Virgin Mesa, August 6, 2016

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I have to dig through my files from the book ‘Hiking Adventures in Northern New Mexico’ for a new place to hike.  I feel I’m under pressure to find something new and different for my experienced hiking partners Becca and Laurie.  The book has descriptions of many trails and a CD which has routes and waypoints for each of the trails.  It is a bit dated; last published in 2006, but I have found a number of trails that I was not aware of.  Today’s hike is one of those.

San Antonio Creek/hot springs, July 3, 2016

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The evening I got back from our fishing expedition on the Rio Puerco Laurie texted me looking for a hiking partner sometime this weekend.  Although I felt good when I got home Friday evening I knew I would not be ready for a hike again on Saturday.  “How about Sunday or Monday?” She replied “We’re on”.

Today’s weather has nothing in common with the cool temperatures, rain and clouds we experienced on Friday.  High 90’s are forecast for Albuquerque, I’m hoping for low 80’s in the Jemez Mountains.

Jemez Mountains, May 15, 2015

I decided early this week to go out for another hike, this time up in the mountains.  A few weeks ago we passed through this area on the way to the Rio Cebolla (May 6, 2015 posting).  I saw several locations with groups of aspen just waiting to put on their spring green and thought that waiting a couple weeks would put them in full green.

Heavy clouds and rain are promised throughout the day.  I am willing to dodge the raindrops if and when they decide to come.

Guadalupe River/Gilman Tunnels

We took advantage of the 60° winter weather, in mid February, to hike around the Gilman Tunnels and Guadalupe River.  We chose a destination close to Albuquerque because of our late start.  With the seeming never ending Bernalillo road construction slowing us down, we arrived at the Tunnels in just over 90 minutes.  The Gilman Tunnels are a short detour off the Jemez Mountain Trail Scenic Byway; check out the website for more information http://www.newmexico.org/jemez-mountain-trail/

Rio San Antonio (part 3 of 3) the golden hour

Sept 28, 2013

Usually we start out early in the morning, 700, making it to our destination around 830 and hike from there.  Since we scouted out a couple other locations and made a number of photographic stops on the way up so our hiking schedule moved to later in the day.  It actually made for better photography at the end of the day considering we were still on the road as the sun was starting to set…

San Pedro Parks Wilderness

Sept 15, 2013

The second weekend in September I drove to the western end of the Jemez Mountains, just east of Cuba, NM.  I read several descriptions of the San Pedro Parks Wilderness area and decided I had to see it.  I was hoping to see the start of the fall colors…

 

 

 

 

 

More Jemez Mountains

A couple weeks after our trip to the East Fork of the Jemez River Byron and I decided to return to a different part of the mountains.  He wanted a different stream to fish and I wanted a different area to photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Battleship Rock

(This is a continuation of the Jemez Mountains posting, May 24, 2013)

Battleship Rock is actually on the way back to Albuquerque.  The Jemez River flows along one side of the outcropping.  It is probably 5 – 6 miles further downstream from our hike earlier in the day.

 

 

Jemez Mountains

More specifically, the East Fork of the Jemez River.  For those of you that live almost anywhere other than the Southwest you have a different vision of rivers than we do.  I remember when we went over the Rio Grande the first time.  We went over the whole river and kept driving thinking that what we just went over was a tributary of the Rio Grande, nope, it WAS the Rio Grande, quite a disappointment.  This year New Mexico is in its third year of drought.  I believe we have received approximately 9” of precipitation over the last two years.  Our average precipitation to start with is only 9” a year so you can imagine what the rivers or former rivers are looking like.

My favorite 12 (part 2)

As promised here's the remaining 6 images of my favorite 12 for 2012.

I have promