Moderate - My Foot!

Today's hike is the Pino Trail, a very popular trail that starts on the West side of the mountain and goes up and intersects with the Crest Tail that transverses the whole mountain from North to South. The Pino trail is popular because it has very easy access to the city, it is a very well manicured and maintained trail, and it has a lot of shade compared to other trails on the West side of the mountain.

Michael Coltrin's, "Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide", rates this a moderate hike. I quote, "the Pino Trail is a scenic hike and a good workout." It is also 4.5 miles in length and climbs from 6,460 feet to 9,230 feet over that distance, 2,770 feet or just about a half a mile of climbing. And the first two miles only accounts for 700 feet of the climb. This is a round about way of telling you that this is a very steep trail. In all fairness it is also a very beautiful trail.

This is not the first time I've hiked this trail. I usually hike it at least once a year. What happens is over a years time memory of the difficulty fades and the memory of the beauty and the shade are retained. So if I'm tired of the trails I've been doing and have a hankering for something else, I will reminisce and think how nice it would be to do the Pino Trail. This last through the first two miles . At which point I will suddenly remember, "oh yeah this is a pretty steep tough climb." That thought usually disappears after another mile because it's all I can do to just keep pushing myself on.

I actually mentioned this to Mr. Coltrin as I happen to pass him coming down the trail. He did concede that it was probably on the difficult end of moderate.

Now the pictures.

Today's Destination

Sorry for the washed out look, it's my PDA for crying out loud! This is the entrance to the pathway (you have to go about a half a mile to get there. Our destination is the notch in the mountain sky line.

The View North

This is the view North about a quarter of the way up the trail. The peaks to the left are Sandia Peak, the highest point on the mountain

View North from Destination

Now we're looking north except we're at our destination at 9,200 feet

Still Life of Tired Feet with Hiking Gear

After 2 hours of climbing my feet, snack, pack and water

Wild Flowers

Because of all the moisture this year, we've had an unusually wonderful profusion of wild flowers of every color.

A Dead Forest - The Effects of Five Years of Drought

In spite of our current rainy weather, we previously had five years of severe drought. One result was a devastation of the pinion forests that make up much of the mountain foliage. The Pino Trial goes right thru one of the worst hit sections. This is just a small piece.

One Old Tree

Mr. Coltrin told me about this medallion that I had passed on my way up. There is a program of doing tree core samples and dating them. This particular tree's germination (starting from seed) was 1642, the date of Galileo's death, hence the name, Galileo's Death Tree.

The Tree Itself