Brent and Melinda used to ranch in Oklahoma, but now they are residents of Red River, New Mexico. Brent volunteers as a hike-leader for locals and tourists through the Community House. But since all the free Community House events are cancelled for the summer because of the coronavirus, Brent is volunteering to be our personal hike leader for this hike. We are so lucky! He has planned a 12-mile U-shaped hike that will be possible because he has two rugged vehicles. We are driving their 4-wheel-drive pickup, following their Can-Am ATV that you can see in the road ahead of us in the dust. We are traveling the scenic Forest Road 597 that traverses the high mountain roads north of Red River.
As we drive, we are actually looking down on the ski resort trails in the village of Red River. What a view!
Both vehicles went up the very rugged road to Cabresto Lake. We had thought about bringing our car to the lake, but when we saw the steep rutted road, we saw what a silly thought that was. No way could a passenger car make it up that last two miles! We got a sneak peek of the lake while we paused long enough to leave the four-wheel-drive pickup here in the parking lot. This will be the end of our hike later today.
Then we drove the Can-Am on to our trail head eleven miles away. This is a little known trail that only locals like Brent know about, and we started hiking on it at 10:30 a.m. Even though we are starting this hike at around 10,000 feet in elevation, we immediately headed higher up into the forest.
We had a beautiful blue-sky day, but we have to say the air up here is super thin. We needed lots of breaks to sit and breathe, and this crooked aspen provided a comfortable place for that.
It's up here in this thin air that the seldom-seen bristle cone pines thrive. These trees can grow to be more than a thousand years old. We learned that the best way to identify a bristle cone is to carefully examine the bristles. If it looks like it would make a good baby bottle brush, it is a bristle cone pine.
About the time Denisa's stomach starting growling, we broke out above tree line for some great views of the surrounding mountain peaks. We like to take pictures of some of the loveliest lunch views on this planet that we get to enjoy.
We have hiked all over North America, so we know our way around a trail or two. We usually use an app called "AllTrails" that rates and reviews hikes. Even though that app has reviews of over 100,000 different trails, it doesn't know about this one. Thanks to Brent for taking us where few people have hiked before! We have now crossed into the Latir Wilderness, where some wild animal seems to be eating this little-seen sign.
In all our miles of hiking, we have never seen a "bearing tree." Used as a survey instrument, it marks the corner of a property from the measurements taken in 1966.
We've been on the trail for almost 4 hours so far, hiking up-hill most of the time. Once we are above the trees, Brent takes us off the trail for the final push to get to our first destination of the day--
the top of Mount Baldy! The summit was marked by this curious stack of rocks and sticks. Considering that Mount Baldy is bald of rocks and trees, this summit cairn is actually more impressive than we first thought. Someone had to carry those rocks and sticks from some distance to make that marker.
Inside that stack of rocks is a metal can with paper and pencil needed to register that we made it to the summit. We penciled in the date and registered, "Mark and Denisa and our trail guide and friend Brent. Beautiful views!!!"
These are the beautiful views that we were enjoying from the top. In the picture we can see Bear Lake--the tiny emerald oval that is far below.
This is our first view of snow on this trail, so Denisa has to scramble down the steep mountain side to enjoy having her feet in snow in the middle of summer.
It was windy at the top, so sitting just over the rim of the mountain gave a windless comfortable place with a great view.
After enjoying a little peak time, we were on the trail again. But now everything is down hill!
Without our local trail guide, we might have been duped into hiking along the trail to this official trail marker--with a lower elevation in the trees and without the glorious rim views.
As we continue down the mountain, we are once again in the trees. We stumbled onto this U.S. Forest Service cabin in the woods. We sat for a few minutes by the cabin,
but we are soon on the trail again to our next destination--Heart Lake.
We really expected it to be shaped like a heart, but a more accurate name would be "tear drop lake."
We had to stop for breathing breaks on the way up the mountain, but we can hike for miles at a time when it is downhill like this second half of the trail. We did take a break at Bull Creek, to enjoy the sounds of the rushing water . . .
and the pretty little mountain blue bells--also known as chiming bells.
As we continued on this 12.2 mile hike, we entered a section of forest that was filled with moths. It's hard to take a good picture that illustrates the hundreds of these gray moths in the air. Even though all those white specks make it look like it was snowing, it was actually "mothing."
At around 6 p.m., we arrived at our final destination--Cabresto Lake. We started hiking at 10,000 feet in elevation, made it to Baldy summit at just over 12,000 feet, and now we're back down to a little over 9,000. It's been a slow roller coaster of a ride today.
We can't lie, we were glad to see this man-made lake that marked the end of this 12.2 mile hike. We stopped just long enough to take a few pictures, then we were glad to sit down for the ride back to our starting point where we left the other vehicle.
We left the motor home at 7 a.m. this morning, and after a stop for pizza for supper, we got home after 9 p.m. It was a full day of wandering God's wonders in these beautiful mountains! This was such a great opportunity to see some of the best of the New Mexico mountain scenery! We love a loop hike, and this was even better. We were so privileged to have a private guide and friend to give so much of his time and resources to make this special hiking day possible! People that give so much to make special experiences for others are another of God's wonders!
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