Lake Katherine Podcast Special Edition Live from the Pecos Wilderness!

An exclusive recorded deep in the heart of the Pecos Wilderness in Santa Fe County, Santa Fe National Forest New Mexico! It was a long, arduous journey to Lake Katherine, but wow, so cool. Have a listen to what I found. This episode will end in Season 4, and the next episode will begin in season 5! Thanks so much for listening to me y'all! - Craig

Transcript

Craig thenaturalmedic: 0:01

Good morning from New Mexico, the Pecos wilderness lake, Catherine, the supposed highest Alpine lake in New Mexico. You might hear a little slowness in my voice. The altitude is pretty high for a, especially for an east Texan. And just paint the picture here. This lake is not gigantic, but it's definitely big enough. I would say probably four to five acres, maybe in size, possibly a little bit bigger. Just trying to make an estimate. Can't really see the whole thing from where I'm sitting right now, but what a beautiful view. There's a ring of mountains all the way around me. Part of the Sangre De Cristos range in the Southern Rocky mountains, which extend into Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado immediately in front of me is a peak called Santa Fe Baldy. So called because the very top of it is bald. And it's looking back at me. kinda saying to me, what are you doing in my kinda like Shrek, what are you doing in my swamp? but that's the beauty about wilderness. If you don't know about the wilderness, definitely need to look that up and Google that. Started in the sixties and I'm missing a beat on when exactly in the sixties it started, but I believe it was in the early sixties. What they started to do is look at these areas that were very remote and largely untouched by man. Set those aside for people like myself to enjoy mechanized equipment was banned from that area. You could come in by horse, or pack animals. Or by foot, hiking, backpacking in, but no mountain bikes, no motorized vehicles were allowed just to keep that pristine feel that maybe our, maybe our ancient ancestors felt whether we're, coming from an Anglo stock or Hispanic stock or, native American, whatever. These areas are here for us to enjoy the Pecos. Wilderness is ginormous. It is, I believe around 230,000 acres, which I believe is bigger than the entire State park lands are pretty much most of the state park lands in the state of Texas. Now, Texas is a gigantic state. Unfortunately, Texas being a Republic before it was a state. There's a lot of private land ownership. I don't know if you can hear these birds chirping, but they're really setting the mood here. Cause there is nothing out here other than I can hear water flowing from a little Creek. I had to cross to get over to where I'm. but as I reach 50 episodes on my podcast, if you're listen, I really appreciate that. And I thought I would do a special edition live and direct at least at the time I'm recording this from. Lake Catherine, New Mexico, because this is just a fantastic place. Y'all and then on podcast, you can't see it. I will have a video in the future, on my YouTube channel, and I will link to that. It may be out by the time I release this podcast. It may not. Be out for another couple weeks. It just depends on my workload for editing and that kind of stuff. But these wilderness areas are just really fantastic to visit. If you get a chance to do it, if you're in, the good health and you are experienced this was definitely a challenge to get up here. I used Onyx back country. I'll drop a link to that in the description down there to get where I am. and it said initially it was four miles, but it turned out to be more like about eight miles one way. And when you're at altitude and you're not used to that. Exactly. I did fine. I was just very slow going, made my way. And pretty much went till I got, I was exhausted. Didn't quite make it to it like Catherine in one hit, but I was gonna go ahead and continue on as I go through God, I didn't wanna miss. This is a huge accomplishment for me because this is my 50th podcast episode for one, but also this is the most. Difficult. So far trick or backpacking trip I have done Eagle rock loop last year in Arkansas, and it's a lot longer. There is still a lot of elevation, even though you're in Washita mountains, which the highest point in the Ouachita mountains as like rich mountain, it's only 2,600 feet, which is a lot different than being at 11,000 something. Which is what I'm at right now. I don't know. Words can't really describe it. And since there's a podcast, you really can't see it, but I'm just trying to paint a picture of just how fantastic this is. And I'm sitting here today at. Almost 9:00 AM. Mountain time, be 10:00 AM back at back home time, back in the east, Texas central time. And just being able to sit here and enjoy this view is really just amazing. I know I've said that a couple of times already, but it's just very Ima very amazing and immaculate. opportunity that I've been able to get. I don't know if that's the right word immaculate, but we're gonna go with it. but to get up here, you are hiking up a lot of the ways, which the nice thing about that is going back out. I would be mostly going down, so maybe gonna make a trip a little bit easier. A little bit shorter. I did start a little bit later than I wanted to started at about 1230 mountain standard time or mountain daylight time yesterday and ended up stopping after taking, I did take several breaks. I took probably a half a dozen breaks for lunch and bathroom breaks. Snacks, just arrest, et cetera. But overall, it wasn't overall that difficult. There were sections that were very difficult, but. I push through. So I think backpacking and hiking and stuff like that can reflect a lot. And other type of outdoor adventures, can reflect a lot on life. Sometimes we do things outside of our comfort zone. We do things outside of what we feel like, we're capable of. And there were several times yesterday. I'll be honest with you. I wanted to quit. I wanted to turn around I'm so glad I did not though, because this is such a lovely reward for all that hard work in hiking or backpacking up here to the, to this little basin where I can see all these lovely things here. I will be posting pictures of course, to my Instagram. And then my TikTok, if you look at my social links in the description you will see you will see some links to those. So you can check out short videos and photos from, From my trip and not only, just being in Santa Fe in general, cause we're here until Saturday. Me and my mom are here. She's staying down at an Airbnb and just outside of town by the close to the airport. And I think she's having a good time and she was perfectly happy with me, driving the car up here. We did scout it out on Monday. See how hard of a drive it was to go up and turns out it was It was a good climb, only 15 miles to go to the Santa Fe ski area where the Trailhead is, but it takes about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and depending on conditions to get up and probably about the same to get down. Definitely looking forward to a warm shower and a hot and a nice hot meal. I was so tired last night. I didn't even eat. just laid my, I was cowboy camping. I just laid out my. Sheet of Tyvec inflated my climate inflated static V pad, put my quilt on top of it, crawled in there and went to sleep only. I had to get up one time. That's the only time I was cold for a brief minute, I had to get up to two, go to the bathroom one time, just number one, luckily but I was uncovered. It was a little chilly. I think it got down to the mid forties, which is that's. So that's so hard for me to believe being from Texas cuz in August, that's some of the hottest times in pretty much throughout Texas, it's in the nineties or the hundreds and here it's, almost no humidity in a large amount. Cooler, they've got temperatures. I think it's gonna get to 55 today. It did rain on me yesterday, a little bit, just a, just a constant drizzle all the way to about two thirds of the journey. Then it stopped. And the sun came out, the clouds rolled away and it was just a lovely day. But anyway, like I'm coming to the end of. Special edition that I wanted to record from here. Cause it's just a special place in general, but it's a special place for me now because I've been here and it's just absolutely gorgeous. So I guess for now I'm gonna sign off. I'm going to be putting out more stuff. Of course. Hope you will listen. I appreciate your time in listening. If you have any questions, comments, et cetera, please check the statistics or the podcast page on buzz sprout. I believe that's where it's at to drop me an email. Let me know how you're liking the podcast or some topics you want me to. or just have questions or comments or whatever, love to hear from you. And hope you're having a great summer. August 22nd, 2022. Whenever we, I record this. For now the natural medic adventures signing off and going back on the trail later, y'all.