Picture me this morning, gliding down Diamond Drive, still in its perpetual state of construction. I have the luck to be behind someone who's obviously brain dead in the right lane. When we get to the part where the speed limit is 40 mph, he/she is barely able to come up to that speed. I debate if I should follow this car until the golf course parking lot turnoff where I will meet fellow hikers but then I grow impatient. I pass, exceeding the speed limit, pull in front of the car but then see the parking lot is sooner than I expect. When I suddenly brake and turn, I am embarrassed by the loud blaring of the brain dead's car horn that heralds my arrival. Ah, the ignominy of being caught in my own brain deadness! Fortunately, the other hikers are not there yet so no one I know witnesses my stupidity!
I hiked with the Tuesday group which had planned to hike Atalaya in Santa Fe but changed their plans due to snow we received on Sunday. So, instead a small group of six hiked Upper Guaje Road to the Cabra Loop Trail. We followed the Cabra segment that goes to Beanfield Mesa and then down to the Rendija Trail. I told them we didn't have to go uphill on the Upper Rendija Trail to get back to the vehicle parked at Guaje Pines Cemetery but instead we could go on the flat through the Rendija Narrows. I'm afraid, though, they didn't consider it impressively narrow enough because after we had walked out of it, someone asked if we were in the Narrows yet!
We saw valerian, blue bell, golden banner, golden smoke, clematis, claret cup cactus, and perky sue. We especially enjoyed seeing the seed heads of the pasque flower. The seed head is silky soft. Gambel oak is beginning to bloom in anticipation of forming leaves. Currant and mountain mahogany are leafing out. The flowers we saw were not plentiful. Everything is slowed because of lack of moisture. I wonder if the record-breaking frigid temperatures affected the native plants. I know that in Santa Fe, lavender and rose bushes were killed in the cold but those are domestic plants.
When we first started walking on Upper Guaje Road, Forest Road 442, we went through a section of the road that Paul Parker's employees were grading. We asked what they were doing and they said they were flattening the road and that a new subdivision would be built. This lower section of Upper Guaje Road is owned by the county not the forest service. The forest service boundary is just past this and the road there is still very steep. It looks like the grading will cause erosion because the steepness of the forest road above the graded section will allow water to cascade down faster. Below this short graded section is a segment of the Rendija Trail, a Los Alamos county open space trail, which could also be eroded.