Polvadera Peak as seen from Chicoma Mountain (looking north-northwest) on an earlier trip. As it turned out, Google's road map was inaccurate but good enough to get us to a blocked section of the road where we parked and began our longer and more difficult than desired hike. If we were to walk the closed road it would have been several miles longer than just hiking a due south line of site, so we opted for the more direct bushwhack. Since we were now starting the hike at about 8400' rather than the hoped for 9200', we would also have to add 800 vertical feet to our hike (not counting the ups and downs of the bushwhack itself). The line of site bushwhack worked as predicted.
View from a high point on the bushwhack to the north face.
Ron wondering when the bushwhacking would end.
Bill, Joe, Kathleen, and Ron; Jan is the photographer. This photo was taken in the first meadow that we crossed on the way to Polvadera's north face.
Another meadow that we encountered as we neared Polvadera Peak (seen in the background).
We finally found a decent game and cow trail heading our way (due south from the car to the middle of the north face).
This is our first and last relatively close up view of our ascent route. Our route up was to the left of the skyline, through much downfall.
A well deserved rest!
This spot marked the base of the north face, and as we began onward and upward, we left the trail that we surmised would continue to the closed road that could take us back to our car on the way out. The ascent of the north face began in earnest now, and was 2000 vertical feet of dead and down trees.
We had a much deserved lunch break on the summit as the clouds and thunder began to roll in. Although we had hoped to get to the huge meadow on the south face, the way down to it looked to be harder than we wished, considering the time, weather, and state of our energy depletion. After two half-baked attempts at getting through the dense forest and steep rock covered terrain, we opted to bail.
The forest didn't open until the very summit.
Cerro Pedernal as seen from one of the few openings in the forest on our descent.
We are very close to the bottom at this point, and got a nice view of a small peak on the northwest side of Polvadera.
We finally got back to the bottom of the peak on the north side of Polvadera, not far from where we started our ascent.
We headed due west at this point to find a large meadow that should contain the end of a road that would lead back to our car. The hiking was easy and gorgeous.
We found the end of the closed road shown on the Google map, and followed remnants of it for perhaps 5 miles to our car.
We lost the road in this beautiful area, but found it again in perhaps another mile.
Polvadera as seen from the west on our hike out.
The hike out was beautiful!
We had great luck with the somewhat threatening weather, but did get a slight amount of rain on the way out. Overall, we put in about 3000 vertical feet in perhaps 10 miles on our hike. Our slideshow leaves out most of the bushwhacking, but certainly shows some of the beauty we encountered.
