Last Saturday I hiked 4 peaks with 2 friends, 11 miles, 8 hours, with an elevation gain of 3256. (See my trip report for Tesuque Peak, 12,047 – August 12, 2023) I wanted to hike Peak 11,571 (Peak 11,564) at the same time but I accidently dropped the peak top, on my Garmin Montana, on the wrong side of the mountain. We still had a half mile to go and didn’t realize it until I got home, ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! I have never done that before. I won’t count a peak top unless I am exactly on the spot. I had to rectify the deed ASAP, so 5 days later I headed up. Even though I am very good at map and compass orienteering, I do not believe that before GPSs it was possible to even find some of the mountain tops, especially massively tree covered ones.


I left the house at Thursday, 5:20 AM, August 17, 2023, then headed to Santa Fe then north into the Santa Fe National Forest and was at the Big Tesuque Trailhead hiking at 6:50 AM. It was a cool blue-sky morning, in an aspen and blue spruce forest. The starting elevation was 9671 feet. It was magically beautiful as I followed a small mountain stream up the hillside. The trail leads to an untraveled road. I saw a big fat plump grouse. I didn’t reset my GPS at the start, so I did it part way and drew in 1.6 miles of my route when I got home. I hiked up the mountain until I had about 3/4ths of a mile to go then bushwhacked straight up going over a number of downed logs at up to a 27-degree incline. It did not feel too bad, I was expecting a 35-degree incline, and many more logs. I mentioned to my friends Saturday if you look deep enough in any forest you can see an ancient fire. In the fallen log dust, I could see evidence that the area burned to the ground, maybe 200 years ago. Fires are not so nice in the immediate time frame, but vital for the long term. If it wasn’t for that ancient fire, I probably couldn’t have made the top the way I went. I reached the top at 8:30 AM, hiking 1 hour and 40 minutes, 3.4 miles, and had an up-down elevation gain of about 2000 feet. I had a light snack, moved over to another high point, and spent longer than I usually do on the top, about 40 minutes. The slightly lower high point had spectacular views. The highest highpoint was covered with trees. At 9:10 I blasted down “bushwhack hill” to the road. I didn’t see anyone on the hike up, but quite a few people on the way down. I stopped to talk to a couple of groups. I was back at the car at 10:35, 1 hour and 25 minutes including “talk-time.” I can tell my cardio hikes have really helped me; this was one of the easiest hikes ever. I cardio hiked 5.5 miles and bushwhacked hiked 1.5 miles for a total of 7 miles. The total up-down elevation gain was 2087 feet. I was back home a little after 12:00 noon. It was such a beautiful morning, and beautiful hike, I was kind of glad I goofed up Saturday, 5 days ago.
Notes:
When I drew in the peak at home for some odd reason it showed 8/10s of a mile short. The hike is 7 miles.

John, from “List of John Mountains” saw some justification to add this peak to his list, 2023. It is a very prominent peak from Santa Fe.

This peak is listed in Mike Butterfield’s book, “Guide to the Mountains of New Mexico.”

(18 miles distance and over a mile in elevation gain to get my obscure peak.)

See pictures of highest peaks in New Mexico: 1 of 62 of highest 184 NM peaks. Part 1 YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAjCsjbhYMw
See pictures of highest peaks in New Mexico: 63 of 124 of highest 184 NM peaks. Part 2 YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrFMjoB9zNY

List of highest 184 peaks in New Mexico (Now 190) A very inclusive list!
https://peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=-925606&cid=1477