April 5, 2015
by David Ryan
4 Comments

Camino de Santiago

I will be flying to Europe early tomorrow morning to walk the Camino de Santiago. I won’t have time to write another blog post until I get back around May 10. If all goes as I hope, I should have plenty of material for several blog posts when I return. In the meantime there are several older posts in this blog that might interest you. Just select a category or enter a topic in the search block to see what you find.

If you’re not familiar with the Camino, it is a network of routes that leads to the cathedral at Santiago de Compestella in the far northwest corner of Spain. The route that I will be following is 450 miles long and begins in St. Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side of the Pyrenees. People have been following the Camino for over a thousand years, and in the past few years it has become very popular.

Thank you,

David Ryan

March 24, 2015
by David Ryan
5 Comments

Walking Albuquerque

A little less than a year ago Stephen Ausherman, author of 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Albuquerque, asked me to go on a walk with him. He wanted to test one of the thirty city walks he was developing for the upcoming Wilderness Press book, Walking Albuquerque. (Wilderness Press has published several Walking “…” books for different cities across the country.)

Last year’s walk was in downtown Albuquerque and it was fantastic. The book, Walking Albuquerque: 30 Tours of the Duke City’s historic neighborhoods, ditch trails, urban nature, and public art, came out a little over two weeks ago, and I bought my copy on the first day it was available.

30 walks (800x775)

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March 5, 2015
by David Ryan
2 Comments

Wandering to Stairways and Hot Springs in New Mexico

As we all know, we can walk the same path day after day and still wander into something new on every walk. But it’s also great to mix it up with something different. And that’s why ideas for new wandering adventures are important. They keep it fresh and make sure we get out the door.

Ideas can come from anywhere. Newspaper and magazine articles, or even a blog post like this, can lead to an idea. As an example, last Sunday an idea was served to me on a platter when I read, … climbs dozens of concrete steps daily from his home to his college office high atop a historic “castle”…, in the opening sentence of an article in the Sunday paper.

The “castle” in question happens to be Montezuma Castle near Las Vegas, New Mexico. This Las Vegas is on the east side of the mountains from Santa Fe, New Mexico and predates the more famous Las Vegas in Nevada by decades. Montezuma Castle was built as a luxury resort hotel with natural hot springs in the 1880s. The hotel and the surrounding grounds, including the hot springs, are now the campus of United World College.

I had visited the hot springs in the past and had seen the Castle from a distance, but I had no idea that there were significant stairways on the grounds. For those of us who like to soak in natural hot springs and explore stairways, it’s hard to imagine a better combination. Within two days of reading the article, the dogs and I were off to Las Vegas, New Mexico on a road trip.

When we reached Las Vegas we headed west of town toward the mountains. Within a few minutes we could see the Castle. Even though it was a chilly day, there were a few cars parked along the road and people soaking in the hot springs on the other side of the wire fence.

That's what the castle looks like when you first see it from the road.

That’s what the castle looks like when you first see it from the road.

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