New Mexico's High Point is Wheeler Peak at 13,161 feet. Located in the Taos Ski Valley, there are two trails to its summit; the Williams Lake route which is the shorter 3.5 mile one-way trail but rises 2,960 feet in elevation (ie: you go straight up the mountain and its steep!!), or the longer 7 mile one-way trail which rises 4,560 feet (ie: longer but gradual steepness).We stayed two nights at Columbine Inn in the Taos Ski Valley to acclimatize to the higher altitude (lessons learnt from climbing Humphreys!). We spent a day in Taos, eating, window shopping and relaxing at the local pool and spa. There was a great restaurant called Orlando's New Mexican Cafe just north of the main part of Taos which had great mexican food and fantastic atmosphere including outdoor seating. The lines at the door were a sign of its popularity! Another great place is the Taos Pizza Out Back restaurant not far from Orlando's on the same main road. Authentic, home made pizzas in another fantastic atmosphere made eating out in Taos one of our favourite places.
On Saturday 21st June, we made our way to the trailhead parking lot for the Wheeler Peak summit. Rocking up at 5am, we were the second car in the parking lot with two guys in a van already getting ready for the hike. We were on the trail at 5.20am starting at 10,200 feet in elevation, hiking towards Williams Lake first which was 2 miles from the parking lot. The hike makes its way through the trees, and we had to hike across many piles of snow left over from the winter now yet melted under the trees. We arrived at Williams Lake, which was at 11,040 feet at 7am. Not too bad time wise, and we were greated with a beautiful view of the lake with the sunrise on the mountains over the lake. Check out the picture below!
This was when the hard work started as we would now have to hike up nearly 2,000 feet within a mile and a half of trail. Taking a trail to the right of the lake that was a valley between two mountains, we started through the trees and it wasn't long we were above the trees and on the rocky mountainside still with fields of snow on it. At times we would hike across the snow, and other times scramble across the rocks. It was steep, often 60 degrees steep! It was good to have our trekking poles! Forward the top, the wind was starting to blow quite ferociously! We came to the ridge between Wheeler Peak and Mount Walter just around 9am. Leaving our packs behind there, we hiked to the summit arriving at 9.15am. There was a canon -like marker there where we took a few pictures. After a few snacks, we hiked to the summit of Mount Walter (also over 13,000 feet) before heading down.
On our way down, we saw a group of Bighorn sheep crossing the mountain side below us which was cool. There were also many marmots making their homes in the mountain side, running across the snow fields and jumping into their holes. The trip down the same route we came up was steep, but the snow fields were so inviting we took the opportunity to slide down on our bottoms which made the trip down so much quicker, and so much more fun! See the pictures below of our snow sliding and the steepness of the mountain! We saved a lot of time arriving back at the trailhead at 12 noon. Mark and I both agreed that Wheeler Peak was by far the most interesting and rewarding high point so far.
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