Winsor Trail to Big Tesuque Canyon is a 8.6 mile moderately trafficked point-to-point trail located near Santa Fe, New Mexico that features a river and is rated as moderate. The trail offers a number of activity options and is accessible year-round. Dogs are also able to use this trail.
This is, hands down, some of the best downhill biking I've done! (Maybe I should get out more?) We did make the mistake of starting at the Ski Basin only to walk our bikes uphill to the Norski TH. (Hint: Just start there!) The trail is well maintained and was such a fun ride! My 11 & 13 year old loved it, too!
This is such a beautiful trail! We did this hike, and many others, during our time in NM. If you have the time be sure to turn off on some of the trails along the way, as there are some beautiful surprises. We followed a tip by another hiker and went down a trail (I believe it was called "Trail #160) to the left shortly the wooden walk-way over a creek and ended up going through a bunch of aspen trees and out into a huge open valley, which our dogs LOVED! Awesome area, enjoy!
If you hike New Mexico you will know that there is a lot of deferred maintenance on the trails. Winsor trail was adopted by the local mountain biking club and is amazingly smooth and beautiful. You will see many more tire tracks on this trail than boot . If you start at the main ski areas parking you will hike for about 3/4 of a mile only to connect with another access point for the trail from the road. This access appears to be a cross country ski track and it's about a half mile from the main entrance of the ski area. So you can start here or in the main parking lot. Finally the AllTrails app is way off on the elevation you lose about 3000 feet rather than some 300. Also an out and back on this trail would be about 19 miles.
Start from parking lot Ski Santa Fe - at trail head you begin with a series of switch backs - was (for me) the most difficult part of this trail (especially since it was was our first day at altitude) - you gain a saddle and fence/gate - the Winsor continues thru the gate - trail evens out nicely from here and is nice brisk walk - we stopped at bridge crossing pretty stream (and also point where the Winsor meets with the trail going up to Nambe Lake) - we had passed a backpacker coming out who told us the trail to Nambe was "a bitch" - so, we elected (on our first day hike in the area) NOT to try that part of the trail - lots of beautiful trees, very well maintained trail, you'll see lots of hikers due to the popularity of the area - you'll LOVE it!
From the Nordic Ski Trail, we snowshoed downwards. It nice winding trail, through some beautiful valleys and evergreen pine trees. The snow was new and fresh allowing us to form our own tracks. When not in the sun it can be cold, but that was not often. Now we hiked down three miles, going back up was a work out. great for winter shoe shoeing and any other time hiking!