That's what it's feels like on the drive up to the north rim of the Valles Caldera on FR100, FR 99, and FR144. Everything is so green. It's unbelievably, scrumptiously lovely and it will only get lovelier as summer turns into fall and aspens turn from green to gold.
Ed came to the parking lot to give Dorothy some maps of the Garita area that he copied off a map he had Travel Bug make for him. He wasn't going because he needed to get his 96 year old Mom a new walker. We didn't leave Mesa Public Library (MPL) until 8:34am because we talked with Ed for a while.
We turned right onto a dirt road off FR144 right after the cattle guard at the sign in the west direction that says end of latilla cutting. Dorothy parked and we went searching for a road that went out to a view. Our 5th road was the winner. The rest all deadended at confrontational landscaping, i.e., enormous berms and deadfall filled forests. The view of the entire northern Valles Caldera was to die for but we didn't stay long because it was looking ugly and thunder was booming. The rain began on the way back but no big lightning strikes. We only walked 1.47 miles in part because of the weather and in part because Dorothy developed a sore toe on the Valles de los Amigos Cerro Seco hike on Sunday.
BTW, Dorothy says that she does these projects to get out and could easily have others do it faster. She anticipates 2 more trips on the southern part of the West Rim and a trip from FR144 to FR376, crossing NM126. She's hoping that our scouts will take a look at the feasibility of a car shuttle trip starting down from Virgin Mesa to Battleship Rock. Then she says that Harry (?) McGavron contacted her about an old road from Scooter Pass to Pines that she wants to check out. Plus there are still a few more items to check out on the north rim, including finding a road that goes from Cerro de la Garita to the Hilton Gate.
When we got back into town, I drove up to the Ocean and finished my 4 miles through the woods alongside Camp May Road. I saw evidence that paint-ballers have been cavorting on the Route. The distance is about 1 mile from the Ocean to the top of Guardrail Hill and then about .25 mile from there to FR2998. A gray SUV was stuck in the big puddle on FR2998. No one was around. It was in water up to its gunwales.
Today I asked Dorothy to tell me again how to tell the native thistles from the invasive musk and bull thistles: Look at the back of a leaf at the midrib. There should be no barbs on that or down the entire stem of the thistle.