Trek Details
Summer 2026 Itinerary
Flocks and Rocks 2026 Description
Trek Leaders
Arch McCallum, PhD, is an ornithologist, bioacoustician, and conservation biologist who served as a Professor in the Department of Biology at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. Arch is the “Flocks” of Flocks and Rocks, and has designed another incredible itinerary for this year’s trek, adding another chapter to its 10+ year history. Brad Jeffrey, PhD, is stepping in as this year’s “Rocks,” and enjoys leading geology and paleontology treks with school and summer Gulch programs, including the summer Paleo Trek.
Introduction
The 2026 rendition of Flocks and Rocks will be a crash course on the natural environments of New Mexico, leading into the Cottonwood Gulch 100th anniversary reunion. From the Great Plains to the Gila Wilderness and from the Colorado Plateau to the Chihuahuan Desert, we will visit the major physiographic and ecological zones of the state. In so doing, we will see stunning examples of geology (e.g., Rio Grande Rift), plant communities (alpine tundra), and zoology (Mexican Jays and Bridled Titmice of Madrean woodlands), but the focus will always be on the big picture. To ensure we see the big picture, our Trek will ask the following questions, or “chalk-talks” (lectures) around the cocktail ring:
- The map: what are the physiographic provinces and ecozones of NM, and how will we see them all?
- What is the climate of New Mexico with the effects of geology removed (i.e., what’s the default without the physiography)?
- New Mexico physiography, and how it came to be
- Integrating climate and physiography yields ecozones (aka biomes)
- Biogeographic realms of the world, and why that matters
- Mass extinctions of the recent past and near future
- The map revisited: Where we have been and what we saw
Itinerary
| Date | Day | Start place | Major activity | End place | Miles |
| 8/5 | 1 | Albuquerque | Airport arrivals | Taos | 159 |
| 8/6 | 2 | Taos | chairlift to tundra | Ft. Union Ranch (in Watrous, NM) | 97 |
| 8/7 | 3 | Ft. Union Ranch (in Watrous) | Mora NWR, plains | Valley of Fires (in Carrizozo) | 185 |
| 8/8 | 4 | Valley of Fires (in Carrizozo) | Sierra Blanca | Valley of Fires (in Carrizozo) | local |
| 8/9 | 5 | Valley of Fires (in Carrizozo) | Bosque del Apache | Water Canyon (near Socorro) | 96 |
| 8/10 | 6 | Water Canyon | Luna Lake | Blue River Valley, AZ | 150 |
| 8/11 | 7 | Blue River Valley, AZ | Los Gigantes | El Morro | 168 |
| 8/12 | 8 | El Morro | Zuni Mountains | Cottonwood Gulch Basecamp | 46 |
| 8/13 | 9 | Basecamp | Airport departures | Albuquerque | 123 |
| Total miles traveled | 1024 |
Narrative
Day 1. After pick-up at the Albuquerque airport, we drive north up I-25 toward Santa Fe, then peel off toward Española and on pass Taos to the Taos Ski Basin. This is the easiest and closest access to the Rocky Mountain physiographic province (PP), and to alpine tundra. We will spend the night at a campground somewhere between the Rio Grande Gorge and the Taos ski valley.
Day 2. The major activity of the day is taking the ski left up to the tundra on Mount Wheeler, which is the tallest peak in NM and is part of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the uplifted eastern flank of the Rio Grande Rift. This is an ecozone that is rare in NM, common in Colorado. We might see ptarmigan up there and/or Dusky Grouse on the ride up in the sub-alpine forest. Clark’s Nutcrackers will be everywhere, a real treat. Wildflowers will be glorious.
After the tundra we drive 97 miles to Ft. Union Ranch. We touch the Great Plains PP and look eastward across the short-grass prairie. New birds out there are Lark Bunting and possibly Mountain Plover and Long-billed Curlew, along with Horned Larks. Pronghorn are frequently seen, and Black-tailed Prairie-dogs should be easy to find.
Day 3. After visiting the Mora River NWR, we drive south on I-25 to Villa Nueva State Park, on the Pecos River, for lunch. In the afternoon, we travel along the edge of the Estancia Basin, with its many natural lakes, on our way to the state’s most spectacular lava flows at Carrizozo, including lava tubes, caves, and blisters. We will camp in the Valley of Fires Recreation Area.
Day 4. Visit the slopes of Sierra Blanca (if permits go through), location of the continent’s southernmost Pleistocene glacier. This will have subalpine forest, but maybe not tundra. Camping at Valley of Fires.
