My wife and I drove to Red River, New Mexico on Friday night of Labor Day weekend. Saturday morning my son, his wife, my grandson and granddaughter came into town. We were staying at a little two story condo on the river. Sunday morning, August 31, 2014, at 6:00 AM I started hiking, by myself, right from the condo to Sawmill Mountain, elevation 10,962. I rarely do any peaks under 11,000 feet in elevation but I am interested in the highest 10K peaks. Sawmill Mountain overlooks Red River and it was nice to not have to drive, rather, walk right up the mountain from where we were staying. The starting elevation was 8,475 feet. It was a dark, clear twilight morning with a temperature in the 40 degree range. I walked some through town until I reached a locked gate and a dirt road on the northwest part of town. The road is okay for hikers and appears to only be used as a service road. It was a beautiful forested road, starting out in big ponderosa pine trees then turning into aspen, spruce and fur at the top. You get some wonderful views of Red River as you hike up the service road and it looks like a little Swiss Alps mountain town down below. It was a fairly easy hike compared to some of the peaks I have been hiking recently, yet it still took some good hard work. I arrived at the peak 1 hour and 45 minutes after leaving and it took 3.1 miles. There are nice views on the top. You can see in about 270 degrees. I took some pictures then headed down. I went the same way down as up. It was a nice hike on the service road as it switched backed down. I arrived back at the condo after hiking 6.2 miles. The total elevation gain was 2487 feet. It took just a little over 3 hours from the start. It was only 9:00 in the morning and a nice breakfast was waiting. We all spent the rest of the day enjoying Red River. (See yesterday’s hike up Relica Peak and tomorrows hike up Van Diest Peak.)