I had a few days to spare in Santa Fe so I went and asked the guys at Sangre De Christo Mountain Works for some ideas.
I ended up heading out from the Santa Fe Ski resort up to Puerte Nambe for a short day 1, 4 miles. I left the trail head at about 3PM. No lakes in the meadow area so I followed a small spring up to a grassy pool and filled up. I dozed off about 6PM and was startled at about 7PM to an Elk doing its bleeting call about 50 yards from my bivy. I am glad I was napping on top of the bivy I would have shredded it trying to get out after that noise.
On Day 2 I went up and over Santa Fe Baldy and came down to Lake Katherine via a talus chute on the NW side of the lake.
Relaxed in the cool shade and headed out to Spirit Lake.
Spirit Lake was closed to camping so I continued up the trail to the cutoff to Lake Peak and Pentitente Peak. I set up my shelter about a mile after the cutoff in a tall strand of pines. There was no streams or lakes in the area but there was standing snow so I melted some for water. The only rain occured here for about 30 minutes after I was set up so I relaxed in the cool shade of my tarp.
Day 3 started out with the gentle climb up to Lake Peak.
To make things more interesting I scrambled across the ridge to Penitente Peak, also to avoid the up and down trail that followed the rdige line.
After Penitente Peak I followed the trail over the alpine tundra down to my starting point, pausing to take in the view over Nambe Lake.
I wanted this to be a four day trip but the distance were shorter than I expected. I was starting out each AM about 9AM and stopping by about 2PM. I think the round trip was close to 25 miles.
It was a slow relaxing few days for me.
I got to try out my Oware Epic Bivy and Cattarp 1.1, thanks Gear Swap. I loved the ULA Conduit pack, super comfy and more versatile than the Golite Jam2.
The first night's meal was baked goodies from Whole Foods, the rest of the time was a variety of the delicious Enertia Trail Foods. Combined with the AGG Enertia Wrap I never suffered through a cold crunchy dehydrated meal.
Mosquitos were never bad, early in the evenings it was cool enough to were my Patagonia Spraymaster jacket with the hood up. I never did apply any of the bug repellent I carried.
Temps varied from the low 40's at night to mid 80's during the day. It would cloud up each afternoon and cool off so I was usually pretty comfy.
