School Canyon Trail Reroute - Nice!

I'd recently read on the Los Alamos Trails Facebook page that the School Canyon Trail was being slightly rerouted to remove a 900' section of the trail on private property. I definitely wanted to check it out. I finally did last week. The reroute is really nice and makes a sweet trail even sweeter! It gets you closer to the canyon edge but not head-spinningly so.

Coming from the Pueblo Canyon Fill, below Diamond Drive, and after you pass below the Redeemer Lutheran Church, the reroute begins. It skirts closer to the School Canyon rim and no longer goes on private land owned by the First Baptist Church. (Note: When I was there last week, the old trail was not yet closed; just bear right to get on the reroute.)

I was first introduced to the School Canyon Trail by a retired teacher who worked at the Pueblo Junior High School, now the Pueblo Complex, on Diamond Drive. She remembers that students "disappeared" behind the school at lunch and at the end of the day. Later, when she discovered the School Canyon Trail, the mystery was solved.

I've been on the trail several times since. In the spring, pasque flowers bloom along the trail. Last spring, there was a beautiful tree full of white blossoms in the canyon bottom. I didn't notice the blossoming tree this time, perhaps because the canyon is so awfully dry now. I've seen School Canyon much greener. The dryness is alarming. Several times, I've seen deer. I saw one peering at me last week but couldn't encourage it stand still for a portrait!

Each time I've gone, I've taken a merry romp starting from the Aquatic Center Trailhead, going on several trails on the Los Alamos County Trail Network and the Pueblo Canyon Fill, to reach the School Canyon Trail.

In the aggregate, the hike is a good little workout of ~4.5 miles. It includes a mildly adventurous descent on a "stone staircase" from the School Canyon rim down into Pueblo Canyon. The terrain is rolling and most of the "up" gets cancelled out by the "down"!

Our trail system in town is a wonderful and much loved asset. On May 8 at 5:30 pm in Fuller Lodge, there will be a public meeting to discuss the
Los Alamos Community Trail Plan. Mesa Public Library will soon have a copy of the plan for the public to read. In the meantime, the plan may be read here as a PDF file.

Looking down School Canyon near the trail reroute

School Canyon is too dry

Aspen trees mark the "stone staircase" descent

Top of "stone staircase"

Nicely crafted "stone staircase"

Sunning cliffs on way to Homestead Bridge

What I Did This Summer: Endured a Rattlesnake Bite

On June 22, 2012, I was bitten on the right index finger by a rattlesnake.  I was unofficially picking up trash on a very trashy section of the eastern Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail in Los Alamos.  The trail runs along the north side of the Los Alamos Airport, all the way past Los Alamos County Pajarito Cliffs Site on Camino Entrada and over to the Camp Hamilton Trail.  Fortunately, I was on the section just below the parking lot for the Pajarito Cliffs Site so help was close.  I was near Building 5, where the Los Alamos County Parks Division is.

Sadly, the eastern Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail gets lots of trash blown down from the Los Alamos County facilities. I can walk on the trail from my house so I use it often.  Each time, I see the trash and feel guilty for walking past so I finally decided to clean it up.  This was my second time picking up trash on that trail.  The first time, I worked below Building 1 of the Pajarito Cliffs Site.

It was a very hot afternoon.  I parked at the Los Alamos Co-op because I planned to shop there afterward.  Clouds were building over the mountains.

As I went along, I put the trash - bottles, cans, paper, etc. - in Vitamin Cottage plastic bags that I'd saved and reused over the years.  My aim was to fill up a few bags each time I went on the trail and dump the trash in the county dumpsters behind Building 5. The stuff I couldn't fit in bags, big pieces of plastic sheeting and squashed cardboard boxes, I carried  uphill to the edge of the parking lot.  It felt good doing this a second time because surely now I would stick with the project and not have to look at all that nasty litter.  If you've ever walked the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail, you've seen its truly astounding views of towering tuff cliffs in Pueblo Canyon and of the Jemez Mountains west of Los Alamos.  It seems a shame that the trail is such trash-strewn eyesore.

I was picking up trash around a drainage area lined by rocks that the trail crosses - there are four of them along this section that drain the Pajarito Cliffs area.  The drainage rocks are a challenge to get across, some are tippy and they are angled every which way.  In addition, I painfully discovered they provide an ideal hiding place for rattlers wishing to get out of the blazing sun.

