Climbing every mountain

On our third morning in Ruidoso, we decided to get our extreme hike on. At the end of Ski Run Road, before the ski resort, there is a trail head to all kinds of trails in the White Mountain Wilderness. Like miles upon miles of trails. You could probably spend a week hiking through those mountains. We spent one morning. I'm not sure how far we hiked, we ended up on a trail that we're pretty sure was closed (we disregarded the notice at the trail head) and at a certain point just turned around and went back the way we came.

This is why the trail was "closed". Burned forest. Incredibly sad. We hiked through so many burned areas, and a lot of them hadn't started recovering yet, which is probably why it was closed. Burned mountain sides are dangerous without all the plants holding everything together. Landslides, falling trees, etc. Hiking through these sections was very humbling and also very difficult. We had to climb under and over an insane amount of fallen trees. Thankfully there were sections of untouched forest as well!

Creepy much?

We were hiking over the mountains adjacent to the ski resort. Very pretty, even when not covered by snow!

We hiked for three hours, and the whole time we were thinking, what would Reverend Mother do? She would Climb Every Mountain. (too much Sound of Music? too bad.) Like I said though, at a certain point we just turned around and went back. Mostly because I got two giant blisters on the BOTTOM of my feet. So awesome. I was limping for the rest of the day.

After our hike and a yummy lunch, we hung out at the campsite for the rest of the day. We read for a few hours in the sun (and both got sunburned!), played card games, and grilled up a fancy feast. Can't every day be like that?

And for your viewing pleasure, this is what my cute husband's hair looks like after three days sans showers. On our fourth morning, we packed up camp and headed into town for a day of civilization and a night in a hotel. It was a sad morning, I did NOT want to leave. We took a couple parting shots of the mountains we had just gotten to know and headed down.

In case you're wondering where my dream home is, it's that tiny cabin down there. Heaven on earth. My heart hurts being away from these mountains!

The rest of the trip here.