In fact, since most known impact craters occurred millions of years ago, many of them have completely eroded away with the only remaining evidence being shatter patterns in the rock.

As one who likes to seek out anomalies, especially unusual holes in the ground, I spotted some unusual depressions several years ago on a topo map of southern New Mexico that I thought could be impact craters. But when I read The Mountains of New Mexico by Robert Julyan, I learned that those depressions were actually Maar volcanoes.

A Maar, in short, is a volcanic burp. They happen when rising magma encounters a water table to create enough super-heated steam to blast away everything above it. A great example of a Maar is the Kilbourne Hole in southern New Mexico. The Kilbourne Hole is featured in this BLOG POST and is also one of the Gold Star locations in Wandering in the Clear Light of New Mexico.

Google Earth view of the Kilbourne Hole.

The Kilbourne Hole from the ground. It’s more than a mile to the other side.

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November 16, 2025
by David Ryan
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Wandering to the “World-Famous” Wave

Last week my wife Claudia, our two dogs (Sparky and Sami), and I hiked out to the “World-Famous” Wave on the Arizona-Utah border in the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness area west of Page, Arizona. The Wave is absolutely amazing and meets or exceeds any expectations that you might already have.

Even better, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who manages the area, limits the number of people who can hike out to The Wave each day. This assures you of a pristine experience. Otherwise, the place could easily be overrun by tour groups and people who are clearly not prepared for a rugged desert hike.

Although rugged, the hike is quite doable by someone who is already very active and is familiar with desert backcountry hiking. But it is way more of a hike than what you would expect in a seven-mile adventure.

Although the vertical profile is greatly exaggerated, the GPS Profile does show that there are a lot of climbs and descents on the hike. The actual Wave formation is at the highest point.

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