Sunday, September 6, 2009

There Goes the Neighborhood

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY NINE

The higher than usual humidity is still with us but at least the temperature is lower. Today when I went out to hike after work there were no clouds to chase so I decided to keep close to home and take the dog on a little walk. Poor thing gets depressed every time I go without her.

Today I really didn't feel like chasing anything I just walked out of my front door and started walking. It's a good thing there are several trails nearby.

I've gone up this alluvial fan a couple of times this year, once alone and once with local kids. Today I brought Kahlua for company and plan to go further than either of the previous times.

I get toward the top of the bajada and am amazed at how much the banks of this wash have been scoured by water. In the twenty-plus years that I've lived here I don't think we've ever had a storm big enough to do this kind of damage.

But the water has had enough power to move this HUGE boulder into the center of the wash.

I get into where the canyon narrows and find this large, heavily varnished rock. I could make this my turnaround point but want to see what lies beyond it.

It's readily apparent that someone else has been up this canyon and decided to stay a while.

They even had time to make this little stone throne. But I don't have time to just hang out. I've got more to explore.

Up the canyon a little further I find a couple of little dens on the side of a hill.

No critters in here now but it's obvious this is used as a resting spot for something that flies or that is very nimble. This is a hard place to reach.

Today I can't go any further but there is more to see up the canyon. I'll return once it starts to cool down some more. I decide that on the way back I'll try a shortcut through this pass.

It's tougher than it looks. Several hundred feet of loose crumbling rock awaits me. Great.

At the bottom I find another sign that someone's been this way before. Rocks don't just end up on boulders like this by themselves.

There are a couple of post modern petroglyphs up here, too. These certainly aren't ancient because there are too few and they're just a little too neat.

I appreciate finding new sights but I prefer authenticity to some modern facsimile. There are some many places to find real petroglyphs so I don't think we need to start making our own. Nobody likes a phony.

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