San Pedro Parks Wilderness

I woke up an hour late. It took me an another hour to get ready, and then it was a two-hour drive to the San Gregorio trailhead of the San Pedro Parks Wilderness. This wilderness is located near Cuba, NM in the Santa Fe National Forest.

The first mile of the trail was fantastic. I hiked past vibrant Yellow Flag Flowers, small daisy-like flowers, soft Red Paintbrushes, and a rock that resembled something out of Stonehenge. At the one-mile mark, I arrived at San Gregorio Reservoir. Here amidst the meadows filled with flag flowers and Iris, was a beautiful little mountain lake where people were fishing for trout. At the north end of the lake, I crossed Clear Creek on a shaky make-shift bridge of spruce logs. After that I went through a small meadow that was lush and green with spring plants and wildflowers. Then, after three or four miles of steady but gradual climbing in elevation, the trail flattened out and proceeded though a dense forest of spruce with an occasional aspen tree. Except for a marshy or muddy patch of trail, this was one of the most pleasant trails that I’ve hiked on in New Mexico. It was flat and wide, and it had nice soft tread. A hiker’s dream trail.

Further on, I had to scout around stream crossings across a couple of swampy streams. This included the Rio Las Vacas. I also found patches of snow remaining after a hard winter. It was hard to believe that there was still snow on the ground in July even though I was hiking at 10,000 ft in elevation.

I continued my hike along the Rio Las Vacas for about a half a mile when I spotted an exceptionally beautiful, flowery meadow. It had a campsite along the stream on the far side. I decided to make it my home for the night, so I set up my tent. I hung my food to keep it away from the bears, and soon small droplets began to sprinkle down from the sky onto me. Soon, it was raining, and I had to retreat to my tent. This is where I ended up taking a nap while I waited for the shower to end. I reemerged from my tent at around 5:30 to make my dinner. After dinner, I enjoyed the beauty of the area by taking pictures. Soon, it began to rain again.

A fairly strong thunderstorm passed overhead. It was very loud, with lots of rain, thunder, and lightning. It dropped a tremendous amount of rain on the tent, but the tent was up to the task and did not leak. It was a good test of my new tent “Big Aggie.” I did not reemerge after this, but I went to sleep for the remainder of the night.

The next day I continued the hike. I pushed on up the Rio Las Vacas. While crossing another marshy area, I slipped on a log and fell into the muddy water up to my knees. Oh well! Next, I saw three elk off in the trees. Soon, I arrived at the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) which lies in the main part of the wilderness, the San Pedro Parks.

It wasn’t long before I spotted another elk in the trees. I saw two more right before I reached the central meadow of the San Pedro Parks. When I arrived just above the meadow, I saw a large herd of elk grazing on the other side. I stopped for a while and just watched them from a distance while eating snacks. When I was done with my snacks, I continued my hike on the CDT towards the next trail junction. When I rounded the next bend, I saw a coyote that was harassing a herd of cows with calves. He slowly moved away as I entered the southernmost portion of the meadow. He was a beautiful specimen. He was so large that he looked like a wolf.

The CDT continued down a stream that drained the meadow. I believe it was the Rio Puerco. I saw one trout swimming in the water along this portion of the stream. I found no decent campsites, so I continued down the trail to the next intersection. This was the Anastacio trail. I turned off the CDT here and was now following the new trail. I crossed another large meadow. Here, I spooked a small herd of cows that ran ahead of me onto the trail. Coming up the meadow behind me was a rather large bull. He was in a poor mood because his cows were running away from him, and I was caught in the middle. I had to pick up my pace to skirt around his herd of cows in order to avoid danger.

After a while, I reached the top of the hill on the Anastacio trail. The trail was difficult to locate in areas through large meadows. Just over the crest of the hill, I ran smack dab into another herd of elk. They quickly retreated into the trees as I passed by them. Just past the herd of elk was the trail junction that I was looking for. It had a sign that pointed to the Upper Clear Creek Trail. The only problem was that there was no trail. The sign was in the middle of an expansive meadow. The actual trail could be anywhere on the opposite side. I decided to check the map to see if I could decipher better where the trail might be located. The arrow on the sign seemed to correlate the location of the trail on the map, so I explored out across the grassland to an inlet of meadow in the trees. That is where I found a trail. However, it looked more lake a cow trail than a trail for people. It took around a mile before I was completely sure that I had found the correct trail.

I followed the lightly used path down a few miles, when I made the decision to just continue hiking all the way out of the wilderness. It was only two o’clock, and I only had four to five miles to go. I continued past San Gregorio Reservoir again and arrive back at the trailhead at around four fifteen. I saw a crowd of fisherman at the reservoir, but other than that I saw no one on the trail for the entire day. Overall, it was a great trip. I just wish there were fewer cows.