The Trek's video series | Los Alamos Mountaineers talk | Finisher pages

The Trek’s vlog series of the SF2T thru-hike has published

The playlist of Lauren Roerick’s vlogs of doing the thru-hike are here. That playlist is missing two of her videos - Day 1 and Day 2.

If you only watched one, this 3 minute 43 second summary would be a good choice.

The good news is Lauren had an excellent time and speaks highly of the thru-hike. Hopefully the success of this series will get her even more visibility. She has a terrific camera presence and is an incredibly experienced thru-hiker and traveler. Her website is here.

The bad news is… if I was ever worried that the thru-hike would cause the woods to be overrun and possibly trashed… this is what the beginning of that might look like.

This video series is getting a lot of visibility

As of noon MDT Sunday, Lauren’s videos on YouTube had accumulated 42,000 views. The Trek’s Facebook posts and reels of Lauren’s videos have accrued half a million views.

Here’s how their Instagram posts and reels are performing (the black overlays with like and comment counts are mini screenshots I took for each of those posts/reels after mousing over them.):

Here’s a screenshot of their YouTube account’s stats over the last 30 days. This suggests the SF2T content they’ve published is doing unusually well for them.

Am I overreacting? Probably. But here’s a screenshot of one of the Trek’s posts:

Not sure we want it packed.

But, of course, this is The Trek doing their thing. They’re a publisher. This is social media. They’re good at promoting content, and they’ve got some very good content to promote.

What do you think? Is this just a blip of visibility that will dwindle out within days? It could be. I hope so. But if even one out of 1,000 people who viewed even just those Facebook posts gets on trail, that’s 500 people. That’s 10x how many people did the thru-hike this year.

For context, this is unlikely to have the same impact as Travel & Leisure’s press about Santa Fe and Taos this year. Right?

For more context, the SF2T website is getting about 500 visitors a day now. Here’s how that traffic compares to what it was getting before:

The first spike between May and June was when I launched the guidebook.

Blame the guidebook

This whole thing with the Trek is because I sent them a copy of the guidebook and an information folder back in May. (Or was it April? It’s been a very long year.)

The guidebook made #1 on the Amazon bestseller lists last week for several days running, both as a paperback and as a Kindle book, in the Santa Fe and General New Mexico categories. I’ve sold 78 guidebooks since the Trek series launched: 47 through the SF2T website and 31 through Amazon.

I don’t know where this goes from here. I emailed two of my contacts at the Forest Service Friday afternoon to alert them to the situation. I am meeting this coming week with Taos Destination Stewardship. Obviously I have a lot more outreach to do. Maybe we’ll have to issue permits.

Maybe it’ll all be completely fine.

Los Alamos Mountaineers talk

I spoke at the October monthly meeting of the Los Alamos Mountaineers last week. It was held at the Los Alamos Nature Center. If you’re local and haven’t been to the Nature Center, go. It’s neat - especially the planetarium.

The Mountaineers were a wonderful audience. Big thanks to Beth, who helped with the presentation tech and set up, and Ann Satsangi and Jan Velechovsky who invited me and coordinated all the details.

I also got to meet the Kaplans - Casey and Alan - who were among the first five people to do the thru-hike this year. Or ever. 🙌 

This video is also up on the homepage of the SF2T website.

The 2025 Finisher pages are up

There are nine full pages up now. Fun stuff. Take a look.

You read to the end. With an email this long, that’s just darn courageous. Thank you.

- Pam Neely

Founder and Creator of the route of the Santa Fe to Taos Thru-Hike

PS: I will be at Adventure PitchFest at the Albuquerque Railyards this Thursday, hosted by the NM Outdoor Recreation Division. More info here. If you’re local, swing by the SF2T booth for some free merch.

PPS: What do you think of this Trek vlog series, and all this visibility? Reply and let me know.