I need Santa Fe every day! Plus Pecos Wilderness and Misha's first real backpack!

We celebrated our 1 month anniversary of the GWA yesterday at Pecos Baldy Lake, an absolutely stunning natural lake in the Pecos Wilderness. Plenty of pictures below. Mostly we have been relaxing and exploring Santa Fe and the beautiful landscapes around. 

First, pictures of Lincoln:

We've been getting a lot of quality time which is pretty special since he is a super active, neat, little guy, and he loves my rendition of 'Wheels on the Bus' with the guitar. He will be walking before we know it.

We bought a fishing rod and John got a 5 day license so he and Scott hit the Pecos river several times last week. Scott showed us how to clean the fish if we do manage to catch anything in Colorado. So we are ready for some fresh trout out of Blue Lake in the South San Juan's!

Scott pulled a trout out of the Pecos our first time out there!

More Lincoln

 For Memorial Day we took an awesome drive through the Valles Caldera to Lake Fenton for a picnic and some fishing. The weather has been unusual for this time of year, instead of hot and dry, its more like sunny one minute, cloudy the next, with the occasional rain. With no luck pulling any fish out of the lake, we headed for some trails to get some exercise and let the dogs run a bit.

Eastburn family!!!!!! So many thanks to these 3 for putting up with us and spoiling us with the most delicious awesome locally homemade meals of elk steaks, red chile jack rabbit tacos and smoked trout.   

Mountain Mama!

On our way back to the car it actually started hailing for a bit! This is the 3rd time John and I have been in a hailstorm this year (Ecuador, Big Bend and now Northern New Mexico). It's a good lesson for preparedness while we are out in the wilderness.

Our biggest frustration thus far, has been issues with gear. We don't have a lot of room in the Honda so it's important that what we do have is practical and functions appropriately. Our whisperlite stove is on the fritz, we've taken it apart and cleaned it 20 times and its still spewing intermittently out of the jet. We had to buy a backup butane stove. Our lantern also stopped working so it had to be replaced. We are trying to work out all these issues here because our plan is to head to Pagosa Springs, CO next weekend and spend about 10 days in the South San Juan Wilderness where we won't be able to restock things like fuel and food.

Another adjustment we made was getting Misha a doggie backpack. The weight of our packs makes a huge difference so we are learning to leave some luxury items behind when we backpack, like camp chairs, hammock, etc. Misha borrowed a doggie backpack from Laura while ours comes in the mail, for our trip in Pecos it made a huge difference with her carrying her own dog food. We did an overnight, maybe 20 miles. Part of the trail was snow covered at the higher elevations.

The pack didn't seem to slow her down a bit. 

You can see the burn scars on the trees from previous years wildfires. 

Misha's excitement at the first mound of snow we encountered.

The sun over Pecos Baldy

Pecos Baldy Lake. The first natural lake of our trip. 

Natural refrigeration.

We camped nearby and set up the tripod to take these pictures in the morning celebrating 1 month on the road!

Misha sleeping at our lunch spot. We had a long second day hiking down to
 Beatty Flats and wrapping around and back to the car. 

View of the Pecos River flowing through Beatty's Flats.