The hike today completes the final 2, of the 22 peaks on the Santa Fe Classic’s list on peakery.com . For the most part I am only interested in peaks in New Mexico that are taller than 10,800, but I wanted to complete the list.
I left my home, June 19, 2017, with my friend Jim at 6:45 AM. On Interstate 25 we took exit 299 in the town of Glorieta, headed east on highway 50, then north on CR 63A. CR63A turns into FR 375. It is about 12 miles from the start of CR 63A to Glorieta Baldy. We wanted to get more of a hike so we did not drive all the way to Baldy, rather stopped 2 miles, as the crow flies, east of the peak. Other trip reports said the road was very poor towards the end, but today the road grader was making a final sweep of the road. We passed him hiking. So as of this date, the dirt road is very good all the way to Baldy, but I can see that changing rapidly with monsoon rains. We started hiking at 8:45 at an elevation of 8650 feet. The hike started off cool and clear but quickly warmed up. It was a rich beautiful green forested hike with aspen, blue spruce, white fur, and wildflowers. We hiked up the road and I could see the top on my GPS so I shimmied up a hill. Jim went to the lookout tower. I was a little confused where the top was, then went to the tower. We had hiked for 1 hour and 40 minutes and 3.3 miles. Our elevation gain was 1573 feet. Before the tower is an old picnic area. It is a very old tower with broken and missing steps. It did not look like taking the risk to go to the top. There were very nice views to the southwest. We realized that the Glorieta Baldy top, elevation 10,217, is not at the tower, rather where I first went up. We hiked back over to the high point. There are very nice views to the north northwest. I am not sure why they call the peak Baldy. It is not a bald peak. We proceeded along a fairly nice unmaintained trail to Thompson Peak. For the most part it is a good little trail but vanishes at times. We arrived at Thompson Peak, elevation 10,554, after hiking 5.5 miles from the start. The day’s elevation gain was 2318 feet and it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes from the start to reach the peak. There are very nice views to the southwest. We took a 45 minute lunch then hiked back. We mostly went the same way back, but took a short bushwhacking detour to save a little time. Some clouds had come in so it was not as warm as it was earlier. It was a nice easy going hike down. We arrived back at the SUV after hiking 10 miles. The total up-down elevation gain for the hike was 2612 feet. Our total time out was 6 hours and 5 minutes including a 45 minute lunch. The 22 peak Santa Fe Classics list is complete.