State Highpoint Number 25

New Mexico

Date: August 4, 2010
Peak: Wheeler Peak
Height: 13,161 feet
Vertical Climb: 3,693 feet
Round-Trip Mileage: 16.0 miles
Peak Class: 6
Height Rank--US: 8th

Sunrise was at 6:10 and I was on the trail right at 6:00—leaving the Twining Campground parking lot and taking the Bull of the Woods route to the summit. The day before I had hiked nearly to the Bull of the Woods Pasture in running shoes to help acclimate the altitude but I was still struggling this morning as I left the parking lot. It was an unofficial goal to summit in five hours but that was just a number pulled out of my head. This was my third attempt—the first two being aborted when I got into snow at the La Cal Basin. I won’t hike solo in snow—I’m from Texas…..For this hike I was carrying a backpack with a long-sleeve shirt, rain jacket, six pints of water, trail mix, two power bars, apples and nectarines, and jerky. It probably weighed 20-25 pounds with the water making most of the weight.

The trail is steep and rocky and I read somewhere that it is here you gain the most altitude but I’m not sure I believe that. It is, however, strenuous and it took me a good fifteen minutes to actually start breathing normal again. Despite my conditioning all this year, I had to pace myself and take breaks in what seemed to be every 100 steps or so. I reached to old logging road fairly quickly and the trail widened but didn’t get any easier.

I may well have been among the first people setting out from this trailhead because I didn’t see anybody else until about thirty minutes into the hike when a couple of hikers passed me—about one mile up the trailhead. I reached the Bull of the Woods Pasture (2 ¼ miles) after about 1 hour and 25 minutes and felt pretty good at this point.

After taking a short break there, I continued upward along the trail and had a beautiful view of the chair area of the Taos Ski Valley below on the right. It was an encouraging sign in that I could see that I had made significant progress from the trailhead. The trail here was not particularly steep and somewhat pleasant compared to the first segment. After climbing a while, I passed the Red River Valley on the left with amazing views to the north.

Shortly after this, I passed through the old log gate and entered into the Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area and worked my way upward until I cleared the tree line—the alpine area—which I knew was about 12,000 feet in New Mexico.

About three hours into the hike I saw my first bighorn sheep. Even at the distance, they were very obviously bighorns and I took a photo with my zoom lens that was still very hard to distinguish but as I edited and zoomed the photo later, they are very clear. I later saw alpine deer and about this time I began seeing marmots and chipmunks literally everywhere.

After peaking what I believe was Frazier Mountain, the trail leveled off then began descending into what is referred to as the La Cal Basin. This is where the snow halted me on the first two hikes and was the reason I waited until August to try this ascent. Especially the second trip up, snow was everywhere and knee-deep and I was getting lost trying to find the trail but this year there was absolutely no snow anywhere. I later saw two patches of snow on distant mountainsides but didn’t encounter any myself.

About this time, I encountered two men coming down the trail. Turns out they were from Fort Worth and St. Louis but had been living in the mountains for several months. They were both really nice and one of them was telling me about riding the Katy Trail in Missouri—one of my future goals. They estimated I was about half-way to the summit at this point. There’s an old Highpointer saying—“the higher you climb, the nicer the people,” and I’ve found that’s true. After a brief conversation with them, I headed out again and here is where the La Cal Basin begins to descend into a “saddle” or valley. I had been warned from several trip reports that this is the most discouraging part of the hike because you lose all the altitude you just worked to get. It was at this point I was passed by a jogger of all things! I had seen the same guy the day before actually running up the steep part from the trailhead.

I was nearly four hours into the hike—all upward at this point—and I was beginning to feel the climb in my legs. The hike down involved a series of switchbacks and was easy but I couldn’t enjoy it because I knew I was going to have to climb right back up.

The short hike across the basin was also easy but then came the monster series of switchbacks upward. Every trip report had described this as the most difficult part of the ascent and they weren’t exaggerating.

The trip report I was relying on suggested setting a pace of 100 steps and a short rest but I was averaging more like fifty steps between rests and it seemed I was never making any progress. The switchbacks just keep going up, and up, and up….. To make it even worse, there at least three “false summits” where you think you’re at the top only to find the trail continues on to an even higher peak.

By now, I was approaching my five-hour goal and still was nowhere close to the summit. My legs were beginning to feel rubbery and were really starting to wobble on me. My right knee, where I had the meniscus pad stitched last spring, was beginning to feel sore so I took four Advil.

After the second “false summit,” the sky started getting dark and I could hear thunder in the background. I couldn’t see Wheeler Peak but knew where it was and dark clouds were blowing by on both sides of it. Everything, and I mean everything, I’ve read says to get off the mountain if there’s lightening.

As I was approaching the third “false summit”—Mount Walter—I was passed by another hiker who was really moving along at a fast clip. He got about a half-mile ahead of me on the switchbacks and there was a big clap of thunder above us and I saw him swivel on this heels and start right back down the trail. By now my legs were screaming at me to stop and I thought that if I needed a legitimate excuse to turn back, the storm was it. But I continued up—still about fifty steps at a time between rests—and finally I met him coming back down. He recommended I turn back but also told me if I continued on to watch the storm on the north side particularly and if I “saw” any lightening to either get off the mountain or hunker down in the open under my rain poncho until the storm passed.

And so I continued on. I can honestly say without too much exaggeration that it was one of the more physically punishing decisions I’ve ever made. I had just come too far and invested too much money on this trip to turn back at this point. At the slow pace I was moving, both storms blew past eventually. Along here, I was passed by a woman, also from Fort Worth, who was spending the summer in New Mexico and we talked a while. As we started back up, she easily outdistanced me and shortly disappeared from sight.

At the top of the La Cal Basin the trail became a ridgeline path up to Mount Walter—the final “false summit.” I, however, had lost count and as I approached it, I saw the woman and two young guys at a marker and thought I had finally reached the summit of Wheeler Peak only to find that I was on Mount Walter and the summit was another couple hundred yards further (and uphill) to Wheeler Peak.

The three other hikers obviously beat me up but I struggled up the ridgeline and finally bagged my 25^th highpoint. My third attempt spanning over ten years. 13, 161 feet elevation and a 16-mile round-trip hike involving 3,693 feet of elevation climb.

The view, however, is spectacular. The four of us took pictures of each other, signed the logbook in the marker tube, and rested. We were almost immediately overrun by marmots and chipmunks begging for food. They were really persistent and would almost tug at your pant leg with their teeth to get attention.

The two guys were college students and were working at the nearby Philmont Scout Camp for the summer. They were particularly nice kids and the four of us had a good rest at the top. They had climbed from another route and were going back that way and the woman was returning a different route also so I was solo going back down which was a good thing because my legs were shot and I wasn’t making any good time at all at this point.

Before we left, we fed the critters trail mix and probably raised their cholesterol levels to insane numbers. I guess one of the marmots felt ignored because it grabbed the cord to my camera and took off dragging it. Another took off with the map the two guys were using.

If anything, the trip back down was more punishing that the trip up because my legs were like jelly at this point and the downhill hike was just killing my toes. On top of that, one of my boots started coming apart along the side. At the end, when I pulled my boots off, I had four black toenails and all four were bleeding. I threw the boots in the nearest trash can.

The time to the summit was about seven hours—nearly two hours more than my goal—and the total time trailhead to trailhead was 11 hours and 10 minutes, including the time at the top. Not particularly good times but at least they’re “my” times. The drive back to Taos—only about thirty minutes—seemed to take hours but it was worth it.

I finally conquered Wheeler Peak!!!!!