Week 5 : North Mystery Trail

North Mystery Trail
Distance Hiked: 9.47 mi
Elevation: 7,600+
Elevation Gain: 1,665 ft
Distance This Season: 20.97 mi
Elevation Gain This Season: 3,525 ft


Today's hike was our last in the Sandias. As of today, the Forest Service has closed everything in the east mountains due to fire danger so it was great to get to hike close to home one last time. The hike started out nice and cool. It was actually cold enough for jackets in the brisk mountain air this morning, which is GREAT! I'm no fan of heat stroke. In fact, the hikes are getting earlier and earlier. No bueno!



The North Mystery Trail is a great shady trail with lots of ups and downs (some of them pretty steep in my opinion!). There was hardly any traffic on the trail as it is not marked on most maps and has not officially been recognized by the forest service. There were lots of scenic overlooks as well as many different types of plants. Some of them were especially weird...

Overall it was a very challenging hike with lots of huffing and puffing. I broke in my awesome new pair of boots, which are great and hardly rub my feet at all, and I also was convinced to try using someone's hiking poles for the first time, which wasn't as weird as I thought. Not too sure about them still. Didn't notice a significant difference on this trail. We'll see...

Well, it's Week 5 and things are moving along well! The hikes are getting harder and the donations have been growing. The official total this morning including the mailed in donations not posted to the site yet is over $1200! Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far and if you haven't seen my LLS page already you can find it here: http://pages.hikefordiscovery.org/nm/rockymt08/mfriesen

We have lots of fun events coming up including a car wash, mini golf tournament, and a wine, cheese and BBQ night. There are a lot of things to look forward to!!! ...except for the 5AM meeting time coming up soon. Yikes. Gotta beat the heat!