Saturday, October 2, 2010 THE NEWMEXICAN A-7

Section editor: Howard Houghton, 986-3015, hhoughton@sfnewmexican.com Design and headlines: Elizabeth Herrera Lauer, ehlauer@sfnewmexican.com BREAKING NEWS AT WWW.SANTAFENEWMEXICAN.COM

LOCAL NEWS

Today’s question:What was the mainoccupation in Santa Fe during the colonialperiod?Check back tomorrow for the answer.

400 Factson Santa FeCourtesy of the 400thAnniversary Committee

Yesterday’s question: When did the organization that has pro-vided over 400,000 hours of free tutoring in reading, writingand speaking English begin?Answer: In partnership with the Santa Fe Community College, Literacy Volun-teers of Santa Fe began its work in 1985.To learn more about this topic, visit the website at www.lvsf.org.

Some areas of the mountains in Valle Vidal are already displaying full fall colors. PHOTOS COURTESY KARL MOFFATT

Weekend promises bestdisplays of vibrant aspensBy Karl F. MoffattFor The New Mexican

There may be no better time to visitthe Valle Vidal than in the fall,when its giant groves of aspen treeserupt with vibrant colors and turn

this part of the national forest into a stunningdisplay of natural art.“It’s not going to get any better than this,”

says KathyDe Lucas, public information officerfor the CarsonNational Forest. “MotherNatureis putting on a spectacular show right now.”De Lucas said the aspens should be in full

fall colors this weekend due to recent warmdays and cool nights and a lack of inclementweather that can strip the trees bare.But a storm is expected to move through

the area next week that could do just that, sofoliage fanatics should get out this weekendwhile the weather still holds, she says.Colors have been especially vibrant this

year, with a rare shade of red making anappearance among some of the goldenaspens, De Lucas said.A drive on the well-maintained gravel

road, wending through the Valle Vidal, ForestRoad 1950, provides visitors with the oppor-tunity to enjoy some of the finest fall foliagethe state has to offer.Just north of Taos on the Colorado border,

the 100,000-acre Valle Vidal unit of the Car-son National Forest offers great fishing andfantastic camping. Donated to the public byPennzoil in 1982, the Valle Vidal has attractedmany to its high-mountainmeadows, lakes andstreams over the years.It’s fabled among anglers for the color-

ful, native cutthroat trout that inhabit theRio Costilla, Comanche Creek and otherbackcountry streams. Many of those streamswere recently rehabilitated to rid them ofnon-native fish and then restocked with purestrain, native trout. The fish is noted for adistinctive red slash under its jaw and otherhighly colorful bodymarkings.And big rainbow trout are regularly stocked

in Shuree Ponds where an angler’s chances ofcatching a nice one are as a good as seeing abear or other wild animal wander by.Wildlife thrives throughout the Valle Vidal,

which has special restrictions in place to pro-tect its vast elk herds during the early sum-mer calving season.The unit is a favorite among hunters for its

big-game animals and is a “once in a lifetime”hunt for trophy bull elk.

A trip to theValle Vidal almost requires anovernight camp-outwhere one can hear elkbugling or coyotes howling across the vastopenmeadows.Camping on the Valle Vidal is restricted to

the two established campgrounds or in thebackcountry, at least a mile from any road andwhere nomotorized vehicles are allowed.Backcountry campers must park only in

designated parking areas or in one of the twocampgrounds and then hike in.Cimarron Campground, located near Shu-

ree Ponds, usually fills up first on weekendswhile McCrystal, on the other side of themountain, usually has plenty of sites avail-able. McCrystal campground attracts a lot ofhorseback riders because of its corrals andproximity to open meadows.At McCrystal Campground, visitors will

find interpretive displays along a trail to thenearby Ring Ranch homestead, where sev-eral original log buildings have been restoredand are occasionally still used by the BoyScouts, Forest Service personnel and theoccasional working cowboy.At CimarronCampground, visitors will find

that Little Shuree Cabin, across the road fromthe CimarronCampground entrance, has beenrestored by a crew ofmilitary veterans.Located on Ponil Creek, the log cabin was

once part of the Vermejo Club, a huntingcamp where such early Hollywood figures asCecil B. DeMille andMary Pickford stayedand carved their initials into the interior logs.

A recent fire razed the historic cabin, butthe crew of five vets has since resurrected thebuilding inwhich some of the logs bearingits visitors initials will be displayed again, DeLucas said.Visitors to the Valle Vidal can see plenty

of fall foliage by driving through the forestto Cimarron and then looping back thoughEagle Nest and Red River to Questa. At EagleNest, one could also take Taos Canyon totown or head south for a return trip throughMora and Peñasco. Any of these routesmakefor fine fall foliage excursions, so consult amapand get out there.

Karl F.Moffatt is a longtimeNewMexicojournalist andavid outdoorsmanwho canbe contacted through his blog atwww.outdoorsnewmexico.com.

