Hike up Sandias Pino trail - part 4

I was celebrating my birthday, and I decided that I would hike up the Pino trail a few days later.

The day that I decided to take my hike, it clouded up and a mass of cold air blew in to greet me on the mountain. So I brought some cold weather clothes, which was a good idea, because you never know what weather you're going to run into up on the mountain.

Down by the trailhead, I was pouring down sweat with only a light sweather over my shirt, with the sun shining. But as I proceeded up the mountain, the sun went under behind the clouds. The trailhead is at a little over 6,000 feet, but the crest is over 9,000 feet.

As I continued up the mountain, I found that I became comfortable with my sweater, and after a while, found that I was getting cold. So I put on another sweater, and was ok for a while.

Continuing on higher up the mountain, I noticed that the wind picked up and it got quite a bit cooler. So I put on my wind shell, and gloves, and my felt neck warmer, and put another felt neck warmer around my head over my ears.

My gloves were leather gloves, not insulated gloves, and I found that as I was just below the crest of the trail, that my fingers were getting numb, even with all the clothes that I had put on, and I was getting a little bit chilled.

I took my pictures up on the crest and headed back down the trail until I got down to a place where there was some shelter from the wind. I took off my gloves and worked my fingers to get blood flowing back in them, and started to get some feeling back in my fingers. I pulled out my sandwich and ate it with Pearl, and continued on down the trail after I waited a short while to settle my stomach after lunch.

Soon I found that I was starting to get warm again, but I kept my coat and everything on until I began to feel hot, and the feeling in my fingers came fully back.

Finally, I was getting so hot that I was starting to sweat, so I started taking off layers again, and got back down to just a shirt and sweater, and I was plenty comfortable. Quite a difference in the temperature of the environment from the trailhead to the crest.

It was a good hike, but unfortunately, the views were not as good as I had hoped. I think if a person was to follow the crest trail further on in either direction, that the views would get better, but I didn't allow enough time to do a loop to a different trail back down on that day. Some other time maybe. But it was some good exercise and a good day to be alive.