Sandia Mountains man knows La Luz

Tramping up La Luz on a March morning with David Hammack is like getting a tour of Yankee Stadium from Mickey Mantle or a once-over of the Sistine Chapel from Michelangelo.

Hammack knows every bend of the trail – both the original, steeper approach we are traversing today and the newer, gentler one that was built in the 1960s and what most people use when they hike La Luz.

He knows his vegetation, and he’s worried that the oak should be greener by this time of year.

He knows his scat, and shares the fact that there are a lot of ringtails in the Sandias and they like to squat on rocks.

He knows the weather, and he predicts with accuracy where the ground will be dry, where it will be slushy and where we’ll find ice.

Hammack also knows his rocks. He can point to a slab called Yataghan and trace the route he took with his friend Reed Cundiff on the first ascent of it by climbers in 1960. Same for the outcroppings known as the Needle, the Thumb and the Frog.

We pause on a clearing where we’re surrounded by the crags and canyons that decorate the west face of the Sandias, and I say to Hammack, “You’ve climbed all these rocks.”

He looks around carefully and says, “Oh, not all of them.”

Despite his modesty, Hammack is the old man of these mountains. His first ascents are legendary among climbers. He’s trained on the trail ever since moving to Albuquerque in 1959 and has taken part in the annual race to the summit 13 times. He ventures that he has run or hiked from the La Luz trailhead to the 10,678-foot summit something like a couple thousand times.

When the need to make a map of La Luz arose years ago, Hammack drew out each switchback and numbered them, all 38. He did it at home, from memory.

Hammack is a 1929 model with some new factory parts: a right hip and a pacemaker. But the 84-year-old otherwise shows little wear and tear. After some downhill tumbles, including one that left a plume of cactus spines in the top of his head, Hammack reconsidered his disdain for hiking poles and picked up a pair. They now help with his balance.

If you’ve hiked up the Sandia Mountains on La Luz, you have probably had an encounter with Hammack.

David Hammack first started climbing on the west face of the Sandias in 1959. Since then, he has hiked La Luz trail thousands of times. At 84, he hits the trail several times a week as a volunteer for the U.S. Forest Service. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Journal)

Dressed in U.S. Forest Service green, wearing sturdy boots and toting a pack, Hammack stops every hiker he meets and invariably asks, “How far are you headed today?”

As a volunteer “trail ambassador,” Hammack is available to offer information about trail conditions, identify landmarks and vegetation, listen to complaints about dog poop on the trail, scold people who make shortcuts on the trail and answer the inevitable question from the blistered walker: “How far is it to the top?”

Every time I’ve encountered Hammack on the trail and he’s asked how far I’m headed, I’ve gotten the feeling I’m being gently assessed. Do I have the right shoes and clothing? Do I look strong enough for this hike? Am I going to push too far and end up needing a trail rescue?

Hammack grants that he is not just saying howdy-do when he stops to chat. He’s also gauging whether people are prepared for what they are undertaking. He doesn’t hesitate to let a hiker know he or she should be wearing more appropriate shoes or have a jacket in the winter, and sometimes he gently suggests that trying for the summit might not be advised.

“A lot of people are kind of relieved to be told they should turn back,” he said.

If you haven’t seen Hammack on the trail, it’s possible that he has still seen you. His habit is to make the hike three times a week, on Saturdays and Sundays when it is most heavily used and one morning in the middle of the week. He makes his ascent on the 20-percent grade of the old trail, and on that climb he can pause and look across a canyon at the newer trail cutting its zigzag at a 12-percent grade on the facing slope.

Like a mountain lion, Hammack quietly surveys the groups and lone walkers making their way up the mountain. These days, Hammack usually turns around at the five-mile mark. His hiking has slowed with the decades, and a vertical gain of 2,000 feet instead of the complete 3,700 feet is fine by him. He has a snack and descends on the main trail and begins his ambassador duties, meeting all those hikers he kept his eye on from across the canyon and greeting them with, “How far are you headed today?”

The downhill walk is for the Forest Service, but the uphill hike is mostly for himself.

I asked Hammack, a former Presbyterian minister and longtime electrical contractor who sold his business in 1994, what he thinks about as he takes the same hike morning after morning, year after year.

Hammack reminded me of what any woodsman knows – that you may walk the same path over and over, but you never take the same hike twice.

“I see something different every time,” he said. And while he sometimes works through an issue during his hike, he mostly just hikes.

“I really try to stay in the present,” he said. “Staying in the present is a challenge that I really take on because it’s so much fun to be aware of what’s going on around you.”

He and his wife Sondra met in California and have been married for 60 years and raised five children. They settled in Corrales, and Hammack set his sights on the mountain directly in his view: the Sandias. He has explored most of the trails on the mountain, but La Luz is the one that won his heart.

“It’s the most challenging, I think, of the trails,” he said “A combination of spectacular views and a challenging trail, so that’s where I settled.”

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Leslie at 823-3914 or llinthicum@abqjournal.com. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal