" Ascent Trip Report Since the forecast showed afternoon thunderstorms beginning at noon, and 9-10 miles of the run was above (treeline) 12,200 ft, I departed Albuquerque before 5:30am, and started the run at 8:07. It was a pleasant drive between Espanola and the TH. SR 161 is a well-maintained dirt road that ends in a large parking lot at the Serpent Lake TH. There were only four other cars in the parking lot (6 when I departed) that were most likely from hunters – I met two groups with two hunters each, one of which had camped overnight. The trail at the end of the parking lot looks to be an old remnant of the road, but is blocked off to cars and almost immediately has a stream crossing. The Serpent Lake trail (#19) climbs at a fairly steady rate, and crosses a beautiful stream before 1 mile, after which Zeus and I ran into a group of cattle occupying the trail. The trail is well worn in places by cattle/horses leaving areas of muck to circumvent, as well as water erosion exposing a lots of baseball/softball size rocks that required careful foot placement so as not to roll an ankle while running. After 3.17 mi. (51 min., 0:51), I reached the trail turn off to Serpent Lake, ..." — wbwente • Sep 8, 2017

"Ran into a big bear on top of Jicarita South peak, 12819ft. Tried scaring him off but he wanted to go down to serpant lake. Still patch of snow below rim north of trail. Beautiful views of Truchas peaks! " — michaelgiannini • Aug 15, 2014

"This is the 4th year my son Garret and I have tried to make this hike, and finally we did it! The last 3 years the area was closed, during the time we needed to go, because of fire danger. There is a small window of yearly time that this hike can be done. If someone were to go in May, or even early June, the snow could be too deep to accomplish the hike without great difficulty. There is no water on the ridge, so we had to harvest snow for drinking water. If someone were to wait past the middle of July, on into August, it is possible the snow would be gone, and because we spent almost 3 days on the ridge, above the timberline, and above 12,000 feet in elevation, those dates could be dangerous because of the monsoon season’s lightning on the ridge. The perfect window of time is the last week in June and the first week in July. I picked the 4 days for this trip because it was a no moon time and I wanted to enjoy the spectacular dark star filled sky. Day 1 We left my son’s house Thursday June 26, 2014 at 5:00 AM and headed to Espanola, New Mexico then east towards the Santa Barbara campground at the edge of the Pecos Wilderness. We started the hike 1.3 miles north of Santa Barbara..." — Phil-Robinson • Jun 27, 2014