All I remember was bending over and reaching my right hand (I'm right-handed) to pick up a piece of trash next to a rock.  I remember it as a small edge of a rock with maybe the tiniest washout underneath.  To retrieve the trash, I must have got the side of my hand partially under the rock to have been bitten without seeing the rattlesnake.  Then I remember quickly withdrawing my hand because it felt like I had shoved it into jagged, broken glass.  Blood was dripping from the first finger joint above the knuckle.  I was so mad at myself for shoving my hand into glass.  The finger was stinging and burning and I cradled my finger as it dripped blood.

If the snake had made a warning sound, I would have heard it but I'm positive no sound was made.  The Pajarito Environmental Education website has a page on Snakes of the Pajarito Plateau which explains that the prairie rattler, the most common rattler on the Plateau, doesn't rattle as readily as the western diamondback; you can be close to a prairie rattler but not know it's there.

I wore fingerless, cloth gardening  gloves.  The snake fang marks were at the edge where the glove fabric stopped.  I wonder if I had worn full-fingered work gloves, would the bite have been as deep? The snake fangs would have had to go through greater fabric thickness.  Using fingerless gloves to pick up trash was not smart. Fingers are too valuable, as I have found out!

After being bitten, I carried the trash bags the short distance uphill and put them at the edge of the parking lot and ran over to Building 5. I didn't even say hello to the friendly Parks office receptionists as I raced past them to the bathroom to wash off the blood to see where the glass shards were but I saw none.  The receptionists were very concerned and got out a first aid kit to offer help.  I told them I'd like a closer look to find the glass. They gave me a magnifying glass but I still saw none.  

I've lived in Los Alamos since 1985 and the few rattlers I've seen while hiking were in White Rock or Bandelier. One inveterate hiker who has lived here for 62 years told me she's seen one rattlesnake in all that time, near the Mitchell Trail.   Not seeing a lot of rattlers  led to my being blasé and not realizing that a snake doesn't need much room to hide under a rock.  

After I discarded the broken glass theory, I realized that something had bit me.  I took the fingerless glove off because the index finger was quickly becoming bruised and swollen.  The receptionists offered to take the trash to the dumpster but silly me said you'll get dirty.  So, I walked back (not very far) to where I left the trash and took it to the dumpsters (not a huge distance).  Then I went back to the Parks office and asked the receptionists to call my son-in-law who works in Building 1.  They did but instead of waiting patiently for him to drive over, I walked to his office.  The distances were not long but wasted time and allowed the venom to further perfuse. The antivenom helps save fingers and toes.  It's important to get treatment as soon as possible and not dither. Imagine if I had been further away from help?

Still in denial, though, my knuckle-headed plan was for my son-in-law drive me over the Co-op and then I could drive myself to the Los Alamos Medical Center.  Wise man that he is, he firmly told me "No, you might go into shock."  I appreciate his level-headedness and taking time from his work day to take me to the emergency room.  I was seen quickly.  They could clearly see two fang marks - one, at the edge of my right index finger, the deeper one that had bled and the other, a superficial dark spot, about 1/2" away and on the bottom of joint. 

One odd occurrence in the emergency room was my lips started to feel blubbery.  The emergency room notes described them as grossly enlarged.  A doctor told me the next day that I looked like Angelina Jolie after a barroom brawl!  My voice got squeakier and squeakier.  I was scared that my throat was closing but the notes say my airway was not compromised.  They gave me Benedryl and epinephrine which helped. My lips remained enlarged until the next morning in the ICU.  I read online that sometimes people have an increased sensitivity to rattlesnake venom if they have prior exposure to rattlesnake proteins.  As far as I know, I've never had such prior exposure.

The emergency room marked the progress of the swelling as it went up my arm.  It stopped short of my elbow. Before I was actually bit by a rattlesnake, I thought antivenom was given in a shot and then you went home and you were cured.  I didn't realize the real threat was not to my life but to the tissue damaged by the venom and the antivenom helps counteract this.  One interesting fact is that rattlesnake venom has a longer half-life than the CroFab antivenom which is why they gave me a loading dose via IV in the emergency room and then 3 more IV doses over the next 24 hours in the ICU.  I had the mildest elevation of blood clotting times which quickly reversed itself.  Soon after I got out of the hospital, though, I noticed a floridly technicolor bruise on my left elbow, a result of the temporary thinning of my blood by the snake venom.  

The bite caused my right index finger to be very painful - burning and throbbing - but other than giving me the antivenom, telling me keep my hand elevated above my heart and offering pain relief, there was not much else they could do.  There was no orthopedist on call at the medical center that weekend.  The hospitalist consulted with an orthopedic physician assistant at Christus St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe because she  was concerned about how swollen and dusky-colored my finger was.  It was obvious the circulation was compromised.  She kept me another night in the ICU to watch it. 

When I got out of the hospital, I went to a hand surgeon in Santa Fe.  His wonderful staff made a splint that greatly helped the swelling.  For the longest time, I had a bleb (a blister in snakebite terminology) at the base of my index finger.  It was ugly.  It changed from day to day - sometimes with a black edge, sometimes red with blood inside, partially clear on other days. At another visit, the hand surgeon wrapped the finger in Coban (great stuff!) to help the swelling. The wrap seemed to help finally dry the bleb out.  I read online that sometimes blebs act as a reservoir for the venom so I was glad to see it go.

Right now, my right index finger is still stiff and swollen. I call it my mega pointer finger.  I can't properly bend the fingertip or make a full fist to shake at the next rattler that I see!  I'm told it's going to take a while for things to get back to normal.  I've seen images online of much more horrific damage so I'm grateful that it's not worse. Because I can't make a full fist yet, I kid people that I won't be getting into any more barroom brawls and I'll have to give up my lifelong dream of becoming a boxer!

I've gone back twice to the bite-site to find the exact rock. I've found candidates but can't be sure which is THE ROCK. What really hurts is that new trash has already blown down from Pajarito Cliffs parking lot onto the area I'd cleaned up.  

Next time I pick up trash on that trail, the weather will be cool and I'll wear work gloves.  If there is trash near where a snake can hide, I'll either use a stick to dislodge the trash or, to my chagrin, leave it in place.

Because I got bitten while trying to clean up a trail, a lot of people told me "No good deed goes unpunished!" But to the hapless rattlesnake, I was doing a very bad deed by suddenly infringing on its cool hiding spot!  Won't make that mistake again!!

Armstead Spring Still Flows in Upper Water Canyon

This morning, husband and I went on a Pajarito Environmental Education Center (PEEC) sponsored hike, led by Dorothy Hoard, to Veronica Spring and beyond.  There was an amazing turnout of nearly 40  people.  Dorothy told us that Veronica Spring could actually just be water that is piped across FR181/American Spring Road from American Spring.  Regarding American Spring, she says it appears from the roughness of the cement enclosure that it wasn't built by the Civilian Conservation Corps because their masonry work was of much finer quality.  At one time, there was a cement cover on American Spring but its been gone for years.

After looking at Veronica and American springs, the group walked to where upper Water Canyon crosses FR181/American Spring Road.  Along the way, I noticed some details I hadn't noticed in my post about the reopening of American Spring Road.

A small, reinforced culvert on the downhill side of the road.  Care has been taken to direct the water runoff underneath the road to prevent erosion of the dirt road's surface.  This drains down into Sawmill Meadow and ultimately into Water Canyon.

This is the uphill side of the reinforced culvert.  Beyond is the high country, east of Cerro Grande Peak, where the runoff originates.  

Close-up view of uphill side of reinforced culvert.

This is where upper Water Canyon crosses FR181/American Spring Road.  Since I last inspected this in mid-June, the monsoonal rains have started.  The log device is to slow the runoff across the road until the culvert is rebuilt on this side. The dam structure has been slightly undercut by the rain runoff.  

When I last came here, I asked myself where Armstead Spring was because I couldn't see it.  Apparently it was hiding in plain sight!  Today, the group could clearly see Armstead Spring with its small but steady stream of water flowing out of the pipe.

Close-up view of Armstead Spring.  Valve box handle visible on top of pipe.  Hardly a natural spring, constrained as it is in an iron pipe.  Dorothy Hoard's book Los Alamos Outdoors, Second Edition, 1993, page 79, says about Armstead Spring:

Water development here was merely a slotted pipe buried in the wash.  A valve box marks the junction of the old pipe from American Spring with the Armstead Spring lead-in.  Robert Armstead was the utilities surveyor who laid out the early waterworks for Project Y and remained in charge of the entire water system.

