DATELINE SANTA FE

Hiking Baldy

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The local summit hike is Santa Fe Baldy.  Visible from town, the treeless peak is a prominent fixture of the Sangre de Cristo skyline.  To get there simply drive to the Santa Fe Ski area and park in the lower lot (near the forest service bathrooms).  Just across the creek you will find the Windsor Trail (254).  This is a great social hike because most of the vertical gain is concentrated in a couple sections and walking and talking is easy most of the way.  The first mile is a steep section, it gets the heart pumping and lungs cleared so don’t panic if you are huffing & puffing fifteen minutes into the hike.  Soon you reach Wilderness Gate (can’t miss it) and things level out and, in fact, drop a little in elevation.

If you usually hike at lower elevations, this will take a little getting used to.  It’s real easy to get winded on the steeper sections especially if you like to talk (like I do).  From Wilderness Gate to Puerto Nambe the trail heads through mixed pine and aspen forest and is nicely shaded.  A little more than a mile from the Gate you will see a sign for Nambe Lake.  I should’ve told you that this is a fairly long hike and if you’re not up to the 14 mile round trip you might consider heading over to Nambe Lake for a wonderful afternoon and it’s only half the distance. But from here the going is fairly easily and after a little uphill you will find yourself in some open meadows with great views of the Ravens Ridge and the Nambe Shoots to the south and Baldy to the north.  You are now at the top of the Puerto and this is a great spot to take a break.

After you enjoy a little time here, get back on the trail and head upward to the saddle.  It gets a little arduous so pace yourself and keep an eye on the weather.  Thunderstorms start brewing around noon and lightning is a killer so be ready to turn around at the first sign of bad weather.  If you have a hiking buddy that walks really fast you can slow them down by getting them to do all the talking.  My son is in great shape (finished 16^th in the Los Angeles Triathlon last month) and when we hit steep sections of trail I toss out my best questions like, “can you explain about the nature of pulsars with dual orbits”? Or something crazy like that. This gets him to taking and prevents him from leaving me in the dust.  Anyway, before you know it you will find yourself at the saddle.  You will know that you are at the saddle because you will have one of those Sound of Music experiences as the mountain falls away beneath you and the entire Pecos Wilderness comes into view below. This is another great spot on the trail to take a break.  Lake Katherine trekkers will keep heading straight and down into the Pecos watershed but Baldy summiteers turn left and head upward to the northwest along the ridge and last remaining pines and large boulders that define the Rio En Medio watershed.

Whether you hike alone or with friends you can’t help noticing that each trail has its own personality.  I find that regardless of what mood I’m in when I start this hike, I quickly find myself in a joyful, contented state of mind.  It changes a little as you get higher and at the highest elevations (I call the quiet zone) there is a Zen-like experience.  That’s at the last push to the summit when you begin gauging your strength and breath with every step.  Stopping now and again to look back to see how far you’ve come, or up to survey what you hope is the summit and the end of the trail. There is no wasted energy here and if there is any talking it’s brief encouragement, or simple navigational confirmation.

The quiet zone reveals to us our own wilderness; a place where we come face-to-face with ourselves and find the rarest of all experiences, solitude.  With time and patience hiking in the quiet zone becomes magical.  The slow, gravel crunching sound of laborious boots decisively plodding atop steep scree and talus slopes can be heard with the accompanying rhythm of your own deep protracted inhalations and quick windy exhalations. “Slow and steady, gains the Summit.” This is the classic mountaineering mantra and before too long the summit comes into view.

The quiet zone on Baldy starts for me just after you leave the saddle and head up above tree line. From here you begin to see the panorama of the Rio Grande valley in full glory.  As a backdrop to this splendor are mountains ranging from Mt. Taylor and the Arizona border all the way up the valley to views of Antonito Peak and the Colorado border and then back around to Wheeler Peak in Taos and the Truchas Peak trinity.

Once at the peak, the views of the Pecos wilderness and all of Northern New Mexico cannot be expressed with words. For me it’s like the ocean, you can just sit there and stare at it all day and never lose interest.  Well that’s the hike, or at least half of it (you still need to go back). As I write this today, Baldy sits covered in snow as the first major storm has closed off the trail until next spring. I’m thankful that I had the privilege of hiking it twice this fall, once with my son the day before he headed back to college and again a couple weeks later with my new hiking buddy who hiked it for the first time.  It’s always a long day out so take the usual hiking provisons. It takes longer than 28 holes of golf so start early and don’t schedule anything difficult for the afternoon. The Travel Bug downtown is a great resource for maps and information about hiking, so if you need anything just stop in.

October 26, 2009 Posted by Carson & Carson | Around Town | Baldy, Hiking, Santa Fe | Leave a Comment