Kissed Off

Today Thomas and I had to bring our friend, Donna back to the airport so she could return home. We decided that after we dropped her at the airport we would go on a hike and try and find a letterbox. So we headed to Elena Gallegos Picnic Area and started our hike on the Pino Trail. And after a few 'turn this ways' and 'turn that ways' we got to a point where we could see our landmark - a giant pair of granite lips. These "lips" were on top of a very, very, very large 'pile of rocks'. The clue was stated simply: "En route to Domingo Baca canyon, on the west side of the Sandia Mountains, is a gorgeous pair of green, granite lips. Look beneath them for your kiss!".

Well, we were standing at the base of the 'pile of rocks' looking way up at these lips and wondering how to get up there. Another part of the clue stated: "The hike in is about 1 mile long (bring water), followed by an uphill scramble through bushes, past cacti and potential snakes, over boulders, and through tunnels and caves!". We figured that we needed to just get up there anyway we could - so we started scrambling.

Our first attempt got us pretty close to the 'lips' but not close enough. So we headed down again and almost decided to just head on home. But Thomas saw a little trail that went around the side so we headed that way. Two young girls and their parents passed us and started climbing up. We decided to follow but just a short ways up we had some trouble getting over a couple of large boulders. So we turned around and tried another way - this time we made it to the 'lips'. Thomas got there first and sat down on the rock that the 'lips' were sitting on and he looked underneath the 'lips'. He found a bunch of little rocks that resembled a SPOR. He moved all the rocks but did not find a box. So we looked around the area and determined that we were in the right area and had been "Kissed Off". I don't know for sure if we were in the right area but it sure felt like it to us. I did write the placer to see if we were in the right spot but haven't heard back yet. Even though we worked our butts off getting up there and didn't find the box we really loved the views. All in all it was a great hike.