New Mexico Alternate Routes (PieTown To Grants)?

[Miner]

Just so you understanding where I’m coming from to understand the purpose of my questions, these are my personal rules for taking alternate routes (other people can do what they want and I’m good with that):

• For scenic beauty
• For personal safety (fire closures, dangerous high water, heavy snow issues, etc.)
• To make resupply easier by avoiding a hitch, provided the shorten distance is only a handful of miles.

In light of those rules, I have a few questions on some of the central New Mexico Alternatives just north of Pie Town. I’ve downloaded the latest GPS waypoints from Bear Creek Survey and have been studying the official vs popular alternative routes in my PC's Garmin GPS mapping software.

Cebolla Wilderness Alternate: This alternate goes from Pie Town to State Route 117 bypassing much of El Malpais National Monument but avoids a lot of busy highway walking by using little used minor roads. As highway walking might actually be more dangerous than most things on the trail, so this might be a good thing. At first glance, this alternate's purpose would seem to be just to shorten the distance to Grants while avoiding having to hike along busy highways. It cuts off ~50 miles which seems excessive if it doesn’t have anything else going for it. But after looking at a potential alternate route to part of the alternate, it might have some potential. Hence my questions below.

1. What is the road walk like up to near Rt 117 just before the route leaves the road (at Bear Creek alternate waypoint, CW245) for a cross country cut to the east to join another road going north up to Rt 117? Anything nice about it compared to the highway walk, or is it purely to avoid the highway walking along State Rte 603/36/117.
2. Is there a reason why one can’t just continue straight north at that point (waypoint CW245) to Rte 117 along the same road you had been hiking on? The road seems to be the boundary between the NM and private land and access should be allowed I would think. But what is the reality? Private road with no public access? This would allow getting to Rte 117 ~1.5 miles NE from where the official route leaves Rte 117 to start following the ancient native route across the monument and would likely be the scenic highlight of this section. I would think this would be the part one wouldn’t want to miss if one ignores the heat/water issues of the area. The negatives of this alternate to the alternate for some is that it adds back in many of those miles that were being skipped. Positives are it adds back in some of the scenic beauty of the area. Hence the reason why I'm exploring the option.

Edit: Never mind. Seems like a route change to the official route may be now using the exact route I was asking about abpove. Now I need to understand why the available way points of the official route don't reflect the changes that exist on the available maps and Guthooks.


Bonita Zuni Alternate: This alternate cuts off some of the highway walking to Grants from El Malpais National Monument. Using this alternate shortens the mileage from the official route by ~4 miles, avoids some highway walking, but it does remove 4 to 5 miles of the hiking through El Malpais NM that might be nice.

3. What are the last few miles of the cross country section through El Malpais like? Would one be giving up some interesting scenery if they used the alternate here?
4. Anyone actually know if the alternate route has any nice scenery. The map suggests it might as you are hiking a dirt road instead of a highway to start (which is already a plus) and then a potentially paved minor road through a steep narrow canyon along a creek bed that might be nice. Is this creek dry or wet most years?

Thanks for your help.