"Peakbagging"

здравствуйте, readers!  I sincerely hope you are all having an excellent summer.  I can't believe how fast it's flying by!  I feel like I just got here, and I only have 2 and half weeks left before I head back.  You'll notice my blog has a bit different of a format.  This was mostly to make the large images appear better.

Two weekends ago Lindsey visited, and our adventures are detailed in her blog, which I recommend reading.  This weekend, my "Friday On" week (I work 9 hour days, so every other week I get a Friday off), I had no plans.  I had flirted with the idea of going camping and hiking up Chicoma Mountain, the highest peak in the Jemez, but the over 2 hour drive and impending rain kind of put me off that plan.  I could have hiked it without camping, but the trail is less than 1.5 miles long, and 4+ hours of round-trip driving just dissuaded me.  So what did I do with my weekend?  I saw Dunkirk, which I would highly recommend, but be forwarned, it is not Patton or Band of Brothers, it is more like a survival movie or a horror movie.  What else did I do?  Read ahead to find out 😀

Cerro Grande

Saturday morning I drove into the Jemez and climbed Cerro Grande, a 10,207' peak on the southeast side of the Valles Caldera.  The trailhead is very easy to find, as the signage is pretty good around it, and it is only 15 minutes or so from the West Gate of Los Alamos National Lab.  Cerro Grande is the highest point in Bandelier National Monument, but, despite being a part of the monument, it does not appear to be a fee area.  The mountain lends its name to the famous 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, which devastated the surrounding area, including much of the area immediately around Los Alamos.  The mountain itself wasn't damaged much, but the 2011 Las Conchas Fire did damage it.

I would rank this hike as easy-moderate.  The National Park Service lists its one-way length as 2.3 miles and the elevation gain as 1200'.  I think it took me a little over an hour one-way to do the hike.  It took me a hot minute to get a good pace, though, because I eyed two creatures lurking in the grass, and my survival instincts kicked in.  I kept stopping to scan the grass to see if I could figure out what they were, and eventually I got a good enough look to see that they were just coyotes.

USGS Marker, I guess they forgot to include the elevation!

Cairn marking the summit

I'm fairly certain the tall plateau in the distance is the San Pedro Parks, featured in a previous blog

Great view of the Caldera with Redondo Peak in the center.  You can see the road on the left.

View south.  I'm not sure if the camera captures it, but I could see so far south that Ladron Peak and possibly even the Magdalenas were visible.

View towards Pajarito Mountain and the burn damage

View towards the Sangre de Cristos

Panorama with my new phone.  I hope the pictures look better, because the camera on this phone is much, much better.

Trail on the way down, the yellow diamond marking the path is visible on a tree in the distance

Trailhead

St. Peter's Dome

After getting back to the trailhead, it was just past 10 AM, and I had a lot of day ahead of me to kill.  I decided to hike St. Peter's Dome, a prominent, but small, peak straddling the edge of the desert and the mountains.  This peak will probably not end up being painted or photographed, as it's a pretty ugly peak, but from Los Alamos and White Rock it is prominent and recognizable.  The real draw was that I knew a 4WD road that went right to it, so I thought I could squeeze in a nice view without much work.  The name is a mystery, and none of my research has turned up any definitive source.  The book "The Mountains of New Mexico" says that its name comes from its likeness to the dome on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  I would say that this is definitely possible, and perhaps when it had more trees this was less of a stretch of the imagination.  A running theme you've probably seen with the Jemez is that recent forest fires have destroyed a lot of tree cover, and St. Peter's Dome is no exception.  St. Peter's Dome lends its name to the surrounding Dome Wilderness, the smallest wilderness in NM, and this wilderness borders the Bandelier Wilderness.  Both wildernesses were basically de-treed in a 1996 fire.  While I would have loved to see this area with trees, the barren landscape lends an alien feeling to the wilderness.

