Welcome all to the official blog for the New Mexico Mountain Club!
I can already hear it…why do we even need a blog? Primarily, just one reason. For the year 2020, we’ve concocted an idea for the Mountain Club to participate in two challenges in an effort to promote inspiration and motivation to visit regions all over this beautiful state we’re lucky to call home. One of these challenges is for the club to visit all the wilderness areas of New Mexico, and the second is to bag all of the peaks on public land with a prominence of 2500 feet or greater. This blog will serve as both a tracker, to see where we are in these challenges, and as a log, providing details of our trips out to these places.
How will we be creating this blog as we go? When a club leader leads a hike to these regions, I will request a trip report regarding the outing, which may be however lengthy or terse as the leader chooses. I will use this trip report, and pictures either given by the leader or taken from the Meetup, to create the blog posts. As a result, each post will not be consistent in its writing style or length. With each wilderness area or peak knocked off the list, I will cross it off so we see what remains.
NOW, a couple rules.
For a trip to count in this challenge, there must be a minimum of one other Mountain Club member in addition to the leader. It may prove challenging to instigate interest in some of the farther reaches, especially those down south. But hey, it’s a challenge! A little creativity in trip planning can go a long way.
For a peak to be successfully claimed, the summit must be gained by at least one NMMC member in the party. A couple of these peaks are guarded by some fourth class, so make sure to do your homework if you anticipate leading one of these hikes. However, do not take this as motivation to indulge in excessively risky or dangerous behavior just to reach a summit. As a club, and just as individuals, safety always comes first.
Some of these peaks have roads going all the way up. Driving to the summit will not count. In order for a summit to count, there must be either a total elevation gain of at least 1,000 feet on the hike or a round trip distance of at least 5 miles.
If a peakbagging trip turns out unsuccessful, I will still create a blog post about it. Whether the difficulty was underestimated, the weather turned sour, or an injury in the group initiated a premature descent, an unsuccessful attempt can teach a lot.
I must extend a truly sincere and deep thanks and exclamation of appreciation to all our leaders in the club. They are all volunteers. Our leaders spend a lot of time to make these hikes happen, from doing homework on the roads, hike, and weather conditions; to vetting participants to ensure a safe and capable outing; to the actual leading of the hikes themselves and keeping everyone on track and safe as able. Our leaders keep this club active, and our leaders will be the ones deciding where their interest lies in their participation in these challenges.
With all of that said, I have a good feeling that this will be an exciting year for the club as we branch out across the state. The next two posts will individually list the locations that qualify in these challenges.
Thank you all for reading!
-Corey Norman (Outings)