Thursday, September 24, 2015

Another weekend, another campout, another mesa, another ruin

The last weekend in May we went back to the camping spot we tried out with Brian and Dantzel last fall. It was absolutely beautiful with the unusual amount of spring showers we had received, New Mexico was green and had bright flowers. We headed up on Friday evening after work to the camp site and set up camp.

I know the picture is blurry but I just loved how excited this boy was to be out in the wilderness.
I love his sweet smile
He immediately went around smelling all of the flowers...he might have mauled a few while loving them...
He also got right to finding all the best sticks and rocks to pick up.
And then he was so helpful in putting together the tent
He loved the fire so much that he wanted to walk right into it...
He thought this stick was just his size, he tried carrying it around for a while
Helping me take down the tent
Packing up in the morning
This camping spot is just so beautiful when it has rained, beautiful meadows!
It might be hard to tell, but there were tons of little flowers all over the ground
Scott loved running in the meadow
Another pretty flower
We got all packed up and drove a little ways to our take out spot for our hike.

We crossed a river and there was hidden meadow where a road used to be that was so beautiful.
Starting to make our climb up the canyon
Scott was a happy hiker...I would be too if someone else was carrying me...
Taking a little break

Following the leader, as always


I know it's technically a weed, but there were lots, and they were pretty
There were lots of meadows throughout the hike that we loved the green of. After a long winter, we love the signs of summer
Stan making sure we on course :)
And we reached the top of the mesa
Lots of...
beautiful flowers....
all along the way.
It was definitely different vegetation at the top of the mesa.
The way we had hiked up had an old loggers/mining road as part of the trail. We found lots of evidence of the them in the dirt at the top of the mesa.
A shoe heel
Random pieces of metal
I love these tall pine trees and that the forest was thin enough to see through.
There was a long straight dirt road up here. We actually saw some cars as we hiked, which always makes me question why we are walking, but the exercise is good and it feels good to be out in the sun :)


After a good long nap, Scott was a happy hiker again


And then we came across an old settlement of some kind with lots of log homes. Pretty crazy imagining someone living up here so far away from everything. And in these log houses.









And then we got to the ruins. These ruins hadn't been excavated by archaeologists, but there were still quite a few walls standing above ground. It was a huge ruin, we were hardly able to cover it all as we walked around. We saw some pottery and some neat structures.










We headed out and found these neat petroglyphs on our way out:




The overlook off the mesa was so beautiful, I love the neverending forest:



And then we headed down the side of the mesa, which would have been a terrifying road. These pictures don't adequately show how steep this road was!



We had a such good time. It is our favorite thing to be out in the middle of nowhere together finding fun little things.

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