Newly Reopened American Spring Road

I walked American Spring Road, also known as Forest Road 181, on Tuesday, June 5, starting from NM4, just across from the Apache Spring trailhead. I only walked the first two miles but hope to one day start from NM501 (West Jemez Road) near the twin water tanks and walk the rest of the 4 mile road.  I usually walk it in two sections but every once in a while, I hike the whole length, out and back.

After nearly a year, the Santa Fe National Forest lifted the Las Conchas fire closure on Monday, June 4.  I wasted no time in walking my favorite dirt road, American Spring Road, the very next day.

I have walked this road in all seasons and love it!  There is a quote by Georgia O'Keeffe about Cerro Pedernal:  "I painted it often enough thinking that, if I did so, God would give it to me."   Perhaps, if I walk this road long enough, it will become a part of me. Truthfully - it already has and I greatly missed not being able to walk it this past year.

This is near the unlocked Forest Road 181 gate (vehicles can drive in on this road but I  see very few).  I'll call this structure a log weir but don't know its true name.  Perhaps it's meant to catch large debris and/or to slow runoff in this drainage, the westernmost branch of upper Water Canyon.  Note the dead aspens upstream, killed somehow by the  Las Conchas wildfire.   They look dead but not terribly burnt.

Just below the log weir is a culvert that diverts water underneath the Forest Road 181 fill.  Are the logs on the left meant to stabilize the bank or are they simply left over from the "weir" construction? The culvert looks small for all the runoff that surely came down from the burnt mountains during last summer's post-fire monsoon rains.  The darker soil has ash from the fire.  The trails in the burnt areas are full of it.  My shoes sift  it through and make my socks and feet filthy!  If it were to rain (and I wish it would - we definitely need it!), the ash makes a very slippery, shoe-sucking mud!

The culvert diverts water into this westernmost division of the upper Water Canyon drainage.  The rich green of the new growth contrasts with the dull rust of the wildfire damaged trees.

At first, I was puzzled when I saw so many dead young aspens along the road; mostly, they didn't even look burnt. The charred stump should have given me a hint!

Then, I looked closer and saw that often hidden in the midst of the dead aspens were charcoal logs and stumps.  This forest service publication, Fire, by John R. Jones and Norbert V. DeByle, gives several ideas about what may have happened.  The ground fire could have been hot enough to girdle the base of the aspens and kill them or maybe the fire killed the surface roots of the aspens.   (The Jones-DeByle paper is part of a larger publication, Aspen ecology and management in the western United States.  The whole publication is a 22 MB PDF download but the individual papers can be downloaded here.)

Dorothy Hoard calls this Veronica Spring because of the Veronica lushly growing here where a small seep bubbles up. She will give a hike to the spring, sponsored by the Pajarito Environmental Education Center, on July  7.  This is just across the road from American Spring.  

This is American Spring, the road's namesake.  As I approached, a small herd of deer fled.  The spring water of American Spring is inside the cement enclosure.  Looking for mention of American Spring online,  instead found this mention of Armstead Spring.  Charles R. Mansfield, the author of White Paper:  Environmental Factors in the Cerro Grande Fire says that the American Spring Road (which he calls Armstead Spring Road) was improved after the 1977 La Mesa Fire to bolster the western defenses of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Los Alamos townsite against fire.   

Dorothy Hoard once pointed out the meadow, beyond the foreground trees, as the site of the Water Canyon Fire of 1954 in Sawmill Meadow, just above Water Canyon.  The area was burnt again in the 2000 Cerro Grande fire.  It seems to have fared rather well in the 2011 Las Conchas wildfire and does not look much different from what I remember a year ago.  (Another mention of the 1954 fire is found on this U.S. Forest Service History webpage. Search within the page for "1954 fire".)  The November 15, 2011 Water Canyon Trail blog shows a different location for Sawmill Meadow, placing it actually in Water Canyon instead of above it.  

From American Spring Road/Forest Road 181 as it swings down into upper Water Canyon, looking up at the easterly arm of the Cerro Grande complex. There are lots of burnt trees in the high meadow but green ones too.  That high country is part of the watershed for upper Water Canyon.   

Following the road down into Water Canyon, I was surprised to see this small tree (boxelder maple?) that already has winged seeds and a sprinkling of reddish orange leaves.