Getting to St. Peter's Dome is relatively easy.  Not more than 200 yards west of the Cerro Grande trailhead is the forest road that turns off towards St. Peter's Dome.  This is a 4WD road, but in good conditions I doubt you would need it, and I ended up parking next to a 2WD only Honda CRV.  High clearance would be recommended, but one could definitely make it to the official trailhead without it.  Getting to the unofficial trailhead might be a challenge, but it could be doable.  Signage is good enough to not need a map, but when you get to a sign that says "St. Peter's Dome Trailhead" you want to turn left and keep going if you want to take the unofficial trail.  The official trailhead is a 6.1 mile out-and-back, which I certainly did not have the energy to do.  To take the unofficial trail, take that left and drive up until you get to a locked gate.  From here, get out of your car and hike the rest of the 1.1 mile on the Forest Service road to the peak.  The view here is incredible, and you get a good look at Cochiti Lake.  The main 4WD road actually eventually hits Cochiti Pueblo, and if I take a future trip to Tent Rocks I would definitely rather take this route than the roundabout way that goes through Santa Fe and halfway to Albuquerque.  This hike, apart from the utter dryness, is definitely ranked as easy.

St. Peter's Dome with fire lookout tower

I tried to zoom in on what I thought was the top of the Tent Rocks hike, the whitish mesa in the middle.

Fire lookout was a little worse for wear, subjected to a lot of vandalism

Sign that used to say something

View towards Santa Fe and Rio Grande Valley

View towards the Jemez

View south towards Albuquerque, can see Cochiti Lake on the left

This is the gate where you'll have to park

Road leading to St. Peter's Dome

Lake Peak and Deception Peak

Sunday I was on the fence about hiking, but when I woke up I knew it was a hiking day.  I have not been to the Pecos at all this summer, and I really wanted to get at least one good hike in.  After doing Wheeler Peak almost a month ago I've had a hankering to get the Rocky Mountain High again, so the Santa Fe Ski Area was a great jumping off point.  The Santa Fe Ski Area is just over an hour's drive from Los Alamos, and is a gateway to great hikes to Santa Fe Baldy/Lake Katherine, Nambe Lake, and Lake and Penitente Peak.  Because I was uncertain about hiking, I did not set an alarm and woke up "late", around 6:45 AM, and did not get to the Ski Area until 8:40 AM.  The forecast for the Ski Area was good until noon, when it was supposed to start storming.  Because I was "late", Santa Fe Baldy was out of the question totally, and while Nambe Lake would have been beautiful, I really wanted to get on a peak.  Lake Peak and the nearby unofficial Deception Peak can be knocked out with a 3 mile one-way hike.  While Deception Peak is named, it is so close to Lake Peak that it doesn't show up in any official Forest Service literature or maps, so I think it is an unofficial peak, but a peak nonetheless.

This hike requires one to hike the unofficial Raven's Ridge trail.  This trail does not show up in any official Forest Service maps, but it is well-traveled and requires no navigation or route finding.  When you get to the wilderness boundary via the Windsor Trail, take a right and follow the fence until it stops.  Then climb up the steep, rocky trail.  There are many paths that deviate, but all paths eventually meet up at a central path.  This hike is one I would consider hard.  It's only 3 miles, but the elevation gain is over 2000', and since you are traversing a ridge, you end up hiking uphill and downhill, meaning the overall travel uphill is even more.  Also, the uphill portions are often 45 degrees or more, making it feel like you're climbing up stairs.  Going downhill is just as bad, and my knees felt like they were on fire for a good hour after getting in the car.  Hikes like this are the reason why switchbacks exist.  Another reason why it was tough was because my pace was insane.  I am a wuss when it comes to two things: heights and lightning, both of which tend to gravitate to mountains.  I was desperately trying to beat the afternoon thunderstorms, and by the time I started heading down the mountain the thunder had already started rolling in the distance.  By the time I got to the trailhead it was pouring, although my timing was impeccable, since this did not start until literally right after I got in my car (that noon estimate was spot-on).  Car-to-car, it took me 3 hours and 25 minutes, far better than the 4-7 hour estimate on Summit Post.  This meant I felt like I was dying, though, but the scaredy-cat in me decided that exhaustion was a better way to die than a lightning strike.  Finally, the last bit between Deception Peak and Lake Peak "requires class III scrambles in places" according to Summit Post, and I can attest that there are a handful of places where you are literally climbing up rocks.  However, there was never really a point where I felt in danger of falling to my death (just a broken ankle), although the ridge between the two peaks is really steep.  This is a trip I would love to do again and knock out nearby Penitente Peak, another hour both ways.  I would definitely do it outside of monsoon season, though.  I was going off memory from looking at maps when I chose to do this hike, and I thought that Deception Peak was Lake Peak and Lake Peak was Penitente Peak.  I almost chickened out before going to Lake Peak since the sky was turning and it required scrambling, reasoning that I had gotten to Lake Peak (or so I thought), which was good enough for me.  I pushed myself to finish what I started, and I'm glad I did, because it would have been a bummer to go home and find out that I didn't even get to Lake Peak.

