We have some friends who relocated to White Rock, NM and over Thanksgiving we
went down to visit. My friend and I looked up local SOTA peaks and found that
the Cerro Grande trailhead was only 30 minutes from his house. In fact, a ton
of nice ten-pointers are close to White Rock.
We took NM Hwy 4 from White Rock past the "T" intersection with Hwy 501 and
ascended the southern flank of Cerro Grande. In a slightly flat area, on the
right, about a half a mile before descending down into the Valles caldera,
there is a pull off for the trailhead with signage. The trail to the summit
of Cerro Grande begins there.
The trail is well marked with yellow diamonds on trees and cairns where the
trees are scarce. The trail ascends to a slight saddle just above the 9600ft
level and then turns right towards the summit. The trail ascends through
beautiful open forest and grass, turning to grass and rock near the summit.
Oddly enough, this trail does not show up on the topo map on the Hillmap site.
A rock cairn and some scrubby trees adorn the summit for use as antenna supports.
I went for the small tree and was on the air quickly. It was windy, cold and
somewhat overcast this day but on the air conditions were fine. It was fun
operating far from Oregon and hearing the differences in signal strength from
often heard stations. I can't wait to come back to NM for more hiking and
activations.