Touring Valle Vidal

IF YOU GOu Leave Santa Fe on U.S. 84/285,proceed to Española, stay on the maindrag and head up N.M. 68 along the RioGrande to Taos. Proceed through townand follow N.M. 522 through Questa,north to the village of Costilla and thentake N.M. 196 into Valle Vidal. FollowForest Road 1950 up to Shuree Pondsand the heart of the Valle Vidal.

Comanche Point on the Valle Vidal presents a striking landmark for visitors to thearea, sometimes called the Yellowstone of New Mexico.

Yorkshire terrier was stolen fromowner’s workplace at BLMBy Geoff GrammerThe New Mexican

Hector Gardea-Romero just wants Crazy back.And the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department hopes

a video surveillance tapewill help him find his pet.Crazy, Gardea-Romero’s 2-year-old, 5-pound gray

Yorkshire terrier, was stolen Tuesday from a shadedoutdoor employee patio at the Bureau of LandMan-agement building at 301 Dinosaur Trail.“Crazy followed him around everywhere and it

was such a treat for all of us (employees) here to havea cute little puppy around all the time,” said ValerieChavez, a BLM co-worker of Gardea-Romero, whois the building’s maintenance worker. “Hector wouldalways have Crazy there with him except when what-ever he was working on wouldn’t allow it, and then hewould leave the dog tied up in a covered gazebo areawe have out back.”The dognapping was caught on video surveillance

that has been posted on TheNewMexican’s website.Investigators at the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s

Department are hoping to locate a man seen on sur-veillance video parking a gray or green pickup on theside of N.M. 14 at 12:09 p.m. Tuesday. The man can beseen exiting the truck, hopping over a fence behindthe BLM building, walking to the covered gazebo area,untying the dog and taking Crazy with him back tothe truck before driving away.“I was able to see the 4x4 markings on the side of

the bed of the truck,” writes deputy Stephanie Cham-plin in her police report.The area the dog was stolen from could not be seen

fromN.M. 14. “It’s pretty clear this was somebody whoknew exactly where the dog was,” said Sheriff GregSolano.“I don’t know anybody here who ever had a problem

with the dog,” Chavez said. “It’s so sad. It was alwaysHector and his dog and it was really cute, actually.”The police report indicates the value of the dog is

$1,300 and the case is considered a larceny investiga-tion since, as Solano pointed out, “there isn’t really acharge called dognapping.”Gardea-Romero did not have a photo of the dog

available Friday.Solano asked anyone with information on Crazy or

the person who stole the dog, to call police dispatch-ers at 428-3710 or call Crime Stoppers, where up to$1,000 could be awarded for information on the case.

Dognappingcaught bysurveillance

By Staci MatlockThe New Mexican

This September in Santa Fe was the hottest in adecade, according to the NationalWeather Service inAlbuquerque.“Both the average high and the average low at the

Santa Fe Airport was the warmest since 2000,” saidNWSmeteorologist Kerry Jones, just back from asweltering week in Farmington.Meanwhile, a cold front moving along the eastern

part of the state is bringing cooler and wetter weatherto the northern mountains. Rain clouds are expectedto build each afternoon over Santa Fe and Taosthrough Sunday, according to meteorologist BrianGuyer. “These showers could do a number on the fallleaves,” Guyer said. “They’re fragile from the heat.”September’s heat was measured only at the Santa

Fe Airport. The records are less consistent for otherweather measurement sites around the city. Even forthe airport there is a 40-year record gap from about1960 to 2000, Jones said. Prior to that there were con-sistent records through the 1940s and 1950s. All told,there are 28 years of records for the airport.The average daily high at the airport for the month

was 85.8, about 3.4 degrees higher than the secondhottest September of the last decade, in 2000. “That’ssignificant,” Jones said.Last year the average daily high in September was

78.8 degrees. More telling is to look at the averagelows, generally measured as the nighttime tempera-tures. The average low this September was 51.5, com-pared to 48 for all known record years.It was easier to determine where September in

Albuquerque stood in the heat scale. Weather recordsthere date to 1897 at the official NWS site.September 2010 tied for the second highest daily

average temperature (86.4) in the Duke City withSeptember of 1956. Honor for the highest goes to Sep-tember 1998. (86.8).The average daily high for Albuquerque for the

month was 4.2 degrees above normal and the averagelowwas 5.8 degrees above.

Contact StaciMatlock at 986-3055or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

Cold front ushersout hottest Sept.in decade for S.F.

ON THE WEBu Watch video of the dog theft atwww.santafenewmexican.com

You don’t have to drive far to find color near Santa Fe. The aspengroves northeast of the city in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains onN.M. 475 to the Santa Fe ski basin are in full golden glory.The peak will occur through the weekend and early next week,

according to the National Forest Fall Color Hotline. Santa Fe Ski is

operating the quad chairlift to the top of the mountain from 10 a.m.to 3 p.m. each day through Oct. 10, giving visitors a ride over theaspens for a fee.For more information on fall foliage near you, call the Fall Color

Hotline at 1-800-354-4595.

FALL FOLIAGE IN THE SANTA FE NATIONAL FOREST