It was 3 A.M. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I had only been asleep a few hours when my cell phone alarm let out its characteristic shrill blast.  For a brief moment, I thought about staying in bed, but the lure of another highpoint was strong, and I knew that I probably wouldn't have a chance like this for a long time.

Reluctantly, I rolled out of the warm sheets and made my way over to my waiting stack of gear.  I dressed quickly, fumbling around in the dark as I tried to do a last-minute systems check without waking Dave, who was sound asleep in the next bed.  I had prepared everything the night before, and I managed to get out of the hotel and on the road to Taos by 3:15.

Upon arriving in Taos (around 5 A.M.), I immediately encountered what was to be the crux of the climb, navigating the dirt road to the trailhead on low-profile tires.  The going was painfully slow, but I somehow arrived at the parking lot on schedule, just as dawn was breaking over the Santo de Cristo range. 

Parking the car proved to be almost as difficult as getting to the trailhead, but I eventually managed an awkward angle that just barely straddled the parking lot's impressive collection of rocks.  Feeling lucky to have made it this far, I set out at a really fast clip towards Williams Lake, which sits at an elevation of 11, 600 ft.  Once at the lake, I stopped for a few minutes while I tried to figure out which peak was Wheeler. 

There were two obvious paths around the lake, one heading to hiker's right and one to the left.  My only source of guidance on the matter was a cell-phone pic of my computer screen showing a trail report that I had been reading the night before.  The barely visible text indicated an approximate distance of 1.5 miles to the summit, and described Wheeler as being to the east of the lake, so I took a guess and headed up the left trail. 

Still feeling strong from Elbert, I continued to move quickly, climbing through a short stretch of forest and then up a steep grassy slope that eventually gave way to scree.  At almost 13,000 ft. on loose rock, the going was tedious, but the ridge wasn't far, and I gained it in about an hour.  Finally off the scree and onto the ridge, I looked up and noticed a lone Bighorn sheep perched several hundred yards to the northeast of where I stood.  We had a pretty cool moment staring at one another before he turned and moved out of sight behind the ridgeline.

The Santo de Cristo range is infamous for its powerful early-afternoon thunderstorms, and a suspicious layer of clouds was beginning to obscure the lower peaks as I reached Wheeler's summit around 9 A.M.  Needless to say, I didn't want to waste any time, so after a few quick pictures, I turned and headed back down the short path along the ridgeline.

Minutes later, I was back on the scree slope.  As is often the case with scree, going down was a lot more fun than going up, and I half-ran, half-skied down the slope, wiping out a lot but making it back to the lake in a half hour!!   The hike back through the woods was uneventful, and I arrived back at the car just after 10 A.M.