Hiking to the Highest Point in New Mexico: Wheeler Peak (Taos, New Mexico)

There's a whole family of marmots over there. They're all huddled together. Oh my god, we did it! Post hiking dreams are coming true. Today we're hiking to Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico. So we're hiking up to Wheeler Peak via the Williams Lake Trail. It is a, I'm gonna cheat because it's a lot of numbers, 8.2 mile trail. It has a 3,024 foot gain and when we get to the top we'll be at 13,161 feet. If you can't tell I'm already huffing and puffing. We have a lot of experience hiking in Washington but we've never hiked at this elevation. Washington's a lot lower elevation so the elevation is definitely going to be the hardest part of this hike today. We've hiked longer hikes. We've hiked steeper hikes but starting at around 10,010 feet I think this is going to be a doozy. We're only five minutes into the hike and we've already seen some deer, some wildlife. Can't catch them, they're too far away but they're running away now. We hear that we might see bighorn sheep today which would be crazy, marmots which we've seen before and they had a sign saying bears are in the area but we haven't seen anything about people seeing bears so we're gonna hope we don't because we have Kona with us and she would freak out at a bear and that probably would end badly for us. How are you feeling so far? It's hard but I'm making it. Kona's pacing me. I am really struggling. I keep making a stop every five to ten minutes. It's hard. I'm huffing and puffing but I'm determined to make it to the top even if it takes us 15 hours. One very nice thing about this trail is they have awesome markers so all the trees have this blue paint on them to tell you you're going the right direction which is helpful because there's nothing worse than when you're hiking and you're not sure if you're going the right way but this trail is super clear and easy to follow so far. Alright we just made it to the turnoff to Williams Lake. It's about two miles in and I think it's it's only about a 0.2 miles of a detour. 0.2 there, 0.2 back but man as soon as you get to the turnoff the views get epic. 6.41. It took us about it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get here. Not too bad. We realized we made a huge mistake. We forgot to pack some hot hands and y'all it is freezing. It is so cold. Our hands are numb. It's June 21st I think and it's probably in the 30s right now. So definitely bring layers, bring hot hands if you're gonna do this hike. A week ago we were complaining about being hot in Texas and right now 100 degrees sounds real nasty. We're back on the main trail. Next stop hopefully Wheeler Peak. So this is where we started. This is the lake and we are right here and then that's the top. We look very close but it looks like we are at around 11,657 feet. We have less than 2,000 feet to to climb and we've kind of started to emerge from the trees and we're going to be kind of exposed now and I think I see where we're going and it may look kind of close on the map but we have a lot of vertical gain to go. That is where we think we're going. It's beautiful. There's a whole family of marmots over there. They're all huddled together. That's super cute. They're so cute. There's another marmot right there. The marmots are so loud. They make a really high-pitched like sound. It's like a chirping. We thought it was a bird but it's a marmot. He's so cute. I think he's looking for his friends. We're now right here. The summit's right there and it looks like we have less than a thousand feet to gain. Yay but I'm having to stop us like every five minutes because I'm so out of breath. It's steep. It's really hard. Adam and Kona are crushing it. They barely need to stop. I feel strong and good but still it's hard. I'm just huffing and puffing. So we're getting there very slowly. We hike, take a break, hike, take a break but I'd rather get there and just get there slowly than not get there at all. Alright, sorry. We made it to the top of the ridge. Now we're just gonna go to the top of there and we'll get to the tippy top. Got a little sneak peek of the view. Yeah this is a ridiculous view. We are so close. Oh my god. We did it. Oh my god. Oh my god. I'm so tired. Tal, it's really windy and the summit was starting to get kind of busy and it's pretty cold from the wind. We hear it's pretty common for it to get really windy up here. So we're gonna head back down. Yeah we spent about 10-15 minutes up there but man it's freaking beautiful. There's like 360 degree incredible ridiculous views. I don't know how far you can see but I think you can see like Colorado. That might be true. I think I overheard people saying that but even though the summit, the actual summit's kind of small, there's like areas around it that you can sit and kind of have space from people. So yeah, even though the journey up here was horrible for me and I'm not gonna lie, I hated almost every second of it. I'm so glad we did it and hopefully going down will be okay. It's a lot of like loose rock yeah and like gravel kind of and very steep. So we probably won't film for a little bit till we're in like a safer area but wish us luck. We did it! Oh my gosh. We made it back. Took us seven and a