The temperature got down to 34° last night but we stayed cozy. After oatmeal we went to the visitor center and looked at the display of the history of the region from prehistoric hunter-gatherers through the railroad builders to the sheep and goat ranchers of today. It was sunnier and warmer than predicted so we decided to pack a lunch and ride our bikes on the Rio Grande Trail. It turned out to be a highlight of trip. We first took the left hand trail to an overlook of Seminole Canyon of the Pecos River. It was magnificent and we spent a long time scrambling over the rocks at the canyon’s edge. From there we continued on the main trail to the overlook of the confluence of the Pecos River and the Rio Grande. At that point we were about 160 feet over the river with spectacular views up the Pecos and up and down the Rio Grande. We also could see into Panther Cave across the Pecos which has some of the most remarkable pictographs in North America. We couldn’t see them with our bare eyes and we had forgotten the binocularsL. But Marv got a great picture which does show them. We had shared the path with two other couples on bikes and two couples hiking, but there was no sign of them now. We had our picnic overlooking the two rivers, with no sign of civilization. We walked along the edge of the area and got more pictures before climbing on our bikes for the trip back. We rode about 7 miles in all, most of it a mixture of rock surface and dry mud, but some of it broken pieces of rock that was pretty rugged. Back at camp we spent some time sitting in the sun and reading, enjoying 62° temperatures until high clouds came in and dropped the temperature quickly. We finished the trout fillets and had red beans and rice for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment