We did a thing today! We hiked our very first mountain peak!

We went to the Maple Springs Visitor Center (marked with the red pen), use the restrooms there (we live 1.5 hours away), and continued on a single lane paved road for about 1.5-2 miles. The road changed (marked with an exclamation mark) to a very bumpy single lane dirt road where we often had to pull over and make room for other cars going up a bit quicker than we were in a RAV4 or that were coming down. You don't need an all-wheel drive or 4×4 vehicle, but you should definitely have something that has a higher clearance and not just a normal car. We were on that dirt road for about 4 miles before we reached a bigger dirt pull out (marked with the pointing finger). The start to the 10 mile hike to Santiago Peak via Maple Springs on AllTrails starts there at the gates. Just make sure you stay to the right at the beginning and go on the Main Divide Road, not the Harding Truck Trail. There are lots of off-road vehicles which means dust, but everyone was super friendly and nice as they passed us.

We thought the road looked freshly graded, but definitely pretty rocky. It did sprinkle on us here and there and was pretty chilly and windy on some parts. We took our time going up, stopping to take pictures along the way. At the top, we took a 45 minute break for a snack. Look for the highest pile of rocks and you'll find the geo marker. We completed the hike in approximately 5 moving hours.