Another Week- Another Attempt to Lose a Hiking Partner

For this weeks adventure in the Sandia's, de-I's Sandia Outfitters ( Our Motto: You Have Nothing to Lose but Yourself) called for a hike that we do very rarely because it requires starting from one locale and arriving at another. So you have to drop off a vehicle at the destination and then drive to the departure.

Gaius Derf had set a block on his phone to prevent me from inducing him to do any more of my hiking adventures. Fortunately for me, I had an underground IT guy hack into his computer and create a false reservation for him from a reputable outfitter. When he got to our departure point and found out the truth, it was too late

Gaius Derf
"How the hell did he get into my computer?"

This hike has us starting on the west side of the mountain going up the Embudito trail. The total hike will be 8 miles. We will start at 6200 feet and go up to 8200 feet at our hightest point.

We start by heading due east to begin with up the side of the valley towards that peak to the left. The first two miles has a lot of steep spots and is pretty exposed to the sun. We climb about half the altitude gain over this section. It is very warm now so it was over 7o degrees when we got going at 7:30 AM

Once we get first climb over, we can see our next stop. We're going to descend down into the valley and then climb the peak just ahead and end up at the pass just to the right of it, Oso Pass.
Descending into this valley and the climb beyond are one of the really neat and beautiful parts of the Sandias. Not many people hike it because it is in the middle of the trail system and not easily accessible. Of course whenever you have a lack of people there are other things to make up for it.

"Uh de-I. What's that large brown bear like thing behind you?"

"RUN!"

The next two miles are some of the lushest sections of this National Wilderness. My picture below hardly does it justice. Derf says it reminds him of the eastern part of the Cascade Range in Oregon. It's hard to believe that just a mile to the west we were hiking in desert!

Never can resist the picture of a cool rock

Just before we break through the forest and get to Oso Pass there is this fabulous panorama of Sandia Peak. Unfortunately I had my phone camera set for too high an exposure given the incredibly bright sun we had today.
When we get to Oso Pass we are halfway so we have a 4 mile descent. This picture is just after we started down and we are now going due south. Just over that rise into the valley is our destination.

You can see just how dry things are now and this is just a half a mile from where we had lush forest.

Accidental picture of my shadow while I was putting the phone away :(

As we head south, we pass areas where we often hike

The Embudo Valley

A shot of the City of Albuquerque looking toward downtown

We are now 6 miles into the hike with 2 miles to go. We're on the Three Gun Spring Trail which I've written about before. We've gone through some mild descents and re-climbs but have only really given up about 700 feet of altitude so we have a steep descent ahead of us. This is also a section where there is no cover at all and is real desert. The temperature was pushing 90. I brought have juice and half water with me today. The electrolytes in the juice made a big difference.
At our destination

"Come on Derf. It's only heat stroke. Don't be a wimp and get in the car."