Getting ready to hike the Santa Fe to Taos Trail solo…

I’m hiking the Santa Fe to Taos trail! The Santa Fe to Taos hike runs from Santa Fe Plaza to Taos Plaza over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in northern New Mexico. It is 132 miles long, spanning four counties and crossing the Santa Fe National Forest, the Pecos Desert and the Carson National Forest.

The entire route has 35,000 feet of accumulated ascent and descent. You can see my setup here behind me. I’m currently on the road, but I wanted to introduce myself and tell you a little about myself before we dive right into the vlog series.

about me

My name is Lauren. I am a Canadian hiker living in Vancouver, Canada. I started backpacking in 2020 when I started the northbound Pacific Crest Trail. I was actually vlogging for The Trek for a while before having to go off track due to things that happened in 2020.

Since then, I returned to the PCT heading south the following year and then hiked the Colorado Trail, the HexaTrek through France, and the Te Araroa through New Zealand. This year I’ve been hiking and vlogging full time, so I have all of that on my YouTube channel. I started the year with the pilgrimage to the 88 Shikoku temples around Shikoku, Japan, followed by the Via Dinarica through the Balkans and, most recently, walked the Transcaucasian Trail through Georgia.

Why this trail (and first impressions)

And now I’m here with The Trek hiking the trail from Santa Fe to Taos. I had actually never been to New Mexico before, so I was quite intrigued to see what the landscape would be like. So far I’m about 20 miles in. It’s really beautiful. There has been a lot of interesting tree and plant coverage. I’ve seen a lot of animals so far, but I really wanted to see the New Mexico landscape.

I had never been here before. Santa Fe is a beautiful city with some truly unique architecture and culture, and I’m excited to explore it some more when the tour is over. I don’t have any kind of great inspiring reason for wanting to walk this path. I really like hiking and will jump at the opportunity to hike any trail that comes my way. I think it’s a really interesting project. The people putting it together are super friendly and helpful.

So far the conditions have been great. Trail maintenance is top notch. We even have tracking teams here working on Forest Service stuff, and yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing the rest.

It’s a high elevation trail, so I’m currently sitting at about 10,000 feet (or 3,100 meters if you’re talking to my fellow Canadians).

My team for Santa Fe→Taos

Water, trail conditions and resupply

I am very excited to walk this trail. I think it’s going to be beautiful. There are many lakes along the way. Until now water has been really abundant and easy to get. It’s just beautiful and I think the trail maintenance at all times will be really good.

There is a resupply point halfway up. Pam, the woman who helps put together this trail, has a storage locker where you can send a package, and she will place the package in the locker so you can pick it up in Section 4 of the hike. That means you only have to bring about four days of food to start, then ship three days, and then you’re in Taos for four days. Hey, yeah, it depends on how fast you’re going, but it’s nice to have that resupply point close to the halfway point. I think it will be very helpful. So my mom sent me a box from California, so it should be there when it arrives.

Itinerary and Progress

I expect about eight days on the road. This is the second day. Yesterday was half a day: I started at like 4 pm and then I walked, you know, like eight miles or something, and then this morning I walked another like 12 or 13 miles. And yes, we’re 20 miles into this trail and I can’t wait to see the next one, you know, 115.

Thank you very much for watching. I’m Lauren. I’m hiking the Santa Fe to Taos Trail with The Trek and can’t wait to show you the rest of what it looks like.

See you later.

The above is a transcript. Minor edits have been made for clarity and readability, while preserving the original message and intent. This video is part of a new series about Youtube of the trip. Be sure to check the full videoand subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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