Looking across Water Canyon, there is a remnant side road that once went down into the canyon from the main forest road.  Once on a large group hike, before the Las Conchas wildfire, when it became tedious to follow lock-step the hiker ahead on the narrow trail, I saw this road and "broke for it". It was terrible - full of New Mexico locust and Gambel oak and big boulders.  I fought my way through but vowed never to go that way again! The locust and oak are gone (until they grow back!) but not the big boulders.  

Burnt logs hide among the dead aspens and conifers while green  aspen saplings already plot their succession.  I'm wondering if the logs fell on their own in such an unnaturally tiered arrangement upon the hillside or were they placed that way for erosion control?

Below, the trace of the Water Canyon Trail is visible but the stream channel is dangerously eroded and undercut due to heavy runoff and flooding during last summer's monsoon rains.  Volunteers led by Craig Martin will rehabilitate the Water Canyon Trail.  As it is now, the trail is in the canyon bottom which makes it prone to water damage like this; if it is moved out of the bottom of the  drainage, it will be interesting to see how the new route will go up to Forest Road 181/American Spring Road.  Less than a half mile or so beyond where the forest road crosses Water Canyon, there is a spur road off Forest Road 181 that goes out to an overlook, Red Tail Hawk Point, just above Water Canyon.  I wonder if the Water Canyon Trail can somehow, at a not-too-steep spot, be rerouted out of the canyon bottom and up to the spur road  to rejoin Forest Road 181?   

American Spring Road sweeps gracefully around the radically flood altered crossing of upper Water Canyon.  The area on each side of the road was full of vegetation before the flood damage.  Now, it looks like a gaping scar on the land; but, it will heal.  On Los Alamos Trail Conditions and Updates is a November 15, 2011 blog on the Water Canyon Trail, wherein the author writes about the severe flood damage  to Water Canyon after the Las Conchas wildfire. The Water Canyon Trail, which was destroyed in the 2000 Cerro Grande fire and then brought back to life by volunteers, was wiped out again by post-fire flooding after the 2011 Las Conchas wildfire.  (The blog has really good photos of the flood damage to the Water Canyon Trail.)  Here is a quote from that blog regarding the trail's severe flood damage:

When the Las Conchas fire came through Water Canyon, the burn severity map showed it as mostly within a moderate burn. I was hopeful that the trail would survive the post-fire floods and that only some clean up work would be necessary.

That is not the case. My theory is that normally a moderate intensity fire burns the understory and scorches live trees but leaves them standing. This provides at least some ground cover to protect soil and reduce runoff.Much of the fire in the Water Canyon drainage was re-burn in the Cerro Grande burn scar. The fuel consisted of small aspen and New Mexico locust, along with down logs from trees killed by the first fire. The area burned hot enough to kill the re-growth and to consume the down logs. This stripped the slopes of all ground cover--those logs would have helped slow runoff and would have reduced the intensity of the post-fire floods.

It didn't help that in the two months following the fire, the upper Water Canyon watershed received two rainstorms of more than 1.5 inches in less than an hour.

Closer view of where the Forest Road 181/American Spring Road fill crosses Water Canyon.  Armstead Spring (sometimes misspelled Armistead) was once somewhere in the rubble below the culvert.  It is named after Robert Armstead, a water engineer in the early days of the Manhattan Project.

Downstream view of severe damage to Water Canyon drainage.

A log enforced embankment, perhaps built to slow the runoff overflow.  This is on the other side of the road from the scene above.   There was once a culvert on this side of the road as well but there isn't one now.  The gravel area around the log enforced embankment is built up into wide, funnel-like floodplain which allows the water runoff to flow directly over American Spring Road and downstream into Water Canyon.  Maybe once the watershed above Water Canyon recovers, this area of the road and the culverts will be reconstructed.

I'm happy to see this fine, tall ponderosa has survived!!  Logs in right foreground are most likely left over from the construction of the log enforced embankment.

This, like the tall ponderosa above, is just uphill from the Water Canyon crossing.  Before Las Conchas wildfire, many wild roses bloomed each year directly above Water Canyon.  The scent was heavenly in spring; in fall, the bright red rose hips looked like shiny holiday tree ornaments!

A mix of burnt and unburnt.

Heavier burn but mostly of lower tree branches, leaving lots of tall, unburnt ponderosa tree tops. 

