Chicoma Mountain Hike

Some of us are getting ready for some fun Mountaineering. We're going to be doing a series of hikes and outings. We'll start easy.

Let's go hike Chicoma Mountain, the highest peak in the Jemez Mountains. We'll take a meandering drive out forest roads to get to the trail. We'll hike 3 miles roundtrip with 1,100' of elevation gain and 1,100' of elevation lost - no work at all.

Looking forward to a scenic visit to a place I have never been.

Depart Los Alamos (The Y Parking Area) and Santa Fe at 7:30 am. So, please arrive at The Y Parking area no later than 7:20 am so that you can sign the trip waiver. I've provided the link here so that you can read it well in advance of the hike. We will leave The Y Parking area at 7:30 am.

Will anyone be coming from a town other than White Rock or Los Alamos? If I don't hear that anyone is doing so, we will skip the meeting point at the Northern NM College parking lot. Otherwise, meet at the Northern NM College parking lot at 8:15 am. Depart at 8:30 am for our drive out to the trailhead.

We'll enjoy the hike and then return to paved highways.

Send me email, brettmk@gmail.com, to let me know if you will be going.

Now that I have been, here's some beta:

Turn west off of Hwy 285 onto Industrial Parkway (on the east side it's name is Fairview).

Take the first right (north) on Calle de la Merced. It will soon turn into dirt and this is FR 565. This dirt road can get rough on some areas. Some clearance is good, but our group had a person carefully drive a Honda Accord to the trail head.

The trailhead parking is a wide area on the right with a large meadow that is used for camping. It is after MM 26 and around MM 27. Directly across 565 is a small forest road that soon turns left and heads up to Chicoma. This is the trail.

The small forest road on which you hike peters out after a while, so it's good to have a GPS and the summit waypoint. Meander through the woods in the general direction of the summit. You'll hit a clearing and then you can see the summit.