Cerro Pedernal hike

We set our sights on Cerro Pedernal, the object of innumerable photos and paintings and musings ("It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it." Georgia O'Keeffe).

There's a good Forest Service road that heads up up up from the northen side of the peak, climbing up to some very pretty meadows. There's a very small 4WD road the takes off from it to the left, and gets more rugged very quickly. We could have driven in quite a ways, but were uncertain what was ahead so we parked about half a mile in and continued on foot.

The road eventually ends, and a trail continues up the slope to the vertical band of rock capping the peak. There's about 12 feet of Class IV climbing/scrambling to get up that, and then a pitch of Class III scrambling to reach the ridge.

Excellent views are the reward, you get 360 degrees of scenery and it's gorgeous in every direction! Someone has installed a mesh radio in a tree, but I have not subsequently been able to connect to it -- I think it's behind a couple mountains, as seen from our house.

Hiking down was faster than hiking up! "Pedernal" is "flint" in Spanish, and there's a band of exposed rock half-way down the road that explains the name. We also came across some dinosaur tracks in the soft dirt that weren't there on the way up.

Here is someone else's account of their trip, with more (and mostly better!) information and photos.

We stopped for dinner at our favorite little cafe outside of Abiquiu, having earned some food and beverage after about 8 miles of hiking with quite a bit of elevation change!