Sunny on the East Side

Headed to the mountain

Becca and I got a bit later start (8 a.m.) on our trek today, but we still got in a decently long exploration of the environs around the east and south side of Tortugas Mountain.  As soon as were were curving around the far side we saw a woman with a beautiful dog, and both her dog and Becca acted like they wanted to close the distance between themselves and have a meeting, but they hesitated.  "Maybe next time," I said to the woman, and she agreed before calling her dog to follow along.  We had one other human encounter when we were almost finished with our hike, a meeting on a narrow section of trail with a woman who was jogging on the inner loop.  Becca was very good; she stood at the edge of the path until the woman had passed.  As you can see from the images here the weather was pleasant, sunny with some clouds accompanied by a decent breeze to ameliorate the somewhat high humidity.

On the loop trail around Tortugas

Flowers still in bloom

Clouds over the mountain

Closer look at the slope

Desert living

Back behind the mountain

Coming?

The way we just came

Across an expanse of Chihuahuan Desert to the Franklin Mountains

Yucca and the Organs

Closer look

In the high foothills south of the mountain

I was hoping the scent of deer was in the air

Long view of the Organ Mountains

Closer in

Heading back around the mountain

Tortugas from the east

On the outer loop around the mountain

On the inner loop trail north of the mountain

Ramada at the Monte Vista side of the mountain