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Sunday, August 4, 2013

More Than We Bargained For

Looking back just after starting on T105
We did something this morning we rarely do:  left our trail map behind.  So when we came to the cutoff for the Cathey Canyon Trail (T105A), which we'd never hiked before, we weren't entirely sure if it went where we thought it did.  Turned out it did, but we were unprepared for the half-mile of incredibly steep ascent that had Dr. K and me puffing like locomotives.  Becca, with her four-wheel drive, seemed unperturbed.  We ended up doing a 5-mile loop that was exhilarating.  No sooner had we finished than we were talking about doing it again.
Cutleaf Coneflowers

Left to the Cathey Canyon Trail



The forest floor was filled with mushrooms


Dr. K beside a tripartite Aspen

How old was this tree?

The trail comes through here

A look down from the Cathey Canyon Trail

This Aspen toppled right over, probably in high wind

More 'shrooms



Proof of last night's rain


The view of the Tularosa Basin from Cathey Vista




6 comments:

Dr. K said...

All of these photos are beautiful. And it's a treat to see 2 butterflies on the same flower.

Scott said...

My favorite hike on the Appalachian Trail here in Pennsylvania begins with a 600-foot ascent over a distance of a half-mile, so I know where of you speak. Of course, I'm not hiking at any significant altitude here, so the challenge is even greater for you.

You're pretty adventurous to tackle a hike with no assurance that the trail would lead where you wanted to end up.

I really like the image of the butterfly (a fritillary?) midway through the set of images today. Good job!

JACQUELINE said...

Awesome scenery! Some of your butterflies are similar to ones we have here - we do have Monarchs. Shame you can't add woodland smells to the photos. Oh well...

packrat said...

Dr. K: Those two butterflies were on each other as much as they were on the flower.

packrat said...

Scott: Looks like a Great Spangled Fritillary to me.

As far as tackling the Cathey Canyon Trail with no certainty of where it would end up, I kept telling Dr. K, "If it begins ascending and turning significantly to the right I think we'll be okay." But the thought of turning back did cross our minds several times.

packrat said...

Thanks Jacqui. Perhaps soon people will be able to get an app that allows a scratch-and-sniff feature to be added to a blog. Wouldn't surprise me to learn somebody's working on it right now.

:)

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