Forest Road 141

Wednesday, May 25 - We hiked 6.5 miles on FR 141 today, sometimes up, sometimes down, hemmed in at times by tall Ponderosa pines, with the occasional gorgeous vista thrown in, like the one shown above. This is an area where they have been doing prescribed burns, and it was sometimes weird to look at. The forest floor in places was completely black, with burnt stumps sticking up everywhere, and trees left standing, some which escaped getting scorched and others which weren't so lucky and had all their green needles turned to brown and orange.

The wildlife we saw today was small, but plentiful. A Gambel's quail, an Acorn woodpecker, many rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks, and a fox. That was the first fox I've seen alive - I've seen a few as roadkills. It was rather beautiful. There might have been bigger animals back up there, but we weren't likely to see them with the dogs crashing about.

We set a pretty good pace, in spite of the heat. Even with stopping to take pictures and giving the dogs some water every mile or so, we're closing in on three miles per hour. Also, time was when I would have had to stop after about 3 miles to have a snack, "to keep me going," so it's nice to feel as though all this walking is slowly changing me.

I think I've talked Cynthia into walking in the evening - my favorite time of day in New Mexico in the summer - so we'll finish 141 tomorrow.