Snow accrues slowly | New section maps | Start training now

March 03, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Also: Apologies for the delayed newsletter. This was supposed to go out last night.

We continue to get very light snow here in Santa Fe, but the season isn’t over yet.
We’re still at 96” inches for the year per the All Mountain Ski Report, but we do have the potential for up to another foot just this week per the National Weather Service. It looks like just south of Taos has a shot at up to 8 inches this week if all goes well. Sipapu’s snow report shows similar amounts of potential snow. Even as I write this, the cloud cover is increasing and the wind is picking up. Fingers crossed… every inch counts.

This affects:
a) When we can do the thru-hike
b) Whether or not the woods might be closed due to fire conditions

For a), right now I’d guess that the earliest a thru-hike could be attempted is the first week of June. Maybe the last week of May if you are prepared to handle walking/climbing on ice. That’s a premature assessment: We can get snow until as late as early May even in downtown Santa Fe. I will be nothing but happy if we get a bunch of late snow and I can’t get into the higher elevations until mid-June.

For b, yes, that’s a scary prospect. But if it gets dry enough, the Forest Service could close the woods. That happens every three years or so, usually for just a couple of weeks at a time. No one wants the woods to close, but it is better to close the woods than see 10,000 to 100,000+ acres burn.

Closing the woods is even more likely this year with all the staff and budget cuts at the Forest Service and other agencies. (Cuts which are severe, and stupid, and potentially irreplaceable losses of expertise and bodies of work.) There won’t be as many Forest Service, BLM, Fish and Game or other people out taking care of the woods, so closures are more likely. Just for context, the Forest Service often puts out up to 50 improperly managed campfires after a big holiday weekend. Keeping the woods from burning and the campsites safe here is no small job.

Net net, we’ve got enough snow already that closures probably won’t happen… assuming the spring and summer aren’t too dry.

NEW SECTION MAPS UPLOADED

I have uploaded new section and summary maps. There are six sections to the thru-hike, each about twenty miles long. Each section has a 11 × 17 and a 8.5 × 14 downloadable map, available from the section page on the website that it’s for. You can see all the sections and get to those pages from the route page.

I also updated all the information folders… and hand-delivered some of them to a few key congressional offices at the New Mexico Roundhouse, including the Governor’s office. Just planting the seeds for maybe getting some letters of support, and just maybe getting some funding.

If you want to do the thru-hike in June, you now have three months to train. 12 weeks. Compare that to Hal Higdon’s 18-week Novice 1 marathon training, and remember that you’ll be doing the equivalent of five marathons to do the thru-hike.

Obviously a thru-hike is not a marathon, but I could also add that marathoners don’t usually run with 30-40 lbs on their back. They don’t usually do it on uneven, sometimes imperfectly maintained and sometimes rocky trails. They definitely don’t usually run their marathon at 9,000 feet plus elevation.

All that said, please don’t get intimidated by the thru-hike. It can be done in pieces. It can be done slowly. But do start “building your base”, as marathoners say.

Start doing medium-intensity cardio, getting yourself up to two hours or so at a time by the end of this month. You don’t even need to sweat. This is not an intensity thing; this is an endurance thing. Extra credit if you can get on one of the big, true stair climbers that some gyms have, and get up to one hour on it by the end of this month. Again, slow is OK. Don’t injure yourself. Don’t overdo. Just start building the best base you can. That’s what I’m doing this month.

- Pam

PS: The guidebook…. I am still working on it. I do have a printed dummy copy and it looks great. I got derailed by a few things (like having to drum up some money). Apologies, and yes it will be out to those of you who signed up as beta readers and advertisers soon. You can still sign up as a beta reader if you’re interested. If you want to advertise, use that same form. It is still on schedule to be released mid-May.