Yesterday, we decided to go hiking, so I got out a book that Strix got me for Christmas called Hiking New Mexico and we started looking for things in it that we could get to, get hiked, and get back in a day.
What we picked was the McCauley Hot Springs, which is in the Santa Fe National Forest, in the Jemez Mountains. Following standard Spanish pronunciation, Jemez would be pronounced, "Hemez," but this state being populated by Texas ex-patriots, it is commonly pronounced "Haymus."
Anyway, we took US 550 south to Cuba, New Mexico, then took State Highway 126 into the forest. Another thing to know about New Mexico - just because it's a state highway doesn't mean it's paved. In the case of 126, part of it is paved, and part of it is not, and it is extremely windy, with many parts where you may be forced to pull over to let another vehicle by from the other direction.
Strix at the edge of a severe drop, taking pictures with her new Olympus.
A couple of shots down into the canyon from the pull-off, showing the craggy pieces of the mountainside slowly raining down into the trees below.
One of the ubiquitous geological markers placed in the 1930's, this one out on a rock hanging over the edge of an abyss.
More shots down into the canyon from the pull-off.
From here, we continued on 126 until we reached State Highway 4, then on to the Battleship Rock picnic area.
The Battleship Rock picnic area as seen in Google Earth. The geological feature for which the area is named is in the bottom right of the frame. It's essentially just a huge jut of a cliff that looks very much like the prow of an aircraft carrier.
A friendly sign advising people not to feed the bears. Not a problem.
The east fork of the Jemez River runs through here. Anywhere else in the country, this would be a stream or a creek, but here it's considered a mighty, raging river.
The Battleship Rock, the ant's eye view.
Another geological marker at the base of the Battleship Rock, though in the last 70 years erosion has left more and more of it exposed so that now it looks like an enormous, steel golf tee.
The side of a rock at the beginning of the trail. It's crazed in such a way that it looks like it's made up of bricks.
This whole area is the remains of a volcano caldera, one that was apparently very active. A super-eruption threw lava out over an area several miles in diameter, resulting in what today are giant boulders of black, volcanic rock littering the landscape. This eruption happened a million years ago, according to Wikipedia, which is just silly because we know from the Bible that the Earth is only five thousand years old. [Sarcasm detectors should be turned on.]
Let me state outright that if you decide to do this hike, you need to make sure to stay on the trail, though this is easier said than done because at a couple of points there are paths leading off the trail, and it's hard to tell which is the official State Forestry sanctioned route. If you take the side paths, you are in for a much more difficult trek, but at the same time you might see some sights you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
In our case, we accidentally got shunted onto path along the Jemez River.
Another shot of the river, approaching from the official trail on our deceptive, faux trail.
It was about this time that I wondered if I was still on the trail, but I, being a German, and Strix, being a tough little rutebega, plowed ahead for damn near an hour and a half before we left the "path," looking for the official trail.
Strix taking picture of lichen on a very large piece of lava rock.
Sometimes mistakes are fortuitous, and although our straying from the path made the hike much more difficult, we got some great shots.
It was partly cloudy, meaning I'd put on my hat and sunglasses in time for the sun to be covered up. When I removed my hat and sunglasses, the sun would come out again. At any rate, my arms got burned pretty good, so I guess the sun made it's presence known.
This little silk-producing inchworm decided he liked me, and stowed along for a while as my guide. Animals love me.
I've seen this type of erosion before, at Chaco Canyon. It makes for an interesting effect, and reminds me of an enormous morel mushroom.
Between a rock and... well... another rock is... another rock.
This rock-side was oddly textured and made me think of the Shiprock.
One of the cooler lava-boulders we saw on the hike.
We finally got fed up with our side-trail, and scrambled our way up the mountainside to see if we could find the main trail again. On the way, we saw this lean-to that someone had built to sleep under. Camping's not allowed in this part of the forest, and there were old tin cans strewn about, so I have to think that someone was squatting here.
This is probably the neatest lava boulder we saw on the hike. It was striated in a way that none of the other boulders were, almost looking like tree rings.
Here's a flowering cactus we found growing right out the top of a volcanic lava rock boulder. Tough little guys, eh?
Some odd, yellow mushrooms we saw growing alongside the trail. Anyone know what they are? No, we didn't eat any.
Not a view normally associated with New Mexico, but common in the higher elevations. We were at about 7,000 feet here. I used to walk through forests a lot as a kid, as we had one that butted up right against the back of our house in Hollister, Missouri, but not like this one. In Missouri, you almost need a machete to get through all the brush. Here, the trees are spaced out and easily navigable.
Just another view of the mountains through a break in the trees.
We finally made it to our destination, the McCauley hot springs. These are mountain springs which are heated by geothermal activity still going on in this nearly extinct volcano. For one thing, neither Strix nor I had ever seen a mountain spring before, so that in itself was interesting. I mean, it was water, shooting out of the ground. Cool, huh?
It was a little busier than I would have preferred. Being a holiday, a lot of other people decided to hike out to the hot springs, too. Still, it was enjoyable.
A log in the process of being petrified by the mineral-rich water of the springs.
Strix, putting her foot gear back on after dipping her toes in the hot springs, which really weren't all that hot. They ran about 85 to 90°, and were very, very mossy, which made the experience of putting our feet in them a little... slimy. Also, they were chocked full of tadpoles, which were kinda cute but apparently thought my feet looked tasty. Not having teeth, they couldn't hurt me, but they swarmed around my feet and made the wading experience a little uncomfortable.
So then we headed back. Oh, hey, look, more rocks!
A New Mexico specialty - dramatically dead trees. I'm especially proud of the shot on the right - take a look. There were a lot of burned trees on the trail, looking like there had been a recent forest fire in the area.
Strix resting on a one million year old piece of geological history. Oh, sorry, I mean 5,000-year old geological history.
Another very tall, dead tree.
We saw a few trees like this one, leaning over at almost right angles. Anyone know what causes this?
It's hard to see in the pic, but this was a mini-field of little tiny daisies. An outpost of the Daisy Liberation Army, of course.
As Chelley-Chelle says, one person's weed is another person's flower.
Let's speak of a peek of this peak. Does that pique your interest?
More great big boulders.
Another view of the Battleship Rock, visible on the trek back to the parking area.
Back on highway 4, headed back to US 550 (going south this time, toward San Ysidro), we reached an area, where there were a lot of cars pulled off to the side of the road, so being the monkeys we were we had to stop, too, to see what the excitement was about. Here's another mountain spring, staining the rock with all the minerals within.
This rather tall ridge allowed me a good vantage to see what the hubbub was about below.
This is why everyone was here. Apparently, it's a popular place to stop and swim in the Jemez.
This is a totally un-interesting outcrop of rock that I took a picture of to prove to the people watching me that I wasn't there to voyeuristically take pictures of their children swimming.
There's an interesting-looking cave on the other side of the highway from the river. It looked reachable, and if I wasn't sore and tired from my recent scramble over the volcanic rocks, I would have gone up to take a look. Maybe some other time.
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