 |
| Even More Solitude.. looking west towards Tesuque Peak, deception peak and Lake Peak. |
I never ended up getting out there last summer/fall, and then the snows hit, making this geocache pretty impossible to find. But the snows weren't heavy this winter, and by April the peaks were looking bare and ready for hiking again. And I got to thinking about a long morning hike out to this lonely spot. As an added incentive I decided I would place a new geocache at Nambe lake which surprisingly does not already have a cache at it. Maybe there used to be one there? My route would take me up Raven's ridge to Deception Peak and Lake Peak. I would then skirt around Penitente Peak to head south and find "Even More Solitude" on an un-named peak on the ridge line. That would be my turn-around point, after which I would return to lake peak and descend a ridge north that I had skipped a few years back as being too out of the way. This would put me right above Nambe Lake, which I would somehow descend to and then take easy trails back to the trailhead at Santa Fe Ski basin. Sounded like as good a plan as any.
As with my trip to this area a few years back, I got a pretty early start, leaving the house at 5:30 am and hitting the trail as early as 6:10am. At least this time I didn't have to hike by headlamp, not that I mind that kind of thing. I made quick time up Raven's ridge, stopping to check on a few of the geocaches I had previously found. Every cache I stopped to check on was there and in good shape, although not with many more names in the logbooks. These are pretty well traveled trails, but not by geocachers. I was startled by two hikers and their three dogs as I made the climb up Lake Peak. I was a little surprised that spomeone would be out on the ridge this early, it was only 7:30 am! They had risen well before me and hiked up to the peak to watch the sunrise and moon-set. I'll have to try that some time. They asked where I was heading and I pointed out to the un-named peak and ridgeline to our east, mentioning that I was going after a geocache out there. One of the guys asked what geocaching was and that launched me into a spiel about the hobby. I enjoy talking about this game I play, and they seemed genuinely interested, but maybe I came off as a little too enthusiastic. I mean... did I really have to take the ammo can out of my back-pack to show them what a geocache can look like? Who knows, maybe they'll actually look up the game and give it a try.
 |
| Near Deception Peak |
After tagging Lake Peak, I made my way down the skyline trail and around the flank of Penitente peak to the point on the ridge where I would have to break off and go cross country towards the solitary geocache to the south. I had hoped this would be relatively easy hiking, and turns out I was right. While the ridge was wooded, it was an easy open woods, with little to no understorey or downfall. The only real impediment to fast hiking was a bit of snow that lingered in the shade under the trees. But even this was pretty easy to walk over without post-holing, or avoid. I made quick time to the geocache and took a nice break there to eat a snack and enjoy the views of the Pecos wilderness. I was making good time, it was only 8:40 am.
 |
| Snow wall beneath Penitente Peak |
Turning around, I quickly made my way back to Lake Peak, opting to avoid tagging Penitente in the interest of time. Not that I needed to be back for anything in particular, my wife and kids were spending a relaxing morning at the house doing their own thing and seem happy enough when I leave them to their own devices. But I had a self-imposed deadline to be back by noon, and I was determined to keep this commitment. Before reaching the top of Lake Peak, I decided to try to short cut around a topo-line around the peak to save myself some elevation climb/loss. This turned out to be more challenging than I thought it would be since there were still significant snow drifts on the north-est sloped of lake Peak. I slowly post-holed my way over to the north ridge, and finally made it to the Nambe Loop geocache. This cache took me a while to find, maybe 20 minutes. There was a picture hint in one of the old logs, but I hadn't downloaded it to my phone and there was no reception out there, so I just had to search around... you know the way geocachers are supposed to. After expanding my search are a bit, I did finally locate the cache, which was in good shape. reading through some of the logs, I noticed something interesting... there appears to be a dialogue of sorts going on in this logbook. Someone who doesn't geocache, and looks unfavorably upon the game, found this geocache back in 2014, and left some disparaging comments, even threatening to take the geocache out as trash. Obviously he/she didn't, but after nearly every entry from a new geocacher in the logbook, there is an entry from this same person, talking about how geocaches are ruining the wilderness, and how geocachers are sheep blindly following their GPS devices, and not really exploring anything. I found this all very interesting and might even write a separate blog post about it. What kind of person would come to this spot repeatedly and write negative comments about geocaching?
 |
| Looking down at Nambe Lake |
Descending down to Nambe lake was the biggest unknown for my loop hike, but it turned out to be striaghtforward. From the Nambe Loop cache, there was a steep trail that took me directly down to the lake, and only a small amount of snow made this at all challenging. I wandered around the frozen lake for a little while, looking for a good spot to hide my ammo can and settled on a spot with an excellent view of the lake. Unlike some of my other wilderness caches, this one is located in a spot that will be very easy to get to for anyone who makes this hike, and I am actually a little worried that it will be too easy to find. This lake is a pretty popular day-hike and backpacking destination and it won't surprise me at all if hikers/campers find this cache. I just hope that they will read the Cache note and respect it. I could have hid the cache in a much more out of the way spot to avoid this, but I decided to take a chance this time. The spot where it is hidden is very beautiful and the cache is tucked away far enough back in a rock crevice where I think it will be safe. Time will tell.
 |
| Sun-washed shot of Nambe Lake |
 |
| The hiding nook at Nambe Lake |
I passed a few more hikers on my way out down the Nambe Lake trail and Winsor trail. It was a beautiful morning after all and this is where I expected to see people, but hey, did they realize they were busting up my "solitude". The nerve! The forest smells amazing right now, with the sap running in the trees, but the aspens not yet starting to leaf out. I was feeling pretty good too, and even broke into an easy trot for parts of the trail back. I got to the car at 11:10am, making the whole loop in 5 hours.
Some final stats:
- Geocaches found: 2...well 2 new ones.
- Geocaches found again: 3 all in good shape.
- Geocaches placed: 1
- Miles hiked: 9.4
- Elevation gain (Max-Min): 2092 ft
- Hours of solitude: ~5
 |
| Looking up at SF Baldy on my way out |
No comments:
Post a Comment