Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Hello there, and thanks so much for joining us here! You are probably wondering what this podcast is all about? In this podcast, we will talk about all sorts of outdoor adventures, but primarily, for now, we will focus on hiking and backpacking. No other outdoor adventure is so accessible to so many people! So please join us as we talk about how to hike/backpack and learn how to hike any length trail from your local neighborhood parks to those long trails such as the Appalachian and others worldwide! Remember... "in every walk with nature; one receives far more than he seeks... - John Muir " See you on the trail!
Thenaturalmedic Adventures
The Best Guide to Lake Katherine New Mexico Pecos Wilderness Backpacking
Video Version: https://youtu.be/PfW2arRWohs
I recently visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was able to explore the Pecos Wilderness Backpacking to Lake Katherine. The trail thru the Pecos Wilderness is definitely not for the faint of heart as it has a significant elevation change of about 5,500 feet and a one-way distance of just under 8 miles when starting from the Santa Fe Ski Area. So join me for a grand adventure and use it to guide your own adventure. Make sure to stay at the end to see a summary of my experience with a review of the trip's good, bad, and ugly.
#newmexico #wildernessbackpacking #pecoswilderness
Hello there! My name is Craig thenaturalmedic. On this podcast, I help you build the skills, understand gear choices and review trip destinations in a budget-friendly manner to help you enjoy the outdoors safely. I primarily focus on hiking and backpacking, but I am certainly not limited to those topics. Instead, I try to give you the best possible information based on my experiences and opinions from my decades of outdoor adventure travel. Thanks for being here!
I try to keep active on social media in addition to my podcast. Plus, you can find my support links here: https://campsite.to/thenaturalmedicadventures
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Special Podcast Episode: https://tnma.buzzsprout.com/1769554/11277657
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What I carried...see link below
https://lighterpack.com/r/l1opyg
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Hey folks, what's up. It's Craig, the natural medic. I'm gonna welcome you to another episode of the natural medic adventures. Thanks for being here. Now, if you've been watching this channel at any time I live in Texas and unfortunately in the summertime, it's usually really too hot to do very many overnight backpacking trips. I do some day hiking, but to backpacking trips is just too hot. Nineties, hundreds. It's for me, it's just too much, but luckily I was able to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, pretty recently with my mom for about a week.. I squeezed in an overnight backpacking trip. I went to lake Catherine, which is located in the Sanger Christo mountains of the Pecos wilderness, which is inside of the Santa Fe national forest. There's a ton of trails up there, but I had seen another YouTuber go to this very lake, which is the highest Alpine lake in New Mexico. It's 11,600 feet. You will see how much of a challenge it was for me to get up there. But it's really an intermediate trail. I wouldn't call it an expert trail, but I definitely wouldn't call it a be beginner trail. I wanted to share the trip video with you in case you want to plan a trip there yourself or to some other place in the area, or just wanna improve, try to improve your skills. I have a summary at the end and tell you what things went, right? What things went, okay. Things could have been better and hopefully that will help you, but without further, ado thanks for being here. Y'all let's get to the video. Hey folks, Craig natural medic here and slight change in plans here going to cowboy camp instead of using my tent. Trailhead is over there gonna go do that should be a challenge, okay. Y'all shit's getting real. I'm loaded up. Here's the portal and here's where are we going down that trail right there on to Lake Catherine. Pardon? My huffing and puffing going up. Here is the entrance to the Pecos wilderness about 0.7 0.8, somewhere around there into the trail. There's another trail goes that way, goes to what says on the sign here, lake peak. Tell you about the Windsor trail. If you wanna read it, go ahead and pause the video. They came here to the Pecos area on 1879 and they built a homestead and used the Windsor trail to transport stuff back and forth before it was national forest. That's your cliff notes. I'm gonna continue on through this or go through the gate to Lake Catherine. Here I go, into the wilderness. It's very cool back here. It's cool. This is cool. And it's also, the temperature is cool. It's in the, probably the mid, the low fifties right now. Man can't get weather like this in Texas. That's for sure. Not this time of year. So I'm really enjoying this and I hope you are too. If you are, give me a good old thumbs up, let me know. You're appreciating my content. Beautiful Grove of Aspen's right along the trail. They go all the way down the hillside here. Very beautiful. I dunno if you know this about aspens, but aspens usually are a clone species. Meaning a lot of them, like when there's a fire will regenerate from the same root stock, then a lot of these are inter interconnected, kinda like a big, like one big tree with many stems. That's your factoid for the moment. Hey, you can probably. the Nambe Creek, which is just a bit to the over there Windsor trail keeps going down this way. The ski basin is back the other way. So I've gone about about two and a half miles. According to my calculations, they say two and a quarter. Puerto Nambe is that to the right two miles. We're gonna go over this little Creek here and see what lies ahead. This is Nambe Creek and whoa. It's a flowing. Hey, if you need some water