| Venado Peak via Bull Creek Trail Trip Report |
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| Venado Peak via Bull Creek Trail   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: New Mexico, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 36.79000°N / 105.49°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 13, 2003 | Page By: truchas Created/Edited: Sep 12, 2003 / Object ID: 169078 Hits: 906 Loading... Page Score: 37.97% - 1 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
I wanted to go back up into the Latir Wilderness of Northern New Mexico and climb Venado and Virsilvia peaks two years ago, but the fire danger closed the wilderness. Last year I didn’t get around to it. So, since I was up in New Mexico for ten days, my dad and I decided to go climb some since I had time.
For those of you not familiar with the Latir Wilderness, it is a small wilderness in the Northern New Mexico Sangre de Christo Mountains, actually not too far south of Culebra. This Wilderness reminds me of a mini Pecos Wilderness, but without the crowds. Venado Peak is in the center of the wilderness and is the highest point at 12,734.
We chose the Bull Creek Trail to access the high country. The Bull Creek Trail makes a left about 2 ½ miles up the Hart Lake trail. We were very surprised at how nice the trail was. It was steep in places but fairly easy to follow. Cairns led us through a meadow where the trail disappeared.
We arrived up on the ridge at 12,000 ft. and were able to follow a nice trail all the way to the base of Venado Peak. These peaks are basically rounded grassy hills, but the scenery is beautiful. After about 3 ½ hours and 3,500 ft. of elevation gain we stood on top of Venado peak, my dad still climbing strong at 73. It was rather hazy so we didn’t get views of Blanca or the Crestones, but we could see North up to Culebra Peak and South to Wheeler Peak. Someone had changed the register to say Latir Peak, but the register was correct in reading Venado Peak so I changed it back. We were only the 6th and 7th to summit this peak in two years. One reason I love this wilderness.
I decided not to hike on over to Virsilvia. The weather was questionable and it would take a good while to traverse over and back. One thing I did realize when I was up there is I hadn’t actually climbed Cabresto Peak previously. I had actually climbed Unnamed 12,456. I climbed this twice, once in the winter and once in the summer. Although right next to Cabresto Peak and 8 ft. higher, Cabresto Peak is the one with the name.
We motored on back to my truck in 2 hours just in time for an afternoon shower. I’ll have an excuse to go back again to climb Cabresto and Virsilvia in the future.
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Sangre de Cristo Mountains