Day 5. We descend into the Rio Grande Rift on our way to Bosque Del Apache NWR, where the ducks will be hard to identify in “eclipse” plumage, but we may see migrating shorebirds. The rift channels desert vegetation far north of the main body of the Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico and northern Chihuahua. West of the rift and the river (Rio Grande) that runs through it we enter the Basin and Range PP. The first of these ranges is the Magdalena Mountains, where we will camp at Water Canyon. Here, we will encounter the edge of the Madrean pine-oak woodland ecozone, including such birds as Bridled Titmouse and Red-faced Warbler.
Day 6. We drive west through the Plains of San Agustin, stopping to peer at the Very Large Array, then descend the Tularosa River canyon to Reserve, NM. At Blue Crossing, we will be among not only Common Black Hawks and Mexican Jays, but also the successfully restored population of the Mexican Gray Wolf. At Luna Lake, we’ll get a chance to look at water birds, and perhaps we will again see a Bald Eagle steal a fish from an Osprey.
Day 7. We encounter the volcanic chain called the Jemez Lineament as we pull out of the Blue River Canyon and enter the White Mountains at Alpine, AZ. We continue to travel through short-grass prairie, stopping to compare it to the version we saw at Ft. Union, until we hit the Colorado Plateau PP. Here, we cross back into New Mexico southwest of Zuni. Variegated cliffs of Zuni Sandstone escort us to El Morro.
Day 8. Just west of El Morro, as we re-encounter the Jemez Lineament at El Malpais National Monument, we turn left to ascend Oso Ridge, the southernmost of several cuestas pushed up by the Zuni Uplift. In the heart of the Zunis, we see granite for the first time since Taos. Then, on the north side of the Zunis, we encounter more cuestas, these facing south. From there, we will head to the Cottonwood Gulch Basecamp. The geology of Basecamp includes sedimentary rocks and fossils that record marine and terrestrial paleoenvironments along the Permian-Triassic boundary, across which the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history occurred.
Day 9. Drive to the Albuquerque airport for participants who are not attending the CGE 100th anniversary reunion.
Resources
Travel
On the last day of Flocks and Rocks, August 13th, 2026, we will wake up at the Cottonwood Gulch Basecamp, and drive to the Albuquerque Support. At this point, the trek will end, including meals and transportation. We will likely get to keep our campsite at Basecamp for the 100th, but participants wishing to stay for the 100th anniversary reunion will be responsible for providing their own meals between breakfast the morning of 8/13, and dinner during the 100th on 8/14. You may choose to either stay at Basecamp and make arrangements for those meals, or take a ride to Albuquerque the morning of 8/13 to stay in a hotel and/or rent a car. There will be many volunteers and attendees going back and forth among Basecamp, Thoreau, and Albuquerque, and the Gulch will provide an online carpooling forum.
Cottonwood Gulch provides administrative support and experienced educators and guides, who plan programs, review medical information, drive vehicles, provide cooked meals and beverages (including alcohol), and camping gear including tents and optional sleeping cots, bags, pads, and chairs. Participants are asked to review the packing list, itinerary, and provide relevant medical history, dietary restrictions, travel plans, and other pertinent information prior to the trip. Questions can be directed to brad.jeffrey@cottonwoodgulch.org
While the Gulch is most known for our work with youth, we believe more adults could benefit from getting out of the house and learning about their environment. Even those of us who are skilled outdoor adventurers often lack a critical element to our personal explorations: a seasoned and knowledgeable guide.
Flocks & Rocks Trek will be led by Arch McCallum, ornithologist, and Brad Jeffery's, geologist, two PhDs in their respective fields, and longtime Gulchers.
“I was a cook for the Flocks & Rocks Trek, and I can say that I have never learned so much in a single 10-day span than those days with two enthusiastic PhDs and a posse of other adults that followed them around with binoculars and hand lenses."
As adults, I feel that we become accepting of what we know about the world, and comfortable with our own understandings. Much of the learning we have to do as adults is not fun–new practices at work, a new piece of technology, how to recover after an injury–but it doesn’t all have to be that mundane, boring, or scary. What if you could experience the childish wonder from when you were at the Gulch as a teen or learning about dinosaurs as a kindergartner?
After I finished up my responsibilities as a cook on that trip, I got to be a student again. The experience was set up for both avid birders, checking off birds from their life lists, and folks like me, who didn’t even realize there were birds around until I was asked to notice noises that had always blended into the background. On the geology side of things, we were introduced to terminology that gave us a better understanding of the prehistoric oceans we were walking through and took a step back to look at the glow of sunset on sandstone cliffs, a way even non-geologists can appreciate the stunning stratification.
We have all had to adapt to a different way of life over the last two years year, and as the world slowly begins to recover, don’t forget that we all have the right to wonder, and be blown away by our own learning.”
Expect lots of good stories, laughter around the evening campfire, and great food, too!
