Southern Colorado, Northern New Mexico This Week

Big storms at the end of last week here – the ski basin above Santa Fe is under a foot of snow at 11000 feet. I haven't been up to Taos since then, but the mountains must be under snow.

Consider Bandelier National Monument in northern New Mexico. The backcountry opportunities are rather nice and not heavily used. The Painted Cave is a must see.

@Ralph – Good to know. Santa Fe ski basin is pretty high at like, 12,000' so I'm thinking perhaps farther south and lower elevation is the ticket. I also did a ton of internet sleuthing last night and found some conditions for passes and trails in the San Juans and it appears everything over about 11,000' is snowy, which I think means the chances of a loop hike are pretty slim. @Paul – I'll look into it today. Thanks for the tip.

Yeah, getting late for true comfort Colorado. (Though I’m away from home just now, so I can’t give timely trail beta.) That said, I had a fun trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park several Octobers ago. I had no trouble getting last-minute permits. (October is not popular in the Colorado back-country.) I assume that FWD means “front-wheel drive” and not “four wheel drive?” 4WD would be nice to get in deeper in to start, but you can get to Point of No Return trailhead with FWD. One nice thing about GSDNP (regarding your lack of alpine confidence) is that you are walking long the foothills fronting a very attractive mountain range, so the views are spectacular without needing to climb high. You could easily hike the Sand Ramp Trail from Point of No Return to the Sand Creek Trail, and then ascend as much of Sand Creek as you cared to. So it’s an out-and-back.

Yes, FWD meaning front wheel drive. Good point in asking for clarification though. With regards to the alpine confidence, I don't mean to imply we're looking to stay out of the mountains. I guess I should have said "experience above treeline is really low". My mistake. We definitely want to be out in the woods and not dessert since we're all too familiar with that here in Texas. Hah. Is there somewhere left in Colorado where we can get the whole forest feel without having to go really high and really snowy, but that's still mountains? GSDNP has been recommended by a lot of people to me but being a national park they don't allow dogs, which at least for this trip is a deal breaker. :(

There is almost certainly something that works in NM. We had storms last week, but weather has been fine since and I don't see much snow in the mountains around Santa Fe below about 10,000'. The Pecos is too high to work – and I'm a recent arrival, so I don't the other areas well enough to make a suggestion. Paul mentioned Bandelier above – I might check that out myself next week, it's really close. You could try PMing Caledonia Heather on here, she's the only Santa Fe BPLer that I know. edit – sorry, just realized no dogs in Bandelier

I'm also going to check out Gila soon. Although if you're from Texas, you probably know that already, and I'm not sure it quite fits the bill of "mountains".

My apologies, I did not notice the dog aspect. Yes, Bandolier NM would be out I'm afraid.

Oh, yes, sorry- I missed the dog, too. But for the record, yes, though the San Luis Valley is technically a desert the route I mentioned in almost all forested, being partway up the Sangre de Cristos. So, forested but not really high, in Colorado. Hmm… It looks like even Lost Creek Wilderness has some snow , though the forecast is good if you want to chance that- you probably won’t get snowed on. It should be a couple of inches at most, and patchy. Even the Wet Mountains have a couple of inches of snow. Looking at New Mexico, the Pecos Wilderness looks to have a few inches in the higher elevations but you should be able to put together a lower-elevation hike with little effort. Gila and Aldo Leopold Wildernesses look clear (no surprise, I guess), but you said you want to avoid desert. San Pedro Parks Wilderness and Chama River Canyon Wilderness up north both also look clear. Behind (west of) Bandolier National Monument is Dome Wilderness, which is also clear. You could hunt for the Fenn Treasure! :) See this map of wilderness areas. It’s what I usually check to find someplace new.

So after basically settling on Durango for other reasons, not the least of which being it's southern and easy to reach location, we ended up doing a few days in Hermossa Creek area of San Juan National Forest. Located just 15-20 mins north of Durango it was really nice with a pretty nicely connected trail system that allowed us, in theory, to create a little 2.5 day loop. ….long story short without getting into trip recap territory, I overestimated our fitness, underestimated the cold, elevation, and trail difficulty, and we capped our trip to the backcountry at 2 days as an out-n-back. While we didn't get snowed on (were camped at 8000'), we did feel the chill of a 25 degree low at night. The terrain was marvelous and I'm absolutely hooked on now seeing a lot more of the area, specifically the Weminuche Wilderness and more of the San Juans. I also don't think I ruined backpacking for my travel partners despite them being shocked to find out we weren't car camping. Oops, my mistake. Okay but start hiking because we got trail to cover. Hah! Thanks for all the suggestions btw, I'm interested in seeing a lot of the places mentioned and will no doubt get a chance in spring.

Thanks for reporting back, and it sounds like y'all made the best of it. That is, indeed, a spectacular area. For this time of year, definitely keep the Gila in mind in the future, it is (as you discovered) a bit too late to be getting up into the Rockies, IMHO. The Gila is absolutely gorgeous, with some higher elevation, beautiful evergreen forests, spectacular canyons, beautiful rivers, etc. I went last November, and it was practically deserted because of the lateness in the season, and it is a reasonably easy drive from Austin.

Gila is absolutely on my list of places to hit next season. By all accounts it's an amazing place and there seems to be a pretty serious diversity of wildlife that I've yet to experience. That said going anywhere with mountain lions trips me out on principle. Hah. I'm definitely adding it to the permanent list of places to absolutely visit and thanks for the advice! We were extremely lucky on the weather. Skies were cloudless and blue. Temp was 55 in the afternoon and lightly breezy. My understanding is that they've just gotten a bunch of snow as of Tuesday, so snow-free backpacking is done for the year. We had a blast overall and my trip partners are already talking about returning for a longer stay with a lot more adventure. Hermosa Creek will definitely get another visit and I'm stoked to see the Wimenuche Wilderness as well. We actually learned a LOT as a group of inexperienced backpackers and I'm glad we didn't have to learn it in truly dreadful or dangerous conditions. That, and all that legal cannabis, and tasty food before/after made it totally worth it.