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| Road into the Monte Vista area, east side of Tortugas Mountain |
Weather app read: "34F," a "high of 61F," "partly cloudy" with winds at "3 mph." Weather app lied. When Becca and I got out to the Monte Vista parking lot on the east side of Tortugas Mountain--we went to the far side because of the Our Lady of Guadalupe pilgrimage to the mountaintop on the west side--it was absolutely freezing. The sky was mostly cloudy and the winds were howling. I had to replace my ball cap with a Polarplus watch cap and don gloves to keep my hands warm. The sun did make sporadic appearances, but by the time we'd circled back to the east side of Tortugas Mountain after hiking to the west I had to unfurl the hood from my Marmot PreCip jacket to cover my head. I don't know who prepared the weather report this morning, but, man, was that person wrong. After our trek, when we headed home, we noticed that both sides of Dripping Springs Road were lined with vehicles. The sacred pilgrimage to the top of Tortugas Mountain was well underway.
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| Trail heading to the mountain turns east and then wraps around to the south |
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| Organ Mountains under cloudy conditions |
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| What is Becca staring at so intently? |
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| Quail on the trail ahead |
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| The way we've just come |
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| At first I thought this Sotol was still in bloom |
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| But all the Sotol flowers were dried out |
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| We've hiked that trail (center right) to the top of Tortugas before |
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| Peopled by yuccas |
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| Looks further away from the Organs than we actually are |
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| Back behind Tortugas Mountain |
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| Upper trail around the mountain |
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| Torrey Yuccas in line on the southern flank of Tortugas Mountain |
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| Closer look at the Torrey Yucca forest |
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| Who me? |
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| Higher up in the southern foothills |
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| Three mounds of Strawberry Pitaya Cactus |
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| Next six: the Organ Mountains from Tortugas Mountain's foothills |
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| That trail leads way out into the desert south of the mountain |
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| Wonderdog |
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| How steep is the southeast flank of Tortugas Mountain? |
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| Swirling clouds |
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| Yuccas trudging up the north face of the mountain |
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| Closer look at trudging yuccas |
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| Boulders on the northeast side of the mountain |
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| Got some blue skies for a while |
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| Clouds come and go, though |
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| Morning moon |
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| One steep mountain |
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| Torrey Yuccas on the mountain flank |
1 comment:
Some of these landscape photos are pretty spectacular, especially the first one. They were worth braving the cold weather.
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