I left my friend Jim’s house at 5:00 AM to drive to the Jemez Mountains and hike Cerro Toledo, elevation 10,930. I was interested in hiking this peak because it falls within the top 100 major peaks in New Mexico. We were heading on I-25 north when we were delayed for an hour and a half because of a wreck. We then drove to Espanola, New Mexico and headed north on highway 84/285. A couple miles north in Espanola is a road named Fairview, just past this road we turned to the west on forest road 144. It is a beautiful drive with views in all directions, but one needs to pay close attention to the road because of the steep drops. The road is a well kept dirt road. We drove for approximately 35 miles in my Toyota Land Cruiser. It is possible to make the drive in a passenger car, but I would recommend a sturdy SUV with good clearance. The hike starts at a high elevation, 10,450 feet, then drops into a valley, elevation 9810, then heads to the peak. We started hiking at 9:50 AM. The temperature was near perfect. The skies were clear but somewhat hazy. It was a steep incline down, but we found clear open areas to hike. When we reached the bottom of the valley we followed a ridgeline to the top. We had to do a lot of bushwhacking over logs and through the trees. About half way up there was clear open country and it was much easier to hike. Nearing the top of the ridge we saw about 20 female elk with several of their babies. We first hiked to a unnamed peak bump that was 10,830 feet in elevation, then down into the saddle then to the top of Cerro Toledo. It took us 2 hours and 25 minutes to hike and the distance was 3.3 miles. We headed to Turkey Ridge, elevation 10,710. The next 2 hours we hiked through an area that had had a forest fires several years ago. The grass still had its winter brown. There were nice views in all directions, but this part of the hike was not so attractive at ground level. We reached Turkey Ridge after hiking 4.5 miles. It took us 3 hours and 20 minutes from the start. We followed the ridge north, enjoyed some great views of Valle Caldera, saw a couple more elk, then reached Indian Point, elevation 10,240. We had now hiked 5.7 miles in 4 hours and 15 minutes. I was only interested in Turkey Ridge and Indian Point because they were near Cerro Toledo. We decided to hike in a beeline down the hill. It was a fairly steep log strewn hike down. We connected with an old unused road about half way down, saw one more elk, then continued hiking until we reached the lowest elevation of the hike, 9310 feet. On almost all peakbagging hikes there is a nice downhill “rest” at the end of the hike, but not this hike, we had to climb out over 1100 feet to get back to the SUV. We followed the road to the west knocking off 400 feet in elevation gain in a gradual way, but then it was straight up the side for the next 700 feet in elevation gain, with as much as a 32 degree grade at times. This was the 5th peakbagging hike with my friend Jim. He has now done 14 NM peaks. Even though we both were a little worn out by the end, Jim greatly enjoyed the hike. We made it back to the SUV after hiking 9.4 miles. It took us a little less than 7 hours to hike. The total up-down vertical elevation gain for the entire hike was 2751 feet. It was a stunningly beautiful drive on the dirt road back to Espanola.