Tonuco Mountain-Exploratory Hike; Lunch at Sparky's after

You will need a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get to the closer trailhead. If you have a 4x4 and are willing to drive please list in the comments. If there is not enough space in 4 wheel drive vehicles there is a trailhead that you do not need a 4x4 (longer walk). Everything listed below is from previous hikes in the area, since this will be an exploratory hike, events might not be exactly as described below.

What: Hiking to the top of Tonuco Mountain

Meeting Place: KMart: Del Rey and Telshor

Meeting Time: 7:30 am

Difficulty: moderate, ~800 ft elevation gain

Length: 5 miles

Type: off trail, it will be a loop hike

Hiking time: 4 -5 hours

Bring: Plenty of water, snacks, sunblock, hat (if needed documentation for border patrol checkpoint on I-25)

Cost: None for hike, but bring money for food, and if you carpool please remember to compensate your driver.

Pets: Yes. Please bring leash and check with other people before unleashing.

After: Lunch at Sparky's in Hatch-Burgers and BBQ ( http://sparkysburgers.com/ )

Other: This hike is described in Greg Magee's book Day Hikes and Nature Walks in the El Paso-Las Cruces Area. According to the book and multiple sources, we will see petroglyphs and get to explore a old fluorite mine.

This hike is off trail, bring good boots and trekking poles. The weather will be hot this Saturday (92 °F), so also bring more than enough water and sunblock. Lots of interesting rocks, petroglpyhs, etc in the area.

Meet:

Las Cruces: At 7:30 am, K-Mart parking lot on North Main/US 70 and Del Rey, near Shell. See map (OpenStreetMap (http://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=32.35083&mlon=-106.76538&zoom=17&layers=M) or Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=32.35083,-106.76538&aq=&sll=32.2563,-106.7&sspn=0.015497,0.018582&ie=UTF8&ll=32.351135,-106.768591&spn=0.00774,0.01502&t=h&z=17))

Tunuco Mountain on SummitPost (http://www.summitpost.org/tonuco-mountain/336278)