Adding to my collection!

This is the Raven's Ridge trail.  As you can see it's really easy to find and follow.

Santa Fe from Deception Peak

View from Deception Peak towards Santa Fe and the Sandias and Manzanos

I met a nice young couple from Maryland who took this picture for me.  They were here on vacation and said they loved it so much they were looking at real estate.  I can't blame them!  You can see the weather really starting to turn over the Truchas in the distance.

Deception Peak from Lake Peak

Nice view of Santa Fe Baldy and the Truchas Peaks from Lake Peak, plus the gnarly weather starting to form.  In my haste I forgot to get a picture of the view to the East, but you can get a little snippet of Penitente Peak on the right.

Back towards Deception Peak from Lake Peak

View of Lake Peak from Deception Peak.  You can see how steep the ridge is.

Nambe Lake from Lake Peak

Santa Fe Baldy in the foreground and the Truchas Peaks in the distance

If you can't make it all the way up, this is a great view of Santa Fe Baldy and the Pecos before the trail gets really steep.

Lake Peak on the left and Deception Peak on the right

Lake Peak on the way up

You can see the storm that was on its way

Grabbed this picture in Los Alamos to try and capture how bad the weather turned since I got off the trail.  The clouds are where the Pecos used to be.

Thank you for reading, everyone.  Next weekend Lindsey visits, then I have one last chance to do something before I drive back home.  My trip home will not be nearly as exciting as the trip here, so there's a chance this could be my last post until I get back to Raleigh.

Corrections and Notes:

Lake Peak is 12,409' high.  It is probably the most easily accessible 12,000' or greater peak from Albuquerque, Los Alamos, Santa Fe, and everywhere in southern NM.  My examination of the map seems to suggest it is the southernmost 12er in NM and, apart from Humphrey's Peak in AZ, is the southernmost 12er in the continental US

I mistakenly said a Honda Civic was parked next to me, but it was a Honda CRV.  I would not do the drive to the unofficial (1.1 mile trip) trailhead in a Honday Civic or similar car, but I think your standard Subaru could make it.

Chama River Canyon Wilderness

Hola, everyone!  This blog post will likely be a shorter one than I usually post.  I hope your Independence Day was excellent.  I was able to watch fireworks as well as a real life brush fire caused by those fireworks!  Luckily the LAFD was able to put the fire out pretty quickly because there were about 300 people tightly packed waiting to get onto buses to be shuttled back to the main hill.

Chama River Canyon Wilderness

Keeping with my weekly attempt to get out and do something, I decided to go somewhere in NM where I have not spent much time. The Chama refers to the area surrounding the Chama river, a picturesque river that flows from the Rockies in the north through high desert landscape made famous by Georgia O'Keeffe in the south until meeting with the Rio Grande just south of Abiquiu.  While getting to the mountains sounded nice on this hot weekend, that drive would have been a little much for me for just a routine hike, so I opted to hike in the southern portion of the Chama, an area popular for tubing, kayaking, and rafting.  This drive was still about an hour and a half from Los Alamos, but it is so scenic that it doesn't really feel like that long of a drive.  The Chama River Canyon Wilderness is a small wilderness just northwest of Abiquiu, NM.  As far as I can tell by the map, only one trail runs through the wilderness.  The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) cuts through the wilderness and intersects with Forest Road 151 about 30 yards before Skull Bridge.  The "trailhead", while marked on the map, is not obvious.  There is a large sign near the bridge that has scant information on it, but there are no restrooms or maps or trail descriptions.  There is a somewhat confusing paragraph explaining how to find the trail from the sign, but if you walk southeast along the road (the way out of the canyon) for about 30 yards you will see a post with a CDT marker and a cartoon of a hiker.  The trail is nearby.

