San Mateo Peak

We had ourselves a real adventure the second week of June. Stan wanted to summit San Mateo peak, so we packed up the car on Saturday morning and off we went. This might have been one of those adventures that I try not to think too much about it and what it will really entail as we get going, otherwise I might talk myself out of it real quick! It was a beautiful Saturday and we had to drive through the desert in order to get to the mountains.

Here is a classic Old Western road.

We saw a bunch of cows and decided to stop for a minute to show Scott. We don't see cool animals like that too often. He was SO excited and kept saying "Moo!"

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of his excitement, but this'll have to do.

We got to the trailhead, got all ready and headed out. 

We found this run down cart just along the trail. These mountains used to have lots of mines, it really was, at least in my imagination, the wild wild west...at least wikipedia makes it sounds like it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Mateo_Mountains_%28Socorro_County,_New_Mexico%29#History_and_Culture

Headed into the wilderness!

Heading up

Yucca was in full bloom

We climbed up in elevation real fast and had a beautiful view

Climbing up real fast in elevation warranted a break! Scott was digging the glasses. Don't mind his mouth full of apple, we haven't learned that manner yet :)

Log cabin ruins. There must have been a stone fireplace.

An old spring

The trail was a little run over by fallen trees for a little bit, but we made it through

The last 1/4 mile of the hike up the mountain was one of the longest of our entire lives. Each step felt like 100, but we made it. I think in all it was a 9 mile hike by the time we got back to the car.

When we reached the top, we found quite a neat piece of history in the ruins left behind by forest service people.

Corral for the horses they probably rode to get up the mountain

Shower anyone?

A view of the cabin from the back

A bunch of random artifacts.

The cabin with the tower in the background.

The peak had a little bit of a flat top and trees blocked the majority of the view (which is why the fire tower was so tall), but here is a picture of the view we did get

Beautiful flowers at the top

Stan in front of the tower. Later research discovered this tower was built in 1934 and is the one of the last remaining examples of the platform style/ladder stairs towers. It hasn't been used for quite a few years and Stan felt his life was worth more than risking trying to climb it ;)

The outhouse

We saw all sorts of random funny things around the place, like this old shovel wired to the fence.

We thought the design on this was pretty neat

A peak into the cabin, just had two bunk beds inside

We headed down the mountain, and were so grateful for the down part :) About halfway down we took a nice long break.

Scott ran around and played. He was loving being out of a carrier.

He was pretty funny, kept bringing Stan pine cones and sticks, then was running around and singing :)

Laying felt so good and the sky was beautiful

View from the saddle right before we had our final descent.