Actually, it died earlier this month and we replaced it soon thereafter so that's not why I haven't blogged but it's a good enough excuse.
Last week, I went part way up Pajarito Mountain's Zero Road East. I usually go to the Logging Road on the south side of the mountain and turn around but that day I turned around at the 4 way intersection near the tall, skinny antennas because dark thunderclouds were overhead with more to the north. When the thunder sounded once too often, I turned tail.
Determined to get my 4 miles, I drove lower down Camp May Road and - horrors - walked on FR2998 which is still closed due to the damnable Las Conchas fire. I only went as far as the intersection with the Nail Trail. There were still dark clouds to the west but I decided that even if there was a cloudburst, I wouldn't drown but would only be inconvenienced. It's obvious, though, that a lot of rain has washed across and down this forest road. FR2998 was never in wonderful condition even before the Las Conchas fire but now there is a rocky, washed out section that will be an invitation for vehicles to find a way around it and make their own road. In the surrounding land, what didn't burn in Cerro Grande was toasted by Las Conchas, perhaps in a back burn to keep the fire out of Los Alamos Canyon. Some of the young aspens along the FR2998 may yet live but the forest along the Nail Trail, which was mostly spared by the Cerro Grande fire, now is fringed by tall ponderosas so badly burnt that they won't recover. That section scared me more than walking on the washed out forest road. Without a companion, I really didn't want to go further. The burnt forest has a scary loneliness to it.
Today, I went up and down the new Zipline Trail. It's my 2nd trip down and 3rd trip up. I hope that next summer the trail builders can make some of the upper section less steep. There are 19 switchbacks total on the almost 1/2 mile Zipline Trail that runs as a connector between the Tent Rocks Trail and the Pueblo Canyon Rim Trail. One section is so steep that I resorted to the seat-of-the-pants maneuver. There is trash on the hillside that the trail traverses - a rusted out truck body, rusted drum barrels, a rusted garbage can. Maybe there was yet another dump, perhaps a more informal one, below the Los Alamos Airport's north boundary
The monsoon fizzled yet again today so it was hot. On the way down the Zipline I amused myself with with this thought: When I die and go to Hell, at least I'll be acclimated to the heat!
When I reached eastern end of the Tent Rocks Trail, I followed the Pueblo Canyon arroyo upstream and turned right into an interesting side arroyo that runs between Kwage Mesa and the southeastern-most residential neighborhoods on North Mesa. It's full of tent rocks and deep enough that although you can see the towering cliffs of North and Kwage mesas, the arroyo's actual walls rose above me on either side. I went as far as a dry waterfall which would have taken some effort to climb to explore further so I saved that for another day.