SummitPost.org

Hi, I am looking to hike around the Taos area in the beginning of March and want to know what the conditions will be like. Will there be too much snow for a hike up to wheeler peak without snow shoes? Looking for a 3-5 hour hike, relatively strenuous. Any help would be much appreciated.

If you are wanting to do anything above 10k ft, you'll need snowshoes. Wheeler will definitely require them, as will pretty much all hikes that come off the road that goes to the ski valley.

There are plenty of lower elevation hikes closer to town, there's a trailhead on highway 64 right when it enters the canyon east of town that leads to a nice trail system.

If you are up for some more remote, rugged, cross country stuff, I'd recommend Ute Mountain, you'd probably get away without snowshoes on that one, as long as it doesn't snow too much between now and when you are gonna be there.

http://www.summitpost.org/ute-mountain/848337

I would head up to Questa and hike the Rio Grande Gorge in the Wild Rivers Area. It is pretty spectacular over there and March is pretty nice there. You might consider popping over to Tres Piedras too. Not a lot of hiking per se, but there are hours worth of fun scrambling on the crags there, let alone the potential for climbs.