half hours total which for a little over eight miles seems a little slow for us. We're normally really fast hikers. We don't know if that's like a good time or not for this hike but I mean for us never really hiking at this elevation, I'm just, I'm just glad we survived. I am totally pooped. My feet hurt. I'm just tired and hungry. I'm so hungry. I have not eaten anything today and it's like one something. I don't know how you're running. Because I felt so sick as we were going up to the summit just from being really exhausted and overworked. I just felt kind of nauseous so nothing sounded good to me except pizza. Oh I could go for that. We're gonna try to find a pizza place nearby that we can get some pizza at. Kona said please give me pizza please. Kona, I think out of everyone Kona definitely did the best from a fitness perspective. Yeah for sure. She was not huffing and puffing hard at all. It was right up her alley. She made me feel weak. Post hiking dreams are coming true. Oh baby. I'm so excited about this. So we got pizza at a place called Taos Mesa Brewing Taproom. I think they have a brewery. They also have a place that sells food and they have a gluten-free crust so we decided to go with them and this looks really good. Oh I'm so excited. Okay so we got pepperoni, San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella, pesto and what is this? I think that's roasted garlic. Oh and the roasted garlic. Can't go wrong with that. That looks super good. It's my kind of style like the thinner crust. That's what I like. Oh yeah. Look at that on the back. I think it's wood fired pizza but that might not be right. I looked at a few places but I think this is the wood fired one. Can't keep them straight. Don't burn your mouth. Solid. The sauce on the pizza has really good flavor and it's kind of more of a thinner style sauce. It's delicious and then the crust even though it's really thin it's really soft inside so it's not like just like biting into a cracker like some gluten-free crust can be. Oh this is really good. I wasn't expecting much to be honest but this has exceeded my expectations and maybe it's because I haven't eaten really and we just hiked to the top of New Mexico but I think it's actually really good pizza. Oh man this is so needed after that hike man. I don't think we've ever deserved or earned pizza more. Pizza has been demolished. We had a few other things that we wanted to do in the area but we're completely wiped out from the hike. It kicked our butt. We got up at 4 a.m this morning to get up and get ready and get going for sunrise so I don't know how much we can do. We're totally pooped so I think instead of trying to do more things today we're just gonna head to the spot we want to camp at tonight which is a free BLM spot and if it's anything like what it looks like online and what people say about it it should be really cool and we can't wait to show you guys. Well we just drove a little over three miles down a bumpy rutted dirty crazy road in the New Mexico desert foresty area. The drawers in the back are flying open so you had to go back there to like keep pushing them back in. It's an awesome spot. It was like we're gonna be parking right on the edge of this canyon overlooking it and it was gonna be super cool but we get here and it says the trailhead's open to access the canyon but the campground is closed and there's no cell phone service or anything and we need to be able to work tonight and be able to work tomorrow morning since it's a Monday but I guess it's just one of those van life things that happens. Yeah I mean it had good reviews and it said it had AT&T and Verizon service but we haven't had service for 30 minutes. We're on like off network right now and nothing's working so we can't even like reread through stuff or even look at a map so I guess we are leaving this spot and we're gonna have to find somewhere else to sleep for the night and we have no idea where because we can't access any internet on our phone so we're just gonna drive out and then figure it out eventually. Yeah like Adam said though it's like I don't know it's kind of one of those things that happens with van life I mean it's just part of it yeah sometimes it's awesome and sometimes it's awesome but you can't stay and sometimes it sucks but yeah but that's okay we're not gonna let this one setback impact the whole day it was an awesome day awesome weekend yeah awesome weekend here in New Mexico we went to Santa Fe and ate delicious foods and then today we climbed to the freaking highest point in New Mexico we've done the highest point in Texas as well so it was really cool to add another one to the list but I don't know what other ones we'll add next because that was a doozy I think maybe like Florida Alabama some like flatter states maybe we'll tackle those ones next but it was an incredible experience highly recommend doing it even though it will kick your butt maybe maybe you're way more fit than we are and it won't kick your butt but we're gonna end the vlog here so we can kind of just focus on where we're gonna stay for the night but the next time you guys see see us we should be in the Salt Lake City area that's the plan at least and we have some fun stuff planned there oh yeah can't wait to show you