Attempt to Nambe Lake

Today, started out as a beautiful day. We headed up to the Santa Fe Ski basin to hike to Nambe Lake. The beginning of the hike was beautiful. Everything is so green from the monsoon rains, and there truly is something serene and peaceful just by being in the mountain forest.

This hike begins on the Winsor Trail trailhead at the Santa Fe Ski basin. After about 2-3 miles, the Nambe Lake trail forks off to the right. Here you begin climbing up a side mountain canyon to reach the lake.

After a steep climb up the canyon, we reached the first open mountain meadow and enjoyed running freely through the grass. There is such a sense of freedom being up in the mountains.

However, as soon as we reached the open meadow, the weather began to turn. The sky looked like we were in for an early monsoon storm. As soon as the sky darkened and we heard thunder in the distance, we began our descent. Just look at this ominous sky!

We made our way back down as quickly as we could, but still got caught in a hail storm! The rain and hail was too small for big sis to pay any mind, but luckily for me, my human mama carried me down and helped cover my head from the hail pellets. 

This is one of the unfortunate aspects of hiking in the mountains - especially with how quickly weather can turn at higher elevations. But this is also all part of the adventure. I'm just glad I had my humans to look after me. 

We didn't make it to the lake that day, but there is always next time. Sometimes it's not about the destination, but the journey getting there. 

-Rosie