Sunday Burro Group - Chamisa to Circle via Grants/ Gabaldon Trail

PLEASE NOTE 9:00 START TIME. ESTIMATED RETURN TIME DEPENDS ON WHICH OPTION HIKERS CHOOSE; SHORTER OPTION (4 MILES) WILL GET YOU BACK MUCH SOONER THAN 4:00, PROBABLY ABOUT 1:00-2:00. We haven't hiked this route since last August, it's been on my mind as I've always liked it, I just wasn't up to it until recently. Now I know I'm good to lead it & many in our Group will enjoy it. It's not well known, so we're likely to have the main segment of this route all to ourselves :) This one is a challenging hike, with an extended steep segment. Most of us will be fine with it, but you need to be a strong, fit hiker. Even the shorter distance option includes the steep trail segment, so whichever you choose, you'll get a strenuous workout. Full hike will be approximately 9 miles; option for car shuttle from Chamisa to Borrego TH (same route only less than 1/2 the mileage) about 4 miles. We'll all start out together at Chamisa TH, turn right at saddle, past the Medicine Wheel, then bear left up the steep and little traveled Grants or Gabaldon Trail, which will be the work-out segment of this hike (it IS steep!). Some may never have been on this trail, I like it, but it is not well known or traveled. And it is steep & steady steep. We climb for a while, with a couple of viewpoints until it eventually leads us to the Circle Trail, near the highest point of Circle, but not quite. We then continue to climb to the top of the Circle Trail. Once at the picnic tables atop of the Circle Trail, we'll have our mid-hike break, Intention Circle before continuing past the picnic table on a path down, not down the Circle Trail, but rather to the Borrego/Bear Wallow TH/parking lot, where some will end their hike. This will require that folks determine ahead of time which distance they plan to hike, & those who want to end at Borrego TH, for a 4+ mile hike, will need to have left a car/s there. I will assist in shuttling drivers of these cars back to Chamisa so that we all start together.…