As of Labor Day 2004, I had completed 30 of New Mexico's 33 county highpoints. My wife Beth and I were visiting Silver City in southwest New Mexico and we formulated a plan to visit Santa Fe with the intent of hiking up Santa Fe Baldy in the very near future. In the meantime I would make a quick weekend trip to the Los Alamos area and hike two of the remaining three highpoints I needed to complete the state. That trip was successful, taking care of Caballo Mountain in Los Alamos County and Redondo Peak in Sandoval County. This left me with just Santa Fe Baldy remaining. The plan was deliberate- I wanted to save the prettiest hike for the last (not that the other two were not pretty, of course), and I wanted to be accompanied by my wife Beth. Talking her into the hike was easy: she loves Santa Fe, loves to hike and was enticed, as was I, by the prospect of soothing our sore bodies afterwards in a hot bath at the 10,000 Waves Japanese Spa just outside of town. The plan was set and we left Phoenix Friday afternoon the 8th, arriving in Albuquerque around 7 p.m. local time.

We happened to plan our trip during the big balloon festival in Albuquerque. As a result all the rental car companies gouged the hell out of everyone, including us, because they could. Two weeks ago I had a two-day rental of a mid-sized car for a grand total of $58. This time it was $175. Bastards. In any case, we got our pricey car and headed up Interstate-25, but got maybe 10 miles before coming to a halt on the highway. No idea why. We were right near the balloon festivities area and surmised the traffic letting out there was maybe causing the stoppage. But we weren't moving at all. By this time it was dark, and while parked on the highway we got treated to a fireworks show! This was part of the evening show at the festival, maybe a mile from the highway. So here we were, sitting in stopped traffic watching fireworks. Cool! The stoppage sucked, though; we could see cars up ahead turning around on the median but finally we got moving, maybe 40 minutes later. Turns out there had been quite a wreck in the southbound lanes, which, while sad and tragic, doesn't explain why the northbound lanes were completely stopped. We finally arrived in Santa Fe about 9 p.m., behind schedule. Poor Beth had a major headache. We checked into our hotel, ate a great Mexican dinner and went food shopping, then finally crashed about 10:30 p.m. We awoke early the next morning hoping the previous night's delays would not impact us too severely.

We got moving around 7 a.m. and had to run a couple quick errands before going on the hike. I'd lost my sunglasses on the plane so I needed to get a new pair. Then I realized I left my jacket in the hotel room, so we drove back to get it. Then, I drove us up a few miles and had a nagging feeling I'd forgotten something else. The Camera! I asked Beth to check the packs, and luckily, there it was. No problem. Still, that feeling. My boots! Beth, thinking I was losing my mind, checked and they weren't there. Meeps! Feeling like a complete moron, I drove back to our hotel room, where my boots sat quietly on the chair where I'd placed them the night before. So, finally organized, we drove up the 20+ road miles to the Santa Fe Ski Area, enjoying the colorful fall colors, and arrived at the trailhead about 8:30 a.m. in cool, clear weather. We got ready and were on the move by 8:40. The Windsor Trail (#254) is well-marked and well tended, its starting elevation being 10,260 feet, approximately. We started up and quickly lost our wind. Beth had been battling a bug all week and was not 100%. We both trudged up this first portion, a half-mile stretch in which we gained 600 feet - a fairly steep push for the start of a hike. Shortly, we came to the top of the ridge and the boundary fence of the Pecos Wilderness, where we took a breather.

The next few miles involves a fairly long gentle descent of about 600 feet. The trail cuts easterly along the north face of the ridge amid thick spruce and aspen (which were bright yellow with fall colors). Patches of ice and hail from some storms in recent days spanned the route. Views were minimal and blocked by the heavy forest cover. We came to the junction with the Nambe Lake Trail after about 2.25 miles, then descended some more to a small meadow opening where we could take in our peak for the first time along the hike. The trail reaches its lowest point at about 10,260 feet near some creekbeds, which were flowing. We crossed these, then started up some steep switchbacks that finally topped out in a beautiful meadow called Puerto Nambe. This point was about 4.5 miles in and about 11,000 feet elevation. Weather was awesome, and we had unobstructed views of Santa Fe Baldy to our immediate north and the snow-covered Lake and Penitente Peaks to our south. We took a break here, buffetted by occasional brisk winds. We turned left from the Windsor Trail onto Skyline Trail (#251) and started the slog up toward the pass at 11,600 feet just east of Santa Fe Baldy's summit. The tree cover lessened along this trail, and we had better and better views of our objective as we steadily moved higher toward the pass, which we reached after about an hour, where we again found a good excuse to take a break.

