Nuckolls Brewery event today | Higher elevations are clear | First large donation

It’s been a flurry of activity the last two weeks. I promised a trail update, so here it is, care of William Johnson, @johnsow30, who has been up to the Trailriders Wall and several other places in the high country in the last few weeks. This is his photo of the Trailriders Wall, taken last Sunday:

When I asked Bill about what the snowpack was still like, he said, “you may run into a little snow, but I’ve been all over the place up in those mountains up to 12,900 feet and I haven't had any issue with the little bits of snow I’ve run into.” He hasn’t been to the north side of the Santa Barbara Divide, but doesn’t imagine it’s too bad.

That said, all the usual “you’re responsible for yourself” statements apply. A little ice and snow on a flat trail is no big deal; on a tight, exposed switchback, it’s something to respect. I recommend you bring poles, but they’re handy all year round. «/END DIRE WARNINGS LANGUAGE»

Warnings aside, this is exciting. The way is clear!

Bill has many other photos of the high country, a lot of them along the route of the thru-hike. He has a website, too, for his art.

EVENT TODAY, SUNDAY JUNE 15th at Nuckoll’s Brewery in Santa Fe

1-5 pm, 1611 Alcaldesa Street, Santa Fe, NM, 87501

The lovely people at the National Forest Foundation are doing a series of events for National Forest Week. This is one of them. I have a booth and will be giving out merch and selling guidebooks and answering questions and learning more about what people think about the thru-hike and what they want from it. If you’re in Santa Fe this afternoon, I’d love to meet you! ✨Subscribers are special.✨

The Santa Fe to Taos Thru-Hike gets its first major donation from the Brown-Hoover Fund

This donation will help fund the Members Resupply in Tres Ritos, stock the wilderness store, and pay for ongoing organizational website and outreach costs. This means:

• The rent for the storage unit is covered (thank you!)

• The wilderness store has a ~$1,500 budget to stock the basic things members might need at the halfway point of their thru-hike (food, fuel, navigation, basic medical, some clothing, etc). So if your tent gets shredded or you drop your headlamp off a cliff, there’ll be a basic replacement in the wilderness store. We won’t keep money in the store; we’ll work out a Venmo payment. Things will be sold pretty much at cost, and some items may be in good used condition. I can get a lot of stuff on eBay, SteepandCheap, REI sale days, etc, so we can make this budget last.

• The website is paid for, including hosting and a few other tools (like this newsletter). Thank you!

• Basic print items like bookmarks, stickers, postcards, and printer ink are paid for.(Thank you!)

Huge thanks to the Brown-Hoover Fund. The donation helps enormously. Then there’s the realization that somebody believes in the thru-hike enough to write a significant check. Cue the inspirational music. 🎶 💪 🌈

2nd half of 2025 retrospective and my goals list for the remainder of the year

This has been updated and is on the website here.

I’ll stop there just to keep this semi-short. Thank you for subscribing. We have hit 100 subscribers!

See you on the trail,
Pam Neely
Founder and Creator, The Santa Fe to Taos Thru-Hike
132 miles from Santa Fe Plaza to Taos Plaza over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

P.S.: This is a little personal, but it affects the thru-hike. My mom’s health has taken a sharp turn for the worst. As the point person for her care, that means I’ll be in New Hampshire much more than I had planned this summer. It is unclear how the next few weeks will shake out. I am back in NM at the end of this month for the Buffalo Thunder Outdoor Expo on June 28th and 29th, where the thru-hike will have a booth and I’ll be speaking.