Because the trail is merely the CDT, there is no loop or obvious turn back point.  My trip was devoted to getting the best view of the canyon possible.  Once you get to the top of the mesa (right about where the 7700' marker is on the topo), the views of the canyon are pretty stunning.  I wanted to get a view of the Jemez so I hiked to where the red line stops, but since I was not planning on hiking that far I didn't print out any more map and turned around, since I didn't want to hike aimlessly for no reason.  It looks like if you keep hiking to the 'x' mark (near the 8012 marker) you will get a good view of the Jemez.

Overall, this hike was about 8 miles total.  The sky was clear while I was hiking, and there was no wind, so the hike was pretty warm the whole time, probably over 90 degrees F.  The elevation gain was approximately 1500', but spread out over 3.5 miles, so it's not too bad.  The trail was pretty well maintained, but it is easy to accidentally end up off trail.  If you catch yourself right away it's easy to figure out where the real trail is, so if it all of a sudden looks like you're off trail you probably are.  I was surprised by how little evidence of other people I saw.  I didn't see another person the entire time hiking, nor did I see any footprints other than my own (or trash, a nice change).  I saw a lot of elk prints and scat, though.  I think this hike would be excellent to do in Spring or Fall when it's not so hot, and the potential backpacking campsite views were world class.  The only downside would be that all water would have to be packed in, but for a 4-5 mile hike that's not so bad.

The parking lot in relation to the trailhead

The trailhead.  The CDT markers are scarce to start the hike, but they become abundant after a mile or two.

The trail at one point becomes very lush and green, although it still feels dry as hell

A much less impressive wilderness boundary sign than the others I've posted here

My view of the Chama River Canyon

View of Cerro Pedernal (foreground), and, I believe, Polvadera Peak (background) from about halfway up the trail

Monastery of Christ in the Desert

Afterwords I took the short drive to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert.  It is a Catholic Benedictine abbey that welcomes visitors of all faiths, including none, any day of the week.  The monastery occupies an absolutely pristine setting, and there are plenty of places to think, pray, meditate, read, etc.  The idea here is silence and introspection, although visitors can volunteer to work and even stay overnight.  The design of the monastery and the property is gorgeous, and it is somewhat haunting being in the chapel and looking up through the skylights to see three crosses perched along the mesa top.  The monks actually are professional chanters and sell CDs of them chanting, and I was able to hear them practicing when I came.  At one point this monastery was home to the only abbey-based brewery in the US, but I heard one of the monks mention that it was sold, and the Abbey Brewing Company, the current owner, licenses the monks' image and name in return for royalties.  The Abbey Brewing Company is excellent at hiding this fact, as I had no idea the monks did not make the beer anymore, although closer inspection of the packaging and their website shows that they never claim the monks actually make the beer.  The brewery itself specializes in Belgian beers, which is kind of a breath of fresh air in this IPA-obsessed state (not that I'm complaining).  I'm not sure if any brewing happens at the monastery anymore, although the website says they are "on the monastery property", but I do know that they have a small hop farm on the property from which they make two seasonal beers, according to the company's website.  Either way, the beer is good and unique, so I recommend it.  They apparently have a taproom in Albuquerque, which adds to the overwhelming amount of taprooms and breweries that have opened there since I moved away.

The chapel.  I may have jumped a little bit when the bell went off.

There is also a gift shop where you can support the monks by buying any number of items handmade by them or by others.  I wanted to buy a handmade rosary, but they were unfortunately sold out.  If you are totally secular, they also sell candles, handmade leather items, and prints of desert scenery, among many other things.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short-ish blog.  I am going to Santa Fe tomorrow to, at the very least, buy some cigars, but probably also to check out some of the typical tourist stuff.  This upcoming weekend Lindsey is visiting me for the first time in about a month (exciting!) so I will not post.  She has done a wonderful job covering our adventures while she's in town, and next weekend is Los Alamos' Science Fest, so I'm sure she'll have plenty to talk about!  Have an excellent week, everyone!