Smoke Bomb by the Pecos

We were hooked on boondocking after Santa Fe. Our discussions now included solar panels. We saw one trailer in the forest campground set up with panels. Could that be for us?

The day we left the Santa Fe Forest, we had planned to go to a campground with hookups closer to Albuquerque. But one road led to another, and in true rambling fashion we ended up by the Pecos River at the Villanueva State Park.

They had electric/water hookups at this campground. But once we saw the more spacious and, in some cases, private sites without hookups at the top of a mesa area, we were ready to boondock again. It was nearly dark when we arrived. We chose an open site at the very top of the mesa and set up for the night.

We noticed when we chose the site that it consisted of two sites very close together. We had placed our trailer in a way that appeared to occupy both sites, but with the campground likely to fill up for the weekend, we knew we might have to move over and allow another camper in, which would mean close neighbors. If that happened, the neighbor’s fire ring would be about six feet of so from our trailer. Not good.

In the morning, I spied an open site not far from our current location. It offered more privacy as it was off by itself but was nearer the cliff edge of the mesa. I pointed it out to Pat.

Thus began our typical site deliberation. Which goes something like this:

“What about this site? I said.

“It is more private, but we are closer to the edge. Right above the majority of campers in the hookup area. If they start up fires we could be in trouble. Smoke rises,” Pat said.

“Yeah, but, if someone wants this site next to us, and they start a fire, we’ll have smoke right outside our door.”

“True.”

“So which site should we pick?”

“It’s up to you.”

“What if I choose the wrong one?”

“It will be fine. Just choose one.”

“Which one do you want?”

“You decide.”

“No, I want your input on this.”

“Well, smoke rises, but close neighbors with a fire would be bad, too.”

“Hmm.”

Silent contemplation ensues (more like fretting and hand wringing in anguished silence as we stand between the two sites).

“We better decide soon before someone else arrives and makes the choice for us.”

“l know.”

“So, which one?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You know we’ll probably pick the wrong one.”

And in this case we did.

We chose the more private site by the edge of the cliff. It was glorious during the first daylight hours. But we heard from our neighbor a bit up the hill that the lower level campground often became party town during the weekends. This weekend was no exception.

Friday night the fires weren’t bad, although they did taint the air. The bigger issue was someone’s excessive use of propane for some unknown reason. It saturated the air when we went outside to marvel at the night sky, which was even more brilliant than the sky at Palo Duro. We were higher up here - the first night shortly after we arrived a jet roared overheard loud as a train and scared us both before we realized what it was. This night the stench of propane coupled with wood smoke drove us quickly back inside.

The second night, a Saturday, the wood smoke was a bit stronger, and the shouts and screams and general human mayhem was louder. We stayed inside buttoned up for the duration.

Then Sunday morning, just when we hoped the air might be clearing out, the wood smoke grew more intense around us. Pat went outside to investigate, looking over the cliff edge to the campground area below. As he did, I saw waves of smoke at least ten feet high rise up above the cliff edge and roll pass our campsite.

The mesa we were on was about 50 feet above the lower campground area. Add to that the ten foot or so smoke plumes floating by, and someone had started an El Dorado style fire in their fire ring.  And as in El Dorado, I again wondered how someone could possibly do that. And do it seemingly without thinking it’s a problem.

When I went for a walk with my dog a little later, trying to find a safe place to breathe, I saw the smoke waves from this fire continuing to sail through the air, inundating the entire campground below.

So how did the site we didn’t choose fare? Someone claimed one of the sites and angled his trailer as we had (he did have a bigger trailer) so that no one ever came along to claim the second site. Pat walked up to that site during the worst of the smoke. He couldn’t smell it there as the site was higher and farther away from the cliff edge.

Oh well.

As we packed up to leave, I gave some thought to what site we might choose if we returned to the park. It is a beautiful location. I realized that trying to select the perfect, smoke-free site is impossible - the human factor involved will always be the wild card. It comes down to luck and hoping we have it on any given day. And hoping that someday soon (before our camping adventure is over would be nice) campfires will be a thing of the past.

Still I tried to grab something positive out of our experience.

“Well at least we learned a lesson this weekend. Downhill and upwind is the way to go.”

“Sounds good, “ Pat said.