Whitewash Trail

Ever since my friend Gaius Derf left Albuquerque for Salt Lake City, the recipient (target?) of my hiking adventures has been Wild Bill. I coached with Wild Bill for 7 years and knowing that he is an athlete at heart, I also know that he has a passion for taking on a new challenge...or is it that his memory is short and he doesn't remember the pain of the previous challenges.

This time we are doing a trail that I've never done in its entirety, called the Whitewash Trail. I've done the first part many times over the years and enjoy it as a way to get a real good work out in a short period of time because of the steep altitude gain. But there was another section that I've never been on that represents another significant climb followed by a connector to one of the trails that I also do often. So I proposed to do this Whitewash to Three Gun Spring to Embudo loop to Bill with us starting and ending at my house. I estimated that this was going to be around 8 miles.

Had I bothered to check my "Sandia Mountain Hiking Guide" I would have read that this loop is 10 miles not the 8 miles I estimated - that was from the parking lots. We needed to add another mile for the distance to and from my house. And if I had read the author's website, I would have read -

"The trail down Whitewash Route from here became incredibly steep. The going was very slow, and I had to be careful picking my way down the western face of the mountain. "

Of course we were going up the incredibly steep trail so our experience was somewhat different (oxygen deprivation, exhaustion, etc.)

Here is the Map of our route.

Wild Bill
This picture is taken after only 30 minutes into the climb.
It shows you how steep the trail is.

The Ultimate Climb
The rise in the foreground is where I've gone in the past.
The ridge behind it is the new frontier.

View to the South and East
Once we made the ascent and started across to the Three Gun Trail

Proof that I was There with Bill!
Or a picture from earlier hike that I'm putting in to get credit.

View to the North from the Connector Trail