The final portion to the summit covers about a mile and requires an even 1,000 feet of gain. We left the Skyline Trail at a good-sized cairn and followed a good use path up toward the summit. The path wends its way through rocky outcrops and is pretty consistently steep, but never too bad and by no means technical. Beth hiked a few hundred feet ahead of me as I was lagging toward the end. Toward the top near where the trail makes a slight bend north to the summit, I was surprised by panting noises! A nice doggy had materialized right behind me without warning. She was a pretty german shepard and her owner was just a few feet behind. In fact, she hiked with me for about a minute, hopping ahead, pawing at the occasional snow patch and taking a big bite of it, then bouncing back. I chatted with her owner as we hiked up to the top. Beth had beaten me by a few minutes and was already sitting in the lee of the small rock shelter. A handful of hikers were just starting their descent as I walked up. With this ascent I had completed my New Mexico County Highpoints project! I was pretty stoked. It was right about 1 p.m. when we made the top, making for a four hours and change ascent time. The weather was holding steady, temps maybe in the high 40s. As long as the wind didn't blow we were fine, but when it did it had a real bite to it. Beth and I talked with the dog's owner, a transplanted Montanan named Peter who'd just moved to New Mexico a few days earlier. The dog's name, we found out, was Miss Lighty (not sure of the spelling). We stayed at the top for about 20 minutes and pointed out nearby peaks. From the summit I could make out a number of New Mexico's county highpoints: Redondo Peak (Sandoval County) and Caballo Mountain (Los Alamos County) immediately to the west, Wheeler Peak (Taos County and the state highpoint) to the far north, South Truchas Peak (Rio Arriba and Mora Counties) to the northeast, Elk Mountain (San Miguel County) to our east, Sandia Crest (Bernalillo County) and the Manzano Range (Torrance County) to the south, and way off to the southwest, Mount Taylor (Cibola County). It was a clear day above us and to the west, but to the east, the clouds were developing and looking threatening. We felt safe, but got moving as we started to get chilled. We bid Peter adieu and started our descent at about 1:30 p.m.

Our descent went quickly and we had quickly covered 2.5 miles to get back to the trail junction at Puerto Nambe, where we took an extended break. A few hikers passed us going up and Peter and Miss Lighty passed us coming down. One guy, about 50s-ish, asked me if I knew where Spirit Lake was. I got out my map and showed him and he said something like it might be wise to bring a map next time. Then he got moving. Then, a few minutes later, we got moving. We passed this guy, oblivious to us due to his wearing headphones. We made good time and took another extended break at the Nambe Lake Trail junction, 2.25 miles from the trailhead. At this time this guy passed us again, made some comment that it seemed farther than it looked, and started following the trail to Nambe Lake. Both Beth and I got this feeling that he took a wrong turn, that he meant to be hiking out to the Windsor Trailhead (like us). He seemed pretty out of it. In time we got moving and hiked up the final few hundred feet (and 1.75 miles) to top out at the Wilderness Boundary, where we rested briefly before descending the final 600 feet (and a half-mile) back to our car. It was 5 p.m. sharp when we egressed, an 8 hour, 15 minute day in which we covered 14 miles round trip and a gross overall gain of close to 3,600 feet. Needless to say we were bushed. We debated whether to contact a ranger about our lackadaisical hiker friend, but could not find anyone. On the hiker's plus side, we saw numerous people hiking in as we were leaving so he probably had plenty of company.

After relaxing a bit and cleaning out our packs we drove down about 10 miles to the 10,000 Waves Japanese Spa located just outside of town along the highway. Very convenient and very reasonably priced. For less that $50 we got a one-hour hot spa to ourselves, open to the air but enclosed for privacy, plus a few cool drinks to enjoy. The hot water made the sore muscles feel real nice and afterwards, we weren't nearly as sore as we would have been normally. We then celebrated at an Olive Garden Restaurant in town before crashing for 9+ hours of deep REM sleep we so richly deserved.