Monday, August 28, 2006

Truchas Take 3 - U.E. (unofficial event, Erika's not a member yet!)

Were not done with Truchas yet!
My wife Erika and I set out on a questionable-weather weekend because we got Gramps to watch the kids, to bag Truchas, again!

Erika has blister problems right from the start ;-( She was psyched but I guess those boots are OK for 2 milers with no backpack only... We took the usual long route up through Jacks creek, which was more like Jacks River after all this rain!


Weird Creatures: Paul found a cool Pterodactyl eggshell on the way up... and you thought Dino's were all gone.

(ok, it was actually half of the biggest puff-ball muchroom I have ever seen! There were more mushrooms in the forest after all of this rain than I have ever seen in ANY forest)




Wildelife: Along the hike we saw these elk, some deer, marmots and the usual cast of chipmunks squirrels and all the rest of the usual suspects.




Awsome Views: We made it to Jacks river and Camp 1 by 19:00 Friday evening planning to hike up to East Pecos Baldy lake early Saturday morning. Once there we'd setup camp and go fast-and-light up to the peak, to save Erika's feet the weight of a full pack on the attempt.



Camp 1 However, the mountain weather had other plans. We woke to steady rain and lost 3 hours waiting for it to stop, fooling around in the tent and cooking under the poncho-tarp.




The Assault: We arrived at the lake by noon, setup Camp 2 and headed off with questionable skies for the shortcut over the saddle to Trailriders wall. But alas here as you can see, the clouds moved in and a few loud claps of thunder and a wall of rain to the north sent us scrambling back down to camp 2. We did 90% of the work and were only 1.5 miles from the summit slopes! As luck would have it it cleared 2 hours after we got back ;-(



Lounging back at Camp 2: Well, summit fever didn't keep us from pulling the plug when we needed to... But the weather wasn't done with us yet! After a nice afternoon around the fire, we were chased into our tent at 21:00 by a WALL OF RAIN. Now I have been in a lot of weather in my time, but never, that much rain and lightning and thunder... My little (really really really small) tent really IS bulletproof! We awoke dry and with at least 3 hours of sleep... after a long night.






Mountain Beauty: Yup, as usual in the end, the beauty of the mountains, accessed by Human Powered Adventure, is reason enough to do it all over again.



Next, in September, my annual Angelfire to Taos Mt. Bike Death Ride !

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can someone post directions on how to get to this base of this mountain?

thanks

danmcq said...

go through pecos, nm to the jack's creek campground and trailhead (see new mexico state map somewhere). follow the jack's creek trail to pecos baldy lake. from pecos baldy lake follow the ridge rider trail to the junction that heads east to truchas lake and back to the west toward a like with vigil in the name. at this tee-intersection walk north up toward south truchas peak along ridge line leaving the marked trail. you can probably find a worn path as you enter the trees.

sorry the directions aren't better, but i don't have my maps with me right now.

Pablito said...

Yup.

That's the way. Additionally when you get to Pecos Baldy Lake, instead of taking the trail the long way around (east) just follow the trail up the north side of the lake and cross over the saddle, stay to the right along the goat-paths and presto, you'll be on Trail Riders Ridge and save about 2 miles of hiking ;-)

There are HUGE kerns on the trail along Trail Riders Ridge, can't miss them.

Google around and you can find better direction to this great hike ;-)