I was on a very quick four-day circuit through western New Mexico over this Labor Day weekend, the objective being a handful of county highpoints, with the Cerros de Alejandro in McKinley County first up. I left my home early Saturday and drove the lengthy drive into New Mexico along Interstate-40, working my way to the Milan-Grants area. I arrived here in the early afternoon.

The Cerros de Alejandro are a small series of hills located north of the much larger Mount Taylor in the Cibola National Forest. Actually, it's a sparse forest, more meadows than trees, dotted with hills and some interesting rock plugs from past volcanism. The actual highest point of this small range is denoted "BM (Benchmark) Alejan" on the maps, as well as by a benchmark disc at the summit. Access to these hills is off of Interstate-40 (exit 79) west of the towns of Grants and Milan. I followed NM-605 north and northeast to the town of San Mateo, about 24 miles from the interstate. Bypass San Mateo by taking a left at a Y-junction ("Lee Ranch") then a right at another Y about a half-mile later. This road is Forest Road 456, and is not paved.

The road in from here is pretty rough, but not impossible. I had a mid-sized 4-wheel drive pick-up that handled this road very nicely. A 2-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance would be fine in dry conditions. Low clearance passenger vehicles, on the other hand, will likely get banged up by the rocks and possibly stuck in the ruts. After 4 miles or so on FR-456, it turns into FR-239 at a junction. Stay on FR-239 at all subsequent junctions. The forest here is fairly dense but thins out considerably the further in on the road. After seven miles it comes to a gate and a mailbox. After this gate the road really deteriorates. Lots of rocks and ruts for the next six miles. I never got out of first gear. At mile thirteen on my odometer I came to a junction with a dry pond and a corral to the northeast, and a road that turned off to my right (east). This road is usually open, but on this day it was closed. I somehow timed my arrival for the second day of elk hunting season. This may have been why they shut the road, to protect against overuse by vehicles. Not a problem, as I was close to my objective anyway.

Most of the final six miles on the road was on open plateau and I could see "Alejan Hill" peeking up behind a smaller foreground hill for pretty much the entire last bit in. From the parking area, I walked east on the closed road (open to hikers) for about a mile, going up and over a soft rise to get past some lower foreground hills. Soon, Alejan Hill stood before me, nothing blocking our paths with destiny. I walked southeasterly cross-country through the scrub up toward a prominent and obvious northwest ridge to the summit. The hill is a mix of open grassy bits, rock outcrops and thick stands of generic brush (madrone?). I was able to zig and zag up the hill, avoiding the brush, and quickly made the top. The top is gentle and rounded and marked by a small series of cairns and old wooden planks. I stayed for about 20 minutes and relaxed. Mount Taylor dominates the view to the south, while other distant ranges mark the horizon. In the immediate vicinity were numerous hills similar to Alejan, and a couple of old volcanic plugs sticking up out of the plateau like big splinters. Soon, I headed down and ended up walking out with a group of four hunters who had walked in earlier but had no luck. The group consisted of two men, a woman and a child of about 7, all in fatigues and carrying some pretty impressive archery equipment. They were very nice and we chatted as we walked out. My round trip hike took about 90 minutes and covered four miles. It was very pleasant!

Mighty Mount Taylor to the immediate south was next on my agenda, but by the time I drove the road back out to the interstate it was nearly 5 p.m. so I decided to wait until the next morning, which was a good idea since the weather acted up a bit that evening. It turns out that I could have taken one of the side roads to Mosca Peak and a quick short hike to Mount Taylor from there, but I didn't know that at the time. It was just as well as the hike the next day went very well and was lots of fun, too. I stayed in Grants; hotels in Grants are cheap ($20 in 2000), pretty decent, but located near railroad tracks which can be bothersome.