A U.S. General Said This Was Impossible - Climbing Starvation Peak - A Santa Fe Trail Landmark
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- Опубликовано: 17 сен 2024
- Starvation Peak (7,042'), or Sierra de la Hambre, is a major peak in the Santa Fe Mountains foothills. Also known as El Cerrito de Bernal (Bernal Hill), it was a major landmark for people traveling the Santa Fe Trail between Franklin, Missouri, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and it is recognizable to today's travelers on I-25 as they drive through Glorieta Pass between Las Vegas and Santa Fe. While there is no hard evidence of how the summit got its eerie name, legends as old as the late 1800's tell a tale of settlers who were driven up this peak and starved out by enemy Indians. The Santa Fe Trail was a prominent trading route linking the U.S. and Spanish, later Mexican, New Mexico. When the Mexican American War began in 1846, U.S. troops led by Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny were deployed from Bent's Old Fort in southeastern Colorado, marching on the Santa Fe Trail towards Las Vegas, New Mexico, and then Santa Fe. Glorieta Pass was almost a battlefield where New Mexican militiamen from the Santa Fe area stood their ground until Governor Armijo lost the gumption to fight (blaming his courageous and willing militiamen, armed mostly with outdated weaponry but also a couple anti-personnel cannons that likely would have wreaked havoc on any invading force trying to advance through the Pass - I will leave it up to the reader whether this was cowardice or realism). It later was an actual battlefield during the largest Civil War campaign in the American West, but that is a story for another day. Major William Anderson Thornton in 1855 recalls that when Gen. Kearny (who lends his name to Kearny Elementary in Santa Fe) led his troops through Glorieta Pass on the way to Santa Fe, he wanted to place a U.S. flag on the peak's summit, but after probing the mountain's steep slopes, determined, evidently incorrectly, that it was insurmountable. Note that in 1855 he did not refer to the peak as Starvation Peak, but as the San Barnard Mountains.
There may be some truth to the traditional story of how Starvation Peak got its name. The New Mexican government and Comanches had a relatively peaceful relationship due to their trade partnership (the famous Comancheros brokered this), but after the U.S. assumed control of the New Mexico territory and settlers rather than traders began traveling the Santa Fe Trail, it became a prime target for brutal Comanche attacks. The nearby ruins of Pecos Pueblo National Historic Park are ruins, not an active pueblo, for precisely this reason.
I have to credit this blog for being the only trip report online with pictures: floyderdog.blo...
My GPX track for this climb: peakbagger.com...
Other trips in the area:
• Looking off the Edge o...
• Scrambling and Sciento...
• Hiking a Forgotten Tra...
Music by me - "Outhiking Storms - Watching Lightning at Night from Camp"
Cool hike! I've always been intrigued by Starvation Peak.
That is AWESOME!!!! I have wanted to climb the Peak forever. We drive by it all the time going up north to Mora. Great vid!!!!👍👍👍
I highly recommend it! Just be aware of the land ownership issues, and you should have no problem
That was a cool peak! Loved how wide open the view was. And I thought it was nice how you explained how it is possible to do the peak hike the legal and right way.
I think the legality is what deters most people. One of the few instances where CalTopo/Gaia GPS/onX seem to get it consistently wrong, plus a general misunderstanding of State Trust Land. Which is a shame because this is actually an historically significant peak!
Hi Nate, it looks like a fun peak, and that's good that there was a doable route. The views were pretty nice too, especially for a lower peak with not too much prominence. You must have a lot of videos to get too if this was from Easter Saturday.
I enjoyed this one a lot, and I would do it again with no hesitation. The scramble was a load of fun and was not sketchy at all. The only slightly sketchy section was that bit I pointed out where I had to hike for about 25 yards atop a steep slope of very loose dirt and rock that had a solid 30+-foot drop at the bottom.
I have two more hiking videos in the queue currently, but hopefully that increases this weekend. Mostly I just try to keep a steady pace of videos releasing every two weeks, and having the Madre Mountain video release before Mothers' Day weekend meant it had to jump the queue which sent this one back.
Nate, I have been waiting for a video on this climb. Your route wasn't quite as clear as I'd like. Did you in fact ascend on the south or southwest side of the peak?
Hi, Steven, sorry I wasn't so clear! I stumbled over my words quite a bit at the beginning and then probably made things more confusing with what I was saying about possibly ascending the east side. For future reference, I publish trip reports, usually including GPX tracks, for nearly all of my climbs on the Peakbagger website (peakbagger(dot)com - RUclips tends to hide comments if they have links in them).
I started from the northeast on CR B28A. There is a graded gravel two-track behind an unlocked green gate that is signed as a private road, but not for "no trespassing" (which is accurate since this is State Trust Land). We followed this road and worked our way as best as we could around private land coming to the southeast shoulder of the peak, which is where my dad was sitting and where I probed the spot that I said was more of a trad climb than a scramble. I followed the base of the cliffs west around the southern shoulder of the peak (where I mention the cool caves and mild exposure), coming to the southwestern slope of the peak where I found the notch. From here it is a pretty straightforward scramble up the peak. When I was at the summit I saw cairns much further north on the western side of the peak than I ascended, like I mentioned, so I imagine there are several routes on the western side where one could ascend.
@@OneMansOdyssey Thanks so much, Nate.
Did you see dad from the top?
Nope, I shouted a ton, and he said he couldn’t hear