| The Truchas from Quemado Creek Trip Report |
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| The Truchas from Quemado Creek   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: New Mexico, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: May 6, 2006 Activities: Hiking Season: Spring | Page By: Your Dudeness Created/Edited: May 10, 2006 / May 11, 2006 Object ID: 193151 Hits: 733 Loading... Page Score: 85.98% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
various climbs into the Truchas from Quemado CreekI started exploring these peaks in mid June of 05. I was heading into work one Sunday afternoon, probably June 12 when I noticed they were covered with fresh snow. I decided the hell with working on a Sunday and headed on over there. At that time the road to the Quemado creek trailhead was washed out about 4 1/2 - 5 miles from the pavement. There's a culvert there that the creek flows through and the creek was out of it and flowing where the road used to be. I parked there and started walking. I just walked a short while that day because I had gotten such a late start. Then, that week, I decided to play hooky and go over and explore some more. I parked at the wash-out (it's been repaired) and headed up the road and followed every fork I came to. I think they all dead ended. If not, even on foot, it became clear that those roads weren't going to go anywhere. Eventually I got to the trailhead and went a short ways up the trail. I played hooky from work at least twice that week, maybe 3 times, each time going further. I made it up most of the way into the basin below the peaks the last time. On Saturday, June 18 I guess, I got a friend to come with me and we planned to summit. There was quite a bit of snow at that time and we had to do a fair bit of route finding. You can't really get lost. By the time the trails get a little hard to follow you're in a deep canyon/valley surrounded by pretty sheer walls. Still, it's better to be on the trail than scrambling. We made our way up to the summit ridge without finding the trail until we had done a bit of class 4 scrambling and were about 1/2 way up from the basin to the ridge. There are cairns which are worth finding. Anyway, we made it to the ridge and headed up but finally turned back because of the deep snow. Then on July 7 I went in with a couple of friends and we made it to the summit,
uneventfully. The next time I recall going was in November or early December, maybe Dec 3. That time I just went to the basin from the trailhead. There was no snow the entire way, but continuing on from the basin there was snow. It took two hours to get tot hte basin from the trailhead. Then in February 2006 I went in with a couple of friends. We had to park at the culvert where the previous summers washout had been. The road was solid ice and we didn't have studded tires. It was so warm and bright down low and it'd been such a low-snow year I couldn't imagine that there was much snow in there so we just took crampons. It turned out there was snow the entire way
much of it waste deep and crampons were basically useless. It took us 4 hours to get to just short of the basin. My last time in was on May 6 2006 with a couple of friends. We weren't sure how far we were going to go but I wasn't really planning on summiting. I made the mistake of bringing my dog who decided to chase a porcupine and she got whapped in the kisser pretty good. It took us a half hour with pliars to pull the quills out. She was no worse for the wear. ANyway, this trip from trailhead to basin took 1 3/4 hours.
Getting there: In theory you should ask the Truchas Land Grant association for permission. I called the forest service in Espanola and asked them how to do that once and they didn't know anything about it. There is some tension between various interests there in Truchas. I guess that there is at least one person from Truchas who doesn't want anybody in there at all, but there are also bed and breakfast owners who advertise the miles of beautiful hiking. I'm not sure what the law is or what the circumstances are. I've picked up locals who needed rides and helped a guy who's car was broken. No one ever said I shouldn't go there. I sometimes stop at the local store and buy stuff, (on the way out). You'll have to decide about the danger of vandalism for yourself. Nothing is posted anywhere about tresspassing or anything else. I've driven all over those roads in my little Subaru without any trouble at all. They're pretty well maintained by my reckoning. (The washout was a notable exception but nothing could've gotten through that. It took heavy equipment to repair that. It wasn't "rough" or "high clearance", it was impassable. Once in March we started driving on dirt road in Cordova and drove for miles until we realized we were heading into the Truchas area. There are dirt roads all over back there and really there aren't too many people on them. You can get a map and try to figure out every turn where you are or you can just go in and follow your nose.
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains
