Ubering to trailheads | Trail conditions | Parking updates

Short newsletter this week; I am on trail.

Ubering to Panchuela Campground in the Pecos Wilderness

You can Uber to Panchuela! I did it about 10 days ago. It cost around $80 all in. I took a “Pet Uber”. The driver was a little hesitant about getting to the campground, but he accepted the ride because Uber showed the full route as being paved (which it is).

If you can be dropped off at Panchuela, that also means you could be picked up there, too. I will try to test that to confirm it. It probably also means you can Uber to and from Jack’s Creek Horsecamp, because the road to that is also paved.

Unfortunately, Ubering or using Lyft around Taos works far less well. I was hoping to be Ubered to the trailhead for Forest Road 438, but no drivers took the ride. Lyft couldn’t find any drivers, either. I tried again, changing the dropoff location from the trailhead to just off Route 518, but still no luck. There is still Shuttle Taos for rides to trailheads in the Taos area.

Parking breakthrough in Santa Fe

There is now free parking available 1.2 miles from the Santa Fe Plaza for up to two weeks (plus maybe a few extra days if needed) for Santa Fe to Taos members. We have five “permits” that I can distribute to members so their cars can be recognized by the church staff. The location is good, too. It is a bit of a walk from the SF Plaza, but it is also in a much more secure neighborhood than the area around the Plaza.

Trail conditions

• Somebody cleaned up Dockweiler Trail! I don’t know who, but it is much better. Huge thanks.

• I finally tried Trailriders Wall Trail. It’s beautiful, but treacherous in spots. I had a brief moment where I wondered if I was finally going to have to place the search and rescue call. If you just go up to the saddle and look down on Pecos Baldy Lake and over towards Santa Fe, it’s a great view and the trail is fine up to there.

• Middlefork Trail is in bad shape. Sections of it are good, but then you walk up to a major log pile. In a few instances, the log piles had a loose log. Those are known as “widowmakers” in Maine. Doubt I have to tell you why. There were a lot of log piles, and possibly hundreds (like 200) of fallen logs across the trail. Middlefork near where you’ve just come down from Divide Trail becomes really hard to follow, too. I ran into another hiker in SB Campground who had just come down through the full length of Middlefork after me; she thought it was so bad she just bailed on the trail and walked through the woods.

• East Fork Trail got some maintenance recently. I met a three-man, one-woman trail maintenance crew going up to East Fork Trail for a week of trail work. They were carrying the big six-foot cross cut saws. They were from the Southwest Conservation Corps, which I didn’t even know worked in this area. Huge thanks for the trail work!

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading to the end.

Pam Neely

PS: I am working on guiding permit applications for next year. Stay tuned…

PPS: I found another excellent alternate route for Section 5. It is much easier than the one I told you about two weeks ago, but it’s in a different area, and, alas, it is not as dramatically beautiful as the other alt route. Still… if you want less road walking in Section 5, I will have two good options for you soon.