Do you mind if I ask when this trip was, specifically when you took the picture of the horse sign with the mountains inthe background? And, if you remember, where that was taken? I'm doing my own New Mexico trip in a week and heading into mountains. I'm trying to gauge how much snow I'll find.
Where in the mountains are you going? I've been in a couple places in Carson National Forest and climbed Wheeler Peak. I probably don't have useful advice but I like those mountains.
I'm headed into Carson National Forest! Any advice would be much appreciated. I'm going to start north of Cowles and follow the Jacks Creek Trail to Pecos Baldy Lake and set up camp there on day 1. Day 2 my plan is to head to Truchas Peak via the Trailriders Wall and back to camp that afternoon. Day 3 is just hike out. It's basically following the plan this guy did but extended to three days: http://www.surgent.net/highpoints/nm/truchas.html Alternately, if conditions warrant or if I'm struggling with the altitude (I've done mountain hiking but at lower elevations), I'll either do East Pecos Baldy on day 2 or just bum around the lake for the day.
Beautiful area. I worked at Philmont Scout Ranch two summers, which is just 30 miles or so NE of Truchas peak. I didn't climb Truchas thought, the peaks I did outside of Philmont were Wheeler and Little Costilla. The earliest in the year I've been there was the last week of May and the trails were all passable by then. It was possible for north-facing washes to still have some snow on the trails, but only for a few yards. I saw patches of snow as late as July, but that was a very sheltered snow drift under some trees at almost 12000 ft.