NoName Bushwhack to Piedra Lisa – 03/09/2014

Posted in March 2019. One of our early hikes, checking out trails out of Placitas on the north end of the Sandia Mountains.

This is what bushwhacking was like.

Looking for a “new adventure”, I came up with the idea of hiking up NoName, then heading cross-country, bushwhacking, over to Piedra Lisa.  Using GoogleEarth, I layed out a route that looked reasonable – crossing over intervening canyons where it appeared the slopes would be manageable. 

The Hike

Overall, I would say

NoNameBushWhackPiedraLisa.WhackTrail.Jay.2014-03-09
[Red section is bushwhacking from NoName to Piedra Lisa trails.]

the route was as good as could be, but none the less a good challenge.  Challenging not only because we had up and down slopes, but were required to find our way through the juniper and other “shrubs” – real bushwhacking.

BTW, you won’t find NoName referenced elsewhere.  Back in 2013, we were looking for alternatives to the usual trails and chose this canyon, the next one east of Piedra Lisa.  We enjoyed that hike, needed to identify it for ourselves, thus — NoName.

Statistics

Total Distance:  4.25 miles
Elevation: start  6,086 ft, maximum  7,086 ft,  minimum  6,057 ft
Gross gain:  1,290 ft.  Aggregate ascending  1,717 ft, descending  1,716 ft
Maximum slope: 48% ascending, 41% descending, 12.0% average
Duration: 3:43

If you haven’t explored these hiking tracks with Google Earth, I urge you to try it. With the virtual 3-dimensional presentation, achieved by panning and tilting the view, you can get a much better idea of the hikes and terrain than you can get from the screenshot above. For some ideas, check out  Using Google Earth Track Files.