The trail head is near the 10 mile marker on Hwy. 150 going up towards the Taos Ski Valley. At the beginning the climb is not too bad. The trail crisscrosses a stream 17 times (our innkeeper said 22). It's very scenic. The vegetation near the stream is very lush, like a jungle. A characteristic of a deciduous forest.After the seventeenth stream crossing, the trail begins to get steeper. Some of the inclines are very steep.
One thing missing in our New Mexico hikes is wildlife. We rarely see any. This time we saw two hawks chasing each through the trees above us. We startled a grouse, which in turn startled us by suddenly flying out of the brush. Chipmunks were running around and we saw more birds.
We met a couple of hikers at the beginning. Later we met Gax Stone and his 6 month old son, Spiro. He actually caught up with us...Spiro was in his backpack. He was from Taos and teaches Photoshop at the local college.
He gave us some tips on the hike...to look for a meadow/coniferous forest of pines at the top of the hike. So, that was our goal. By around 2:30 PM (we started at 10 AM) Vicki was getting tired, she was feeling the "burn" in her legs, plus the air was getting thinner. We kept going and made it to the pine forest.
Coming down was much easier. I felt it in my knees. Vicki was pretty much fatigued and fell a couple of times...no serious injuries. We got back to the trail head at 5:15 PM.
Dinner was at Relleno's. A very small Mexican restaurant a block from the Plaza. The food was better than Orlando's, so we will definitely be back.
I had a pork relleno chimichanga and Vicki had spinach enchiladas. I tried a green chili brewed beer which was interesting.
After dinner it was back to the B&B to pack for tomorrow's trip home.
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