My Trip to the Pecos Wilderness in New Mexico

“Coming down from the mountain, her face was radiant because she had been with the Lord.” (Exodus 34:29)

I spent most of my 20’s backpacking through all the National Parks in the US.  So when a friend from church told me about a non-profit called Wayforward Adventures, I was super interested.

Imagine if you could unplug from today’s hectic world and spend time in the wilderness.

No phones, no computers, no watches, no worries.  That’s what Wayforward is about.  They do everything for you so you can completely relax, discover yourself or find your faith.

At Wayforward, you don’t need to think about anything.  The 3 guides do all the cooking and cleaning, plus they know where you are going and camping.  All the participants just focus on themselves and the devotionals.

We made the 9 1/2 hour drive from Dallas to Pecos on a Wednesday.  That was going to allow us to adjust to the altitude. I have never had too much trouble with altitude in the past, but this time I had a rough time.  So much to the point that I had to go lay down as soon as we got to base camp.

Base camp was a log cabin in the mountains that they had rented off VRBO. We all slept in cots that night.

The next day, they went over all the gear with us.  Wayforward supplies all the backpacking gear/meals.  All you need to bring is clothes and any snacks you may want/need.  Since I am vegan, I brought lots of high protein snacks like vegan jerky, nuts and nut butter packets.  Then we headed to the trail head.

The trail head was about an hour drive away from Base Camp.  We started up the Holy Ghost trail and hiked in about 3 miles since it was already 2pm when we headed out. We found camp and the guides cooked us dinner while we set up the tents.

Luckily, one of the guides was vegetarian and another girl was gluten free, so all my meals were gluten free and meat free. 🙂 They just added the meat to the meals separate after we had been served.

During the meals, the guides would ask a meal question.  These were great for breaking the ice and letting us get to know each other.  An example of a question was, “If you could have a different liquid shoot out of each finger, what would that be?”

We also took turns sharing life stories during the meals.  The next morning, we packed up and hiked in about 3-4 more miles until we reached Lake Stewart.

I LOVED this campsite!  So many great spots to have quiet time in the morning with coffee and the devotionals.

On the third day, we took the Skyline Trail up to Little Katherine Lake.  It was 5 miles up and 5 miles back.  I had a hard time with the elevation gain on this day, but I am so glad I stuck with it because the view at the top was amazing.

There was actually one more lake about another mile up, but we could not access the trail because of all the snowfall that was still there.  This picture below, was us as far as we could get to the top.  It was really late in the day at this point and we still had 5 miles to hike back to camp.

We got back to camp and the guides cooked our last meal on the trail. It was rice with spinach and tomatoes.  They fed us two vegetarians and then added meat for the rest of the group.

At mealtimes, each person got to share their life story and take questions from the group.  I didn’t come from the best childhood (maybe one day I will write about it), so that was hard for me to do, but I am really glad I shared and got to know these ladies so well.

We hiked back to base camp the next morning and the crew there cooked us a celebration dinner.  That’s when they finally gave us the details for the trip.  We hiked about 25 miles the whole trip.  The packs were close to 45lbs each, and the coldest night got down to 36 degrees.  I am so thankful for this experience.  Special thanks go to our awesome guides, Brooklyn, Alaina, Bethenny!  They were great!

Also, many thanks to my friends Kim and Corrie for taking all the pictures.   If you want to find out more about Wayforward Adventures, you can check out this link.  They do trips all summer in New Mexico and Colorado.  I highly recommend it if you are looking to find your faith.