2012 is in the books, hello 2013. My New Years plan to get lost in the Sante Fe national forest went mostly according to plan. My journey began in Austin as I tanked up on gas and hit the road. The drive across Texas was uneventful as usual, until it came time for sunset. The whole day had been gray and cool. Now, as I ventured across the land of endless wind turbines near Sweetwater, enough clouds gave way for the sun to put on a spectacular show of color and form. I was reminded of how the Texas landscape can be a very mystical and endearing memory in times like this. I was a bit sad to leave behind such a picture of beauty, especially for the doldrums I was about to encounter in between Lubbock and Santa Rosa, NM, but my journey had to go on.
Not long after crossing the state line and past Clovis, NM, the temps dropped and it begin to snow. Lightly at first, then heavily by the time I hit Ft. Sumner. I was beginning to tire and didn’t really want to drive another 59 miles to Santa Rosa in near white out conditions at night, but the show had to go on. Snow was sticking to the road at this point, but my badass little Mazda B2300 with snow tires handled the treacherous conditions with ease.
By the time I hit I-40 in Santa Rosa, I knew it was time to find a comfy and luxurious place to crash for the night: the Love’s truck parking lot. I bought a tarp to cover all my gear in the back of the truck, let Rocco run around a bit to take of business, unrolled the sleeping bag, and we crashed in the cab of my truck. Can’t say that it was the best night’s sleep, but I did get a little rest, and more importantly, it had stopped snowing and the plows were out on the interstate by morning. There was still enough snow on the highway that I had to take it easy to Cline’s Corner, where I would take US 285 the rest of the way to Sante Fe.
This road had not been plowed at all, just packed down by a few brave souls before me. Still, no problem for my Firestone Winterforce tires! We were not only cruising along at 50 mph, but passing all these cars with Texas plates who weren’t quite sure how to handle this white stuff. Before we knew it, we were at the outskirts of Sante Fe. Once we got into town, the roads were slick as all get out. That storm had left quite a bit of snow and ice behind and travel was slow go to the McDonalds where I borrowed some internet to lookup where the ranger station was at.
We found the station, bought a map, talked to a ranger a little bit, then started heading up to Sante Fe Ski resort where the real journey would begin. This road was snowy too, and curvy, and climbed from about 6500′ to 9800′, but little Grey made it! There was a lot of snow up there, and it was already pretty dang cold at 2pm. I was having second thoughts about venturing into these woods with a short haired dog, but stuck to the plan. I got the backpack stuffed with essentials, strapped on the snowshoes, and out we went, into the wild.
After a half hour of uphill shoeing Rocco and I were warm. Not too much after that we hit the boundary for the Pecos Wilderness. No turning back now.
I was following good tracks to this point, but all of sudden, they were gone. I pulled out my map and compass, saw what looked to be the trail through a clearing of trees, and went that way. This is what most of my journey would look like for the next 24 hours:
Most of the trail was just fluff over pack, so it wasn’t terribly hard breaking trail but it did take a little out of me. The further we got, the more the pack dissipated though, and the tougher it did get. The sun set around 5:20, but I had good lights and was determined to make it as close to Catherine Lake up near Sante Fe baldy (a 12,600′ peak) as I could. I reached a point around 6:30pm where exhaustion began setting in. I had shoed in about 5.5 miles and was now a little higher than 11,000 ft. Although I started out on a trail marked on my map, I was now on some other trail, having missed the junction in the last mile or so. Even though I was somewhat joking about getting lost in the wilderness, I still managed to do so! This was awesome!
Rocco and I peeled off the trail and found a good campsite. It was flat enough for me to stomp out a pad in the snow, and fairly shielded from wind and snow (it was lightly snowing the whole time I was out there). I setup the tent and unpacked sleeping stuff. Rocco wasted no time curling up in my sleeping bag while I worked on collecting some firewood and getting a fire going. I brought 2 lighters and a box of waterproof matches. Both lighters died, I think because of cold and altitude, and I had to go through about 20 matches before the kindle finally took, but my efforts were soon rewarded with a warm, comforting fire.
