A woman walking three leashed dogs near the Michial Emery Trailhead ran into three unleashed dogs and their owner. A scuffle broke out among the animals, then a louder one broke out between the owners. The question at the center of it: whose leash law applied out there. The unleashed dogs had been running on what their owner insisted was national forest land, where a handmade sign at the trailhead bulletin board once claimed leashes weren't required. That sign wasn't posted by anyone with the authority to make that call, and it came down not long after it went up.
If you walk that trail more than once a season, the confusion makes sense. The ground under your feet changes ownership three times in about a quarter mile, and none of those three stretches has ever relaxed the rule.
Three jurisdictions, one leash law
The Michial Emery Trailhead sits off High Desert Place NE, named for the Bohannan-Huston engineer who worked out the neighborhood's arroyo system with the city and AMAFCA decades ago. The trailhead itself is owned by High Desert and open to the public, which is the first thing that trips people up. It feels like private community land, and legally it partly is, but the leash rule doesn't loosen just because you've left the subdivision.
Where you're standing | Who owns it | Leash rule |
|---|---|---|
Trailhead parking lot, inside the fence | High Desert (private, open to public) | Leashes required, per city ordinance |
Trail heading east, still within city limits | High Desert open space / City of Albuquerque | Leashes required, no exceptions |
Past the gate and fence line | Cibola National Forest, Sandia Ranger District | Leashes required within Bernalillo County |
That last row is the one people get wrong. Cibola National Forest is enormous, and parts of it stretch into other states and counties with different animal control rules. But the specific acres behind High Desert sit inside Bernalillo County, and rangers at the Sandia Ranger District have said there isn't any gray area on this. If your dog is on Forest Service property here, it goes on a leash.
That's why the sign came down. It was not posted by forest rangers, and it contradicted the rule the Sandia Ranger District enforces. If you're relying on trailhead signage to settle an argument with another hiker, know that the signage itself has been wrong before.
What the fall programming is actually teaching
The city's Open Space Division runs recurring sessions on exactly this kind of confusion. The most recent one, held Sept. 26 at Elena Gallegos' double shelter, covered Leave No Trace principles, trail etiquette, wilderness safety, fire awareness, and e-bike use on shared trails. It's not a coincidence that etiquette and enforcement keep showing up together in the same two-hour block. The foothills trail system east of High Desert is stitched together from land owned by at least three different entities, and the rules change at boundaries most hikers never notice crossing.
Elena Gallegos is the anchor, and it runs on a clock
A few minutes south of the Emery Trailhead, Elena Gallegos Open Space is the 640-acre park most High Desert residents already treat as a backyard. It sits at 7100 Tramway Blvd NE, and the entrance now runs on pay stations at each trailhead rather than the old envelope drop box at the front booth. Worth knowing before your next visit, since the payment method has changed even if the fee hasn't.
The hours shift on a schedule that catches people off guard every year. Summer hours run 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. through Oct. 31. Starting Nov. 1, the park switches to winter hours, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., which means an after-work sunset walk that worked in September will have you locked out by early November.
The Cottonwood Springs Trail on the north end of the picnic area is worth building a walk around this time of year. It's self-guided and accessible, leads to a pond and a wildlife blind, and includes shaded rest stops with original artwork by Margie O'Brien interpreting the surrounding land. It's a different kind of trail experience than the steeper Domingo Baca or Pino routes, and it's the one to bring visitors on if they're not up for elevation gain.
One thing that didn't happen: the city studied building an education center at Elena Gallegos as part of a feasibility review, and the concept was dropped after public comment pushed back on it. Other smaller improvements identified in that same study are still in play, but the visitor center idea itself is off the table for now.
What actually closes and when the color actually peaks
Three things are worth marking on a calendar if you use these trails regularly:
- Sandia Crest stays closed through fall 2027 for two separate improvement projects. The closure covers the Ellis Trailhead, the Sandia Crest Recreation Site, and NM-536 beyond the 10k Trailhead parking lot. If your usual route up La Luz depends on riding the tram down from the crest, that connection is out for a while yet, and the Forest Service's site is the place to check before you plan around it.
- Fall foliage typically peaks in early to mid November in this part of New Mexico, later than a lot of visitors expect when they picture autumn color. The bigtooth maples up in Fourth of July Canyon in the Manzano Mountains get most of the attention, but the Sandia Crest area and the foothills trails around Elena Gallegos carry their own version of the show, weather and closures permitting.
- Winter hours begin Nov. 1 at Elena Gallegos, dropping two hours off the evening end of the day.
Balloon Fiesta week doesn't flood these trails the way it floods Old Town
The 54th ExxonMobil Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta runs Oct. 3 through 11 this year, themed around the Route 66 centennial. New Mexico Day falls on Monday, Oct. 5, when residents get free general admission with a valid NM ID. Balloon Fiesta Park sits well north of High Desert, but the nine days still change traffic patterns and visitor volume across the northeast side.
What doesn't seem to change much is trail traffic in the foothills themselves. One visitor account of Elena Gallegos during Fiesta week described the trail as "not too busy, although it was during Balloon Fiesta," which tracks with how the crowd tends to concentrate at the launch field and Old Town rather than spilling east into the foothills. If you've been avoiding your usual foothills walk during Fiesta week out of habit, the actual crowding pattern doesn't support that.
The map explains the friction
None of this is really about dogs or hours or a shelved building plan. It's about the fact that a single out-and-back walk from your driveway can cross HOA land, city land, and federal land inside of half a mile, and each one answers to a different authority with its own rulebook. That's normal for a master planned community built against a mountain wilderness boundary. It's also exactly the kind of thing that produces a dog scuffle and a shouting match between two people who are both partly right about a rule that doesn't apply where they think it does.
Know the fence line, know what changes on Nov. 1, and know that the crest closure has nothing to do with whether the trail behind your house is open. The rest of it sorts itself out on the walk.
If you're already living this trail system daily and ever want to talk about what's next for your High Desert address, whether that's a move within the neighborhood or a sale down the road, House of Homes NM knows this ground as well as the trail map does.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
