So this weekend wasn't nearly as strenuous as the previous weekends. The initial plan was to take off Saturday afternoon (after the REI scratch and dent sale) and head up the Pecos river to backpack to Pecos Baldy. Once Saturday rolled around Sarah and I were both 50/50 on whether we wanted to go or take the weekend off. Eventually we decide to stay in for the weekend because it was Alfie's birthday party on Saturday night, plus we got invited to an Albuquerque Isotopes games.
Instead of heading up the Pecos, we decided to do a day hike up to the Manzano Ridge. After sleeping in on Sunday morning, we got a late start and left my place around 1pm. We packed up Bella and our gear and started the hour drive up the east side of the mountains.
After parking at the Kayser Mill trail head at 8200 ft, we pack up our day packs (and Bella's of course) and headed up the trail.
The trail is fairly easy with no significantly steep areas. The great thing about the Manzano Mountains is that very few people use them. Due to the proximity of the Sandia Mountains to Albuquerque, no one is willing to drive the hour it takes to get to the Manzano's. This means that you rarely if ever meet anyone on the trail. The drawback, however, is that the trail gets a little overgrown in places and you have to push through some thickets.
About 1 hour and 45 minutes later we reach the ridge trail.
After another 15 minutes of hiking we reach a nice look-out point at around 10,000ft. Here we take a break, drink some water and enjoy the view out over the Rio Grande Valley, 5000ft below.
Overall we hiked 4 miles and did 1800 ft of elevation gain, and enjoyed a lot of sunshine and great view.
It was also nice to get Bella out for some hiking. I'm hoping to get her in shape on take her on some multi-day trips in the near future.
You can also see the picture here at my flickr page
1 comment:
Bella is so cute. That Sarah isn't too bad either. ;-)
so glad you are having a good time!
~jessica
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