New Mexico hiking experience?

[chassis]

Does anyone on this site have experience hiking the Pecos Wilderness near Santa Fe? We are experienced hikers, mainly in the eastern United States, Arizona, Utah, Italy and Austria.


What are typical mid-September daily high temperatures? Approximately.

What is the prevalence of cougars/lions and should any precautions be taken?

Any latest feedback on Stewart Lake and Trampas Lake trail conditions? I have used the NFS site and Alltrails, looking for some human feedback on this.

Thanks for any input!

[chassis]

Looks like NM has an out of state visitor executive order. Change of plans, we will visit Colorado instead.

Telluride looks interesting from a hiking, biking and scenery point of view. Does anyone have recent experience hiking the Telluride area? Thanks in advance.

[rebekahb]

I would be interested on any feedback as well for CO.

You mentioned hiking in Utah. Any recommendations? We're totally open at this point.
We were supposed to go to Sedona in April but that was cancelled.

[chassis]

@rebekahb We hiked the popular spots: Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands. My favorite was Zion National Park, because of the color and scenery. Arches is second favorite because of the classic arches that you see in postcard photos. Third is Bryce and last is Canyonlands.

I would visit Zion again, the others I would not, only because we travel relatively often and prefer to visit places we have not seen before.

Arches, Bryce and Canyonlands are dry and a little desert-ish, especially Canyonlands. Zion is a bit more lush and green. We are easterners so green is a normal/expected color for us. A completely brown or red dry landscape is something that easterners comment on when visiting western states. Compare Arizona or Nevada to Pennsylvania, for example.

We visited all of the above places in late July, it was warm. If you can visit them in late August or early September, it would be more pleasant depending a temperature point of view.

We also did a Hummer/Jeep tour in Moab. That was OK. Not really my “thing” but nice to check off the sightseeing list.

[rebekahb]

Originally Posted by chassis

@rebekahb We hiked the popular spots: Zion, Bryce, Arches and Canyonlands. My favorite was Zion National Park, because of the color and scenery. Arches is second favorite because of the classic arches that you see in postcard photos. Third is Bryce and last is Canyonlands.

I would visit Zion again, the others I would not, only because we travel relatively often and prefer to visit places we have not seen before.

Arches, Bryce and Canyonlands are dry and a little desert-ish, especially Canyonlands. Zion is a bit more lush and green. We are easterners so green is a normal/expected color for us. A completely brown or red dry landscape is something that easterners comment on when visiting western states. Compare Arizona or Nevada to Pennsylvania, for example.

We visited all of the above places in late July, it was warm. If you can visit them in late August or early September, it would be more pleasant depending a temperature point of view.

We also did a Hummer/Jeep tour in Moab. That was OK. Not really my “thing” but nice to check off the sightseeing list.

Thanks so much for the response and information. I hope we can make it out there. We're trying to decide between that & USVI. Polar opposite, I know.