The lovely meadow where I turned around. 

Walking back, it's looks very green.  This is near the small turn-around meadow, looking at the southeasterly arm of the Cerro Grande complex. Overall, I was surprised by how green everything looked along the first two miles of American Spring Road/Forest Road 181.  The biggest amount of damage from Las Conchas wildfire looked to be the awful flood damage to Water Canyon and the Water Canyon Trail.



Note:  American Spring Road is the same as American Springs Road which I have erroneously and extensively used throughout my Los Alamos Woodswanderer blog!  That stops with this post!

Nail Trail HIke

Last Thursday, I finally hiked the Nail Trail.  Hadn't been on it since it reopened the end of December 2011.  At that time, a few forest trails in the Las Conchas burn area reopened but much of the burn area in Los Alamos County remained closed.

That is changing, however, because the Santa Fe National Forest supervisor will very soon (maybe tomorrow, Monday) sign a revision of the Las Conchas closure order which will open all the rest of the forest land in Los Alamos County!

at top of first hill on Nail Trail, looking across Pajarito Canyon; note patchiness of burn

elk lurked in the woods and, most un-elk-like, didn't race away; legs look scrawny

Nail Trail near FR2998 intersection; forest service did a good job cutting down hazard trees along trail

Nail Trail continuing toward Pajarito Canyon

from Nail Trail, looking across Pajarito Canyon

I turned back here; the Nail Trail continues downhill to the Pajarito Canyon Trail

high country of Pajarito Mountain above the Nail Trail; wish that some how, some way, the Pajarito Canyon Trail of old that originated high on Pajarito Mountain could be brought back; two wildfires, Cerro Grande and Las Conchas have obliterated it

First Time on Upper Crossing Trail since Las Conchas Wildfire

On last Tuesday, May 1, I walked Upper Crossing Trail, starting from Ponderosa Campground, Bandelier National Monument, for the first time since it opened last November after the
Las Conchas wildfire and subsequent monsoon flooding.  I had only planned to walk to the Frijoles Canyon rim and peer down at the fire damage but when I got to the rim, I inexplicably kept right on walking to the bottom.  

The way down has always been steep, rocky, slippery; after the fire, it's much the same but in much better condition than I expected after last summer's robust monsoon rains.  The big difference is that the trees are now upright charcoal sticks and I can too clearly see boulders that, without the tree cover, look more tenuously perched above my head than ever.

The first part of the Upper Crossing Trail from Ponderosa Campground followed an old fire road. After Las Conchas, that part of the trail has moved onto a new trail just above.  The old  road has burnt logs scattered over it.  Eventually the trail meets up with the old road again.

Along the trail, there are now several boulder-filled side drainages that attest to the power of monsoon rains that rushed off the burnt escarpment, high above the trail.  The drainages weren't so noticeable before.  The boulders have been cleared off the trail.  

As I hiked down into Frijoles Canyon, I could look across at the continuation of the Upper Crossing Trail; its fragile trace is so painfully visible on the hillside as it traverses several times across nearly vertical, deeply eroded drainages. 

In the canyon bottom, the Rito de los Frijoles still optimistically flows through a landscape that is, at least in my lifetime, irretrievably altered by fire and flood. Before the fire, the canyon bottom was a shady, green oasis.  Now, the Rito sparkles in the sunlight as it  works its way through a rocky, sandy, scoured floodplain.  But hopeful sprouts of greenery contrast with the deep black of tree trunks. Before, there was a wobbly, bouncy wooden bridge that crossed the Rito; now I see two stepping stones to guide me across. I saved the adventure of crossing for another day and started back.

Do I miss the landscape as it was before Las Conchas?  Yes, I do, I viscerally do.  Do I appreciate the elemental beauty of the new landscape before my eyes?  You bet I do!!!!

Here are photos from Bandelier Ranger Sally King's recent walk from Ponderosa Campground to the Visitor Center.   Here are more Upper Crossing photos from the Bandelier National Monument's website.

boulder field on side drainage to trail

new trail section above old fire road

continuation of Upper Crossing Trail from north rim of Frijoles Canyon

severely burnt Upper Frijoles Canyon; the trail below kept luring me down

once a shady, green oasis; now an elemental landscape with the hope of new growth

Rito de los Frijoles heading down canyon

two stone crossing

charcoal black tree trunks tower above young, green sprouts