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Sunday, June 16, 2013

Thanks to the Wind

Southeast of Tortugas (Tortoise) Mountain
If not for the wind Becca and I may have suffered on our long hike today.  We left from the Monte Vista side of the mountain, hiked two-thirds of the way around it, then turned around and headed back.  We saw several mountain bikers this morning--one for whom we had to stand off the trail.  And at the end of our trek we ran into an elderly woman out for a morning stroll.  Becca went right up to her to be petted, a behavior at odds with her normally suspicious nature. 
About to round the bend to the south side of the mountain

A big Collared Lizard (see the black collar?)

Becca thinks she's Lassie

The Organ Mountains in the distance

The green trees mark an arroyo that runs out of Tortugas Mountain

Headed back around the mountain

A long way to go

Not long before we reach the east side

3 comments:

Scott said...

I liked your images of the collared lizard and the green trace of the arroyo.

I hope you get some rain. One of the recent issues of "High Country News," a publication to which I subscribe about the Western states, featured an article about the Rio Grande, the dire state of Elephant Butte Reservoir, and the general severe drought in New Mexico.

packrat said...

Thanks, Scott. Fifteen minutes after I published the next day's post we got a brief downpour--not hard enough to even blemish our current drought. Things are looking pretty dire here. Apparently, this drought is even worse than the severe drought of the early 1950s.

Dr. K said...

We're getting more and more wildfires in the southwest.

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