filtered, of course. This might be the place, got some stepping stones right here. I'm just gonna hop right across and hopefully not. Fall in while filming. don't try this at home. Kids made it. There's the view from the other side. That's where I just was. Woo. Once you pass the Nambe Creek, you have another trail junction. To the left it's upper Nambe trail. Number 10 goes down that way. Puerto Nambe keeps going this way. Windsor trail ski basin is behind me. Let's Keep Going. Oh, my God. Look at these rocks. Look at these rocks. Look at these rocks. It's pretty obvious, but if you want to go down to the Rio number, you go that way. If you want to go back to the ski area, you go that way. If you wanna go to lake Catherine, you go that. Okay. I guess I would call this a lunch, but it's more like a pre supper. So I'm gonna have some lemon pepper, tuna fish, and a tortilla. Maybe two tortillas. I'm not sure. Yum. Yum. Okay. when in New Mexico. Have a little Tuna rito. Yum. Yum. Yu. I life good. I life good. Cooling off a little bit. So I put on my rain jacket, just a plain Jane frog toggs should help retain a little bit more body heat was getting a little chilly eating and lunch cause I was, not moving anymore. And of course I was a little wet cuz it's been raining ever since I left the Trailhead. this around the middle of the I guess middle of the lunch. So anyway, so if you're cold put on your rain jacket, that's the first step. Definitely no expert that looks like a large mammal dropping. not sure, but anybody knows. Let me know. It's been a bunch of flat walking, following the Ridge lines, pretty gently. But now going up some switchbacks and then have another set of switchbacks to bust through until we get to Catherine. But we've done about three, sorry, 4.2 miles. I'm not sure of the exact mileage cuz Onyx back country says four miles and other things say six miles. So I don't know, but I'm most of the way there. No matter what. We wonder sometimes while we walk up slippery trails, in the rain, in the snow, in the whatever, but this, because of this right here, look at this view. I'm not even at lake Catherine yet, and that's just beautiful butte i full wow. Okay. Right here is the junction continue on to. lake Catherine to the left skyline trail. And it's like spirit lake to the right over there. So I'm gonna go this way. I could be wrong with the altitudes getting to me, but I think I hiked all that in front of me. Earlier today. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but anyway, Here at the end, it's getting a little slower going. It's getting higher and I'm losing my breath, but I'm gonna do this find out and see if I do holy shit. Y'all holy shit. pardon my expletives, but that's pretty cool. That's Santa Fe Baldy over there. Can't really say it. Cuz of the trees. Hello. It is six something in the morning. This is where I slept last. Stayed relatively warm. Except when I rolled over, I kinda had to readjust my quilt. I did not make it all the way to lake Catherine. It was getting super dark. I was estimating about a four hour trip, according to Onyx back country and turned out to be about an eight hour trip. Sorry. A four mile trip. It turned out to be about an eight hour, eight, eight mile trip. So there's some water nearby. It's a nice, relatively flat spot. So I was like, shoot, I'll just crash right here. I can go see Catherine in the morning. That's what I'm gonna do. Soon as it gets a little bit brighter and warmer, gonna head down there after I collect some water. just leaving my campsite and didn't notice this last night, but there's a rock cairn right here indicating a turn. So we're gonna head up here and over there through the rocks. You're getting close too late, Catherine. It's just on the other side of these trees here, but look at all these boulders, I kind have to negotiate through these boulders little bit to get over there then. Of course I gotta go back through them. So wish me luck. I don't quite know what to say. Y'all this. Amazing. It was only about three tenths of a mile from where I camped, but it was a little bit rugged getting through and the trail wasn't exactly clearly marked. It is clearly struck along the path, but golly, isn't this beautiful surrounded by mountains. This tallest one up here by the clouds move over here is. I believe it's Santa Fe Baldy, but it could be this one. I'm really not sure right now, but I'm just all struck by this view. Wow. This is what makes it all worth it. Y'all getting go to beautiful places like this is you can't see any other way. See you good enough before this is lake Catherine. I only camped about three tenths of a mile away from it, but it was super dark. Last night, followed this Ridge line here, get to Santa Fe Baldy, which I was gonna try to attempt since I'm out here. But I think I'll save that sucker for another trip. It looks pretty sketch up there. at least for a flat LAN east, Texas. Hi. Rolling Hills, whatever. I hope you're enjoying this video. Pretty big tree of some sort. I don't know exactly what it is. I think it's a spruce, but if you find that coming back out, all you do is follow this path through these boulders. It's not too difficult. There's a pretty well worn path. It is not marked very well, but if you have an app like onx back country or possibly all trails, then all you gotta do is follow this trail down. And it just winds through the Boulder. You'll know, you'll be starting these switchbacks when you see this big Vista here. Wow. Isn't that pretty? That's part of the Ridge over there. What we saw earlier, like Catherine, the switchbacks are no joke. They're pretty narrow. I wonder even I call'em single track. I almost call'em half tracks. As you can see the drop off going down kind of steep. I'll give you a view again from the top. Okay. Big Vista switch back. I just came up, goes there next day. It goes down and just winds down over there to go to lake katherine or they coming from lake katherine