“And just let her cry if the tears fall down like rain
Let her sing if it eases all her pain”
Hootie & The Blowfish
I’m not one who typically shares their emotions on a public forum, but I feel like I wouldn’t be doing the day or the blog justice without mentioning that we each recently hit an emotional low. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all had doubts about continuing on, and at least one Knott has shed some tears in the past 24 hours. I only write this now because it turned out what we needed was to get back into the mountains. City time is nice, but there’s been way too much of it this trip. I know I’m turning a corner though with backpacking the next 4 days, the potential for a mountain after that, and 6 days of backpacking in the last 2 weeks of July.
Right now we’re camped above Willams Lake near Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico. The lake isn’t as pretty as many of the alpine ones in the Rockies, but it’s still exactly where we needed to be. Getting here today was a slog. We knew we only had a 2 mile hike in (we’re actually using it as a convenient basecamp for tomorrow’s summit attempt on Wheeler Peak, New Mexico’s highpoint) so we didn’t want to start too early. We arrived in Taos a bit after noon and found storms shrouding and surrounding the mountains. We debated the merits of hanging out at the local New Mexican hotspot vs the local brewery and decided on both.
We hit the New Mexican spot first. New Mexican food is just straight up The Shit. If I could pick one cuisine for the rest of my life New Mexican would be it. I’ve learned in the last couple days that an agave wine margarita is a thing. They are delicious. Like a margarita but perfectly refreshing for a summer day. The vodka lemonade of the margarita family. I have a feeling their existence is somehow tied to liquor laws here, but I need to do more investigating.
After lunch, with raindrops still falling and lightning flashing we moved across the street to the brewery. Since we knew a dinner of beef jerky lay ahead of us we didn’t hesitant to order a couple wood-fired pizzas with our beers. We’ll be looking for a reason to come back to Taos soon. There was a plethora of cute boutiques and emporiums that I’d like to visit.
As 4:00 rolled around and the skies appeared a little clearer we finally steered Fred into the mountains. As I mentioned at the top of the post that turned out to be exactly what we all needed. Great trail, great scenery, only 2 miles but 1,000 feet of gain so still a challenge. Normally when we get to our camp sites we’re pretty quick to have dinner and climb into our tents. Tonight was just the opposite. We were able to hang around outside for a long while before the mosquitoes finally chased us in.
I’m super excited for tomorrow’s hike as well. We’re going to get up at 5:30 to climb 2 peaks, one of which is New Mexico’s highest. What’s not to be excited about?