This fire not only provided wonderful heat, but dried my snowshoes and gloves out, melted my frozen water and some extra snow for drinking, and warmed up dinner. I had brought a Coleman propane cooker, but it too decided to fail on this trip. I had enough firewood to last about 3 hours. Rocco and I sat close by while pondering our time out here in the wilderness on New Years Eve. I thought about all the folks in Times Square getting ready for that ball to drop. All the people in some crowded pub wearing silly hats and blowing their noisemakers just a little too much. All my friends, spread out over the country doing who knows what? My family back home in Texas, probably hanging out at the house with friends.
Right as the fire began to die, I heated up some water to put in my bottles and then slip into my socks so it wouldn’t freeze overnight. As the flame grew weaker and weaker, cold began to overtake me and so I hopped in bed around 10pm for the long night ahead.
The temps continued to drop, as did our comfort level. I had on heavy thermals inside my 20 degree bag, on top of my thermarest, the only real thermal break between my body and the snow. I let Rocco ball up on my down jacket and covered him in a fleece throw that I brought for him. The mercury certainly hit 0 d F on my little thermometer, maybe even down to -5. Whatever it was, it was freaking cold. If I was lucky, I would fall asleep for 10 minutes or so before shivering or numb feet woke me up. Rocco was shivering heavily. I remember three times during the night I unzipped my bag, pulled him in, and wrapped us both with the fleece. He warmed up enough to stop shivering but then I got really cold and would retreat back into my bag.
In the early morning hours, probably around 3am, my feet were getting unbearably cold. All I could think about was firing up my Coleman to heat some water bottles to place at my feet, but I couldn’t-it was broken. I sat thinking for a while of how I could improve my situation, and then it came to me, quite naturally. I had to pee. I emptied one of my water bottles into the enamel cast pot I had brought and filled the bottle with warm pee. I stuffed that in a sock and threw it down to my feet and problem solved, at least for an hour and a half. Luckily, I had to pee again, so process repeated. By the time that one cooled off, morning light had broke.
I was thrilled to see the light of a new day, the light of a new year. However, I was also dreading getting out of bed, breaking down camp, and hitting the trail again. I have never in my entire life suffered from cold the way I did that morning. Putting my boots back on was excruciating, but better than the alternative of walking in the snow barefoot. I hastily and sloppily packed everything and got going ASAP. I had to get some blood flowing to my toes. I took pause before putting my backpack on to remove my boots and rub my feet. The toes were starting to turn purple-not good. I probably could have built another fire, but who knows how long that would take? I decided to get on the trail, and start booking it to build up some heat.
About 45 minutes later, I was finally warm, and the threat of frostbite was avoided. I was feeling something else though, possibly early signs of hypothermia from heat loss overnight. I was feeling real sluggish, slightly disoriented, tired, and my stomach didn’t feel great, although, that could’ve been from not eating breakfast and drinking water that tasted like Spruce smoke.
Nonetheless, I kept my wits about me and trudged on, knowing that safety and comfort lie waiting at my pickup. I had to take several breaks shoeing the 5.5 miles back. Even though my tent only had about an inch of snow on it, the trail had a fresh 6″ or more of powder. I couldn’t even see my tracks from the day before in a few places. It was slow go, and my body was aching. I was physically unprepared for such an adventure. For starters, I had been at sea level for 2 weeks, and then all of sudden I was at ten to eleven thousand feet. I was in balmy 40-60 degree weather. Now it was -5 to 15. I hadn’t snowshoed since last winter, and never with 40 lbs of gear on my back. I haven’t been very active since breaking my arm in November. I realized this very morning that perhaps I bit off a little more than I could chew. Not only that, but I probably put my dog in jeopardy too. He is no Husky, made blatantly clear when he starts to shiver in 30 degree weather.
By the time I made it to the truck, I was warm, and got some fresh water and food in me. All of a sudden, things didn’t seem so bad. We never made it to Catherine Lake or Baldy peak, but damnit we survived some harsh conditions with sub-par equipment and learned some very valuable lessons about winter camping.
The drive back to Durango was gorgeous. I could see snowstorms pounding the mountains around Chama, and we even got to drive through more snow from there to Pagosa. The real magic took place near Chimney Rock on US 160. I witnessed a sunset I’d never seen the likes of and I will remember for a long time. Not only was the horizon on fire, but there was this beam of light blasting out of the ground into the clouds. I’m still perplexed by this meteorological phenomenon, but am glad I got to experience it.
Thanks for checking in. May you have a healthy and prosperous 2013.
