Off-Trail Adventure to Little Costilla Peak - Valle Vidal - Philmont - New Mexico
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- Little Costilla Peak is No. 19 on the New Mexico elevation list with an elevation of 12,584'. It is also No. 29 on the New Mexico prominence list with a prominence of at least 2,424'. All of New Mexico's 12ers are found in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a subrange of the Rocky Mountains that start just east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and trend north to their terminus in Poncha Pass in south-central Colorado. They contain 10 of Colorado's 53 ranked 14ers. Little Costilla Peak is most associated with the Valle Vidal (Valley of Life) in the Carson National Forest, which is renowned for its angling and elk hunting opportunities. This is probably the wildest non-wilderness area in New Mexico's Rockies, in part because it is nearly surrounded by private land where hunting and recreation are severely restricted (Ted Turner's Vermejo Park Ranch to the north, the Rio Costilla Co-op Land Association to the west, Philmont Scout Ranch to the east, Beaubien and Miranda Land Grant to the south). Additionally, there are no maintained trails for hiking, and off-roading is not allowed.
While Mike Butterfield attaches Little Costilla to the Cimarron group, which includes Baldy, Touch-Me-Not, Agua Fria, Phillips, Tolby, and other Philmont Peaks, Robert Julyan and Peakbagger attach it to the Culebra Range, which extends from Big Costilla Peak in New Mexico to Trinchera Peak in Colorado and includes the 14er Culebra Peak. In reality, this mountain is essentially freestanding from other significant peaks, though I think the association with the Cimarron group is more appropriate given that the Valle Vidal is a common destination on longer Philmont Treks. Additionally, the ridge separating the Valle Vidal proper from the Moreno Valley is relatively low, and one can sort of trace a high eastern ridge connecting Little Costilla to the rest of the Cimarron group.
With this peak done, I have now completed over a third of New Mexico's P2Ks! The only ones I have left for my 2022 goal are Truchas Peak and Mount Phillips, the former being targeted for Labor Day weekend as a 3-day backpacking trip (a failed version of which is on this channel as a video) and the latter likely a late-September or early-October goal.
As always, leave no trace, and respect private property. This video is meant for educational purposes only.
Disclaimer: some of the peaks in this series entail murky land access issues. Always do your own research into the peak, and never assume that just because I am on video climbing the mountain that it is necessarily 100% legal to do so. I will never advertise a climb that I know to be expressly against the land owner's wishes.
#nmtrue #rockymountainhigh
wow, that was fun going up there with you! we go up that road alot as I live in Amalia but I cant hike far at all anymore so love going up to the tops of Ute and now this one with you. It sure is beautiful up there! and now I know the whats on the tops of those bald hills. love your trips!
I can imagine the scouts are all happy to migrate to the Philmont Scout Ranch. That is interesting to hear how many you came across. The view you had from the top is super awesome! We are fortunate to have incredible access to the outdoors. Awesome dedication as well.
I think they're especially happy since I believe Philmont was closed in 2020 due to COVID and was probably closed earlier in the season due to the Hermit Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. Of course, the Boy Scouts have actually mortgaged the ranch due to their bankruptcy, and it certainly seems like if they keep going down the same track financially, Philmont will be owned by some bank and then who knows what will happen after that.
Beautiful views up there! Funny that y’all have an I-40 as well
Same I-40! Goes from Barstow, CA, to Wilmington, NC, and I’ve driven all of it!
Great video!! How many hours round trip is this hike?
Thank you! This is an off-trail, high elevation hike, so the amount of time it will take is very dependent on your abilities and how used to off-trail hiking and high elevation you are. My notes say I spent about 4.5 hours doing it, but that includes about an hour of hanging out at the summit. I would allow for 7 hours to be extra safe, but if you are very experienced, you could reasonably do it in 4.
Do you know anything about the Dakota wall?
Before your comment, I was vaguely aware of the sandstone "fins" and "walls" along the eastern edge of the Front Range including the Boulder Flatirons and Garden of the Gods in Co. Springs, but I had never thought to connect that with features elsewhere in CO, WY, or NM. I read it is also called the Dakota Hogback.
@@OneMansOdyssey When I kid from age 9-13 our family used to rent summer cabins in Stonewall Colorado. It is still one of my favorite places on earth, even though I haven't been back in many years.
At the time I knew practically nothing about geology and my brothers and I thought the stone wall was the continental divide, lol.
(Of course in highschool I learned otherwise, but we had moved to Dallas, Texas by that time.)
We climbed and hiked that stone wall many times and we even got adventurous and attempted Culebra peak from the east side. We only got about halfway when we figured out we could never get to the top and back before dark. It's funny because in those days we were clueless that any of that was on private property. In our minds all of this belonged to God and we were just blessed to be there.
My geology teacher at Tyler Junior college told me that it was one of the radial dikes that emanate from the Spanish peaks. (This was a few years before the Internet where could find info on just about anything.) Come to find out later it's not one of the volcanic dikes, which came as quite a bit of a surprise.
I did return to Albuquerque for a couple of years in the late 80s, but I haven't been back since, which is another reason why I love your videos. A lot of times after I watch your videos I'll go to Google maps and Google Earth and go to the same place. And then I'll usually watch the video again.
It's the closest thing I've got to the places I love and miss so much.
(Though I hope to finally return next summer!)
When you were up on Little Costilla peak @8:14 you gave a thumbs up.
I froze the video there to get look at the Spanish peaks when I noticed something distinctly familiar, though it seemed too far south to be the same formation. So I went to maps and saw two formation listings: The wall south and the wall north. Other than that, I could find almost nothing about this formation.
When we used to regularly drive up to monument lake and north lake and the wall was there beside the road the whole way and I always wondered where it started and where it ended. After geology class I was satisfied for many years that it started with the Spanish peaks and petered out somewhere north of the NM state line. It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered that it was not one of the radial dikes, which brought all that curiosity roaring back like I was 13 again and made me wish I had taken geology at UNM instead of Tyler Junior college, and once again I am left with that burning question, where does it start and where does it end, lol.
After trying to follow it on Google Earth it seems entirely possible that it could be part of the same formation that skirts the eastern side of the Culebra range before it seems to trend towards sheep mountain to the northwest before I lost track of it.
Sorry to be so long winded, I was just hoping maybe you could point to some more info than the almost nothing I could find on the Internet besides a deluge of border wall news. 😒
Keep on trekking my friend; I love the videos.👍