I am a lover of hikes. Though I’m an Oregonian, not a desert rat. That should have been my first inkling to prepare for a hike up Cookes peak (a mountain 8,408ft tall & the highest point in the Cookes range) during the early fall months of New Mexico - a state I moved to only a couple months prior.

Being me, I was underprepared for Cookes peak like I usually am with all my grand adventures. I had nothing but me, my backpack (which included 32oz of water, 1 pedialyte, some nuts, beef jerky sticks), and my trustee Birkenstock sandals. [Side note: once a Birkenstock gal, always a Birkenstock gal.] Oh, I also had my pal hiking alongside me who was equally underprepared. But he was better at navigating than me and offered the motivation to keep trucking along, and he had mountaintop beers! The beers definitely didn’t help with staying hydrated.

Long story short, we somehow ended up making our own trail up and down the mountain and ended up hiking for 13 hours!! Too many of those hours spent in direct sunlight with hardly enough water ! I’ve never been so thirsty in my life, nor have I ever felt so defeated from what seemed like a never ending hike. Such slow progress made with such a steep incline. Even though it was a very rough hike and super dehydrating, it was also one of the best experiences of my life. I met dogs along the way, received many scratches from cacti, tried to eat a prickly pear because I was desperate (do not recommend picking one up barehanded), and climbed up a fricking big mountain !! The company of my friend was enjoyable as well. We ended up being trespassed from a ranchers land since we mistakingly parked our vehicles on his property & then we drank the best sprite of our lives after successfully completing the hike!! Yay!

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for more Sam adventures! Thanks for reading! 💛

The peak!

Our doggo friends at the beginning of the hike!

Me climbing the last bit of the mountain!