like me. That's where it comes out. Soon as you come off, the switch backs. You'll see that big post right there. Or you might see it as you're coming. That's the turn indicator. If you wanna go all the way up there on Santa Fe, Baldy, another time, another place, maybe I will attempt that, but not today. but I'm gonna sit down here by the little post, take a little peanut butter and water break view of Santa Fe baldy. I'm assuming it's. This peak here, not this peak here. That's right above lake Catherine as well. Looks like a bit of a challenging climb to get up there. I just don't think I have it in me today, but another day, maybe. Hey, nice thing about going out of lake Catherine, all the stuff I climbed up yesterday. Is now downhill. nice view of Baldy or whatever next to Baldy, but so it should be a little less strenuous, little less time taking to get back the trail, head fingers, cross. Hey, what's up. Y'all hope you enjoyed the video. Let's talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of the trip, the things that went right. Okay. And maybe not so good. So first thing I wanna tell you is I did adapt my backpack and I will change that in lighter pack and have links to all the things that I carried in the description. So you can check that out for yourself. If you wanna check out some of that equipment that I carried. Let's talk about the ugly, which is the things that didn't work as well. Number one thing was I underestimated the time. It would take distance both distance wise and how much actual time it would take to hike all that mileage. After the fact I picked up copy of this book here from a used bookstore. I got this for five bucks. Believe it or not. It's got a lot of different hikes of New Mexico lake Catherine is in there and it tells you that it takes 16.4 miles round trip that's in and back. And approximately 10 to 12 hours of hiking time. Now I did it just under 10. I did it about nine hours and let's say nine hours and 40 semi odd minutes. that's still quite a bit I was anticipating because of ONx Backcountry said it was four miles that I was gonna be going four miles and not to hiking as long. I was wrong. You definitely need to be doing your homework, get you a guide book of the trails. You're gonna go on or, check multiple sources on the web or people that have hiked it, whatever your method is, make sure you double and triple check it to make sure that you're anticipating the right amount of mileage and the right amount of time. It's gonna take to cover that mileage. Okay. Now, because I'm a YouTuber and a podcaster, I use my phone to record my special edition podcast. Which if you haven't heard that, I'll link it down to the description. It's just an audio only from lake Catherine. I also recorded all my YouTube footage using my cell phone. So I had a bad cable. Didn't know it, it was a cheap dollar tree cable, dollar, 25 cable, but I had plenty of battery power. I had an anchor 10 milli. And I had a 30,000, generic when I got on Amazon that I used for battery power. Anyway I like to share these adventures with y'all and because of that, I wasn't able to do that. Another thing that didn't work very good. I brought my normal, saw your mini, but I also brought this as a backup. This is the B free with the hydro pack, two liter bladder on it. For whatever reason. When I got up after I slept, I tried to filter water with this and it would not come through. I don't know if it was clogged or what happened. It didn't get down that cold. So I know it wasn't the problem of freezing, but odd, never had that issue before, but I brought this as a backup cuz it's lightweight. Just in case that one stopped working well, it was the way this one was that didn't work very well. Sawyer Mini worked like it always does. Additionally I use, two smart water bottles or smart water style bottles. They worked great for just draining clean water into. I did not scoop with these. I used my CNOC bag to scoop water that worked really well. I guess we're on the bad section now. I didn't need my chair, my puffy jacket, my book, or the extra tarp, but I had them with me just in case it's good to have stuff that you need just in case you need it, even though it's extra weight that you may not, necessarily be crazy about carrying Just to have that. It did rain on me the entire way up the mountain did not rain while I was sleeping. Thank goodness. Because I was cowboy camping on a tarp inflatable Kylmit pad and my quilt and my inflatable pillow didn't get wet in. Never had to set up my. Never had time to set up my chair as always my cook set, it worked great. Heated up the water for breakfast. Just fine. It would've probably worked for supper. If I'd eaten supper, I'd actually didn't eat supper cuz I was so exhausted. I just put my, made my bed out and I was out it was got, it got so dark cuz it's on the east side of the mountain. it got dark a little earlier than I anticipated as well. I had a backup flashlight because my headlamp I thought was charged for some reason wouldn't come on. I was at my lightest weight that I've done on a backpacking trip at 28 point. I think I was 28.2 pounds. According to my scale when I lost my tent, I just left my tent back in the car, decided to do that. I was gonna do cowboy camping. That's with food, water fuel, all that stuff. 28.2 pounds total weight. That's not bad, not shabby at all. Anyway I am glad I have this. I recommend if you have the means, take yourself a Garmin device. I was lucky in where I was. There was a lot of cell phone coverage, but for probably a third or so, there was not cell phone coverage. If I had gotten hurt, it'd be good to have this in case you needed to some of emergency services. Anyway, if you got value from this video, make sure you give me a thumbs up. Think about subscribing to the channel. Got any comments about what I carried the trip, et cetera. Please leave them below. Y'all be safe out there. I'll stay you on the trail. Byebye.
