Lush

Indian Paintbrush

"Lush" isn't a word used very often in reference to a desert--even a high desert.  But a two-hour hike along the Bridal Veil Falls Trail this morning proved otherwise.  Due to an abundance of precipitation in recent weeks, the landscape at an elevation of 6500-to-7000 foot was overgrown with plant life.  There were even grasses 18" to 24" tall.  Today we barely beat the rain back to the Jeep, getting showered upon for the last one hundred feet of our trek.

Thick grass growing by Fresnal Creek

Looking into the Tularosa Basin

White Sands National Monument

Temporary increase in elevation

Heading down canyon

Rich red earth in the inner gorge

Descending toward the gorge

A desert plant called Fairy Duster

Fairy Duster

Don't know what these little beauties are

Rufous-sided Towhee

?

Juniper berries (deer love them; they're poisonous for humans)

Ever closer to the inner gorge

Sacramento Mountains Prickly Poppy

You can see why it's called Prickly Poppy (look at those leaves)

Flower of the Apache Plume

Berries of the Creeping Barberry

Cottonwoods growing along Fresnal Creek

Fields of tall grass were everywhere

More Indian Paintbrush (it was growing all over the area)

Could be a female Rufous-sided Towhee