Santa Fe and Backpacking the Pecos Wilderness

WHY YOU SHOULD COUCH SURF

I left Pie Town after only one night as I was starting to feel restless again. When I'm traveling the intervals of being content and restless thin out. I was also eager to get to Santa Fe even though I was determined not to spend money on a hotel, I knew I could camp in the Santa Fe National Forest near there. Along the route I passed El Malpais National Monument, but there was a bad storm so I didn't linger there long. I also drove through a couple of Native American reservations but they were a little bleak and devastated, which made me sad.

I stopped at a McDonald's en route and signed up for Couchsurfing, which if you don't know is a website like Airbnb but where the stays are completely free. It can be a little intimidating as a solo female traveler because you're going to a stranger's house to spend the night. But I connected with a really cool guy that had over 45 positive reviews. His name was Brandon and he was an art dealer in Santa Fe, I would later learn. He told me he couldn't host me that night but he would be able to host me the following day. I was excited and proud of myself for problem solving the situation as I knew I would need to shower before I picked up Hailey from Santa Fe airport on the morning of the 7th. I also wanted to stay in the city itself so I could better explore.

The first night that I arrived in Santa Fe, I just drove up into the nearest mountains to the most frequented campsite and set up my tent. There were a lot of families around but at least that meant I felt relatively safe. I camped there and first thing in the morning I headed down to explore Santa Fe. I "showered" in a sink again before I left. Santa Fe is incredibly beautiful. So far there is only one other American city that I believe is as beautiful and that is New Orleans. However, New Orleans is sinking and feels really sketchy at times. I had a bad experience traveling there which you can read about it my earlier blog post from last year: NEW ORLEANS POST

I wandered up Canyon Road which is host to countless art galleries as Santa Fe has the 3rd largest art market in the USA. I walked in and talked to many gallerists and was stuck by how friendly and accommodating they all were. I met some really friendly gallerists with interesting stories like Ernesto Mayan who offered to help me relocate to Santa Fe if I needed, and a woman who had just relocated from San Francisco and wasn't sure if she would make friends in Santa Fe. I met a young man who grew up in Bali and Australia and now found himself in New Mexico and I met a woman my age who was about to go study library science at Boston University. It was nice to meet people from all over the world. Everyone told me in a very new age way that they felt like I belonged there and that if I had come to Santa Fe then there was a reason for it and I should embrace it. I wanted to believe them all and actually was so impressed by all the adobe architecture around the city (literally every building) and all the art and artists that I did feel a sense of home. But this was before I learned that the population of Santa Fe is only 80,000 and everyone that has moved there from somewhere else has this vibe that they are only there temporarily.

At 6pm I went to meet my couchsurfing host Brandon who lived in a stunning apartment/house that had been built into the underpass of a bridge with the door blending into the bridge wall. His house was like a cave under there with huge windows opening out of the ground at the back. I had been expecting a small hippie couch but he had a second bedroom and there was a sweet rescue doggo who was super sweet and playful. Brandon seemed nice and like the kind of person I would hang out with if I lived around there. After I took a shower I was preparing to make ramen noodles but he suggested I go with him to his friend's restaurant in town called OWNS 315. I am in the process of saying yes to more things so I agreed and I am so glad that I did. It turned out that not only did I get a five star meal and a bottle of wine for free but also that Brandon's friend Louis was really fun and invited us both back to his mansion in the hills afterwards as he was a wine collector. I agreed and it turned out that he was not kidding about the wine as he brought out a 1996 Monopole La Tâche Cote-D'or bottle that has a market value of 5,370 dollars. And we drank it. That's about $200 dollars a sip. And the best part is that all of this arose from me looking for free accommodation on Couchsurfing.com. I felt like I really got to bond with both Brandon and Louis, and made local friends. Louis also told me an interesting story as we were standing out on his back wrap-around patio and looking out at the sparkling lights of Santa Fe with the silhouetted mountains in the background. He said that most of the locals whose families had been in Santa Fe for many generations had arrived here as the descendants of the pioneers on covered wagons who had been trying to travel around the rocky mountains and Santa Fe is situated at the base of them. Unfortunately, for both the Native Americans and the early pilgrims of the mid to late 1800s there were many Pueblo Indians living at the base of the Rocky's at the time and the result of the two world's clashing was carnage and bloodshed. To this day, the local Pueblo and Navajo Nations and the white people that have taken up residence in Santa Fe live with some contention over the brutality of the past.

The next morning I was fairly hung over, but no regrets as that wine had been hands down the best wine I'd ever had in my life and I felt a sense of giddy joy over being able to have had such an experience. I had to pick up Hailey from the airport at 9am, so getting up and ready was a bit of a challenge but I made it (not without making a mandatory stop at McDonald's beforehand and reorganizing my car).

PECOS WILDERNESS

When you live or camp out of your car for any long duration of time it's bound to get pretty messy and disorganized. It was a challenge to try to maintain a certain level of order and cleanliness. I picked up Hailey and we made our way to the first trailhead that I had planned called the Hamilton Mesa trail which started from a campsite up in the Pecos Wilderness near Pecos, New Mexico. It's about an hour outside of Santa Fe. We had to pay $2 at the campsite for the car, which is amazingly cheap when you think about how wonderful hiking is that it can be enjoyed for such an economical price.

We arrived at 1pm and we packed up our gear and headed off into the wilderness. The Hamilton Mesa is gorgeous and jaw dropping because it contains these enormous meadows with sweeping views out for miles looking over dense forests and alpine mountains capped with snow. These were views I would have thought were only available in states like Colorado but it turns out that Northern, New Mexico has them as well which is where the rocky mountains come to an end.

We hiked for about 7 miles that first day and then set up camp in a wooded, brushy area because we weren't convinced there would be any more ideal flat meadows. En route we found a sheep or grazing animal's skull that even had long, white horns. We carried it with us for ages and named it Hamilton, since we thought we would paint it. But eventually Hamilton's final place of rest was chosen again for him in the woods since he was a bit burdensome to carry. RIP Hamilton.

The next morning we discovered there was a gorgeous flat meadow extremely close to where we had decided to camp. Literally only about a ten minute walk further on. There had been some water en route in the form of a pump for horses but we were running low on water around midday the next day so when we came to a massive hill where we could hear and see the raging river at the bottom, we decided to go off trail to fill up our packs. Hiking down that huge expanse was hard in itself but climbing back up it was killer. This added on a lot of mileage and exhaustion to our day. Then we later hiked down a long, snowy and rough trail to Pecos Waterfall which was hugely disappointing as there was no obvious way out to us at the time and we stupidly had not brought a paper map. If we had, we would have realized we could have crossed over the river to the Beattys to loop back to my car but since we were unsure and super tired and running low on food we decided instead to hike back the way we came. On the way, we met a nice couple who let us look at their map and then ended up giving us their map since they had a gps device.On the next trail we would do this map would become immeasurably valuable.

After we completed the Hamilton Mesa trail, Hailey and I headed to another trailhead called Stewart Lake, where we ascended high into the mountains in order to find a high alpine lake. The lake was way more rewarding than Pecos Waterfall had been and we camped near it. Hailey was so excited she collected firewood for ages and we built a pretty nice fire even though a lot of the wood was damp from the recent snow. I had brought my bathing suit with me and considered swimming but after I climbed out on a long log overhanging the lake and dipped by legs in I decided it was way too cold to get into the water. Though Hailey did tell me that if you hold your legs in the ice cold water for 15 minutes it helps with inflammation, so we practiced doing that. In the morning it was freezing and hard to get up and get the coffee going and pack up camp. My hands were numb and I had to keep rubbing my fingers together in between packing up my gear. The coffee helped. Hailey and I descended the mountain and made it back to Santa Fe around midday, there we had lunch and drinks before I showed her some of canyon road's art galleries. In the evening I drove her back to the airport.

But that night Brandon, who I had couch surfed with, invited me to his friend's party in the Santa Fe hills and it was so much fun. I got to meet a couple of more interesting local people. All in all, I am a fan of the city and its folk. I could see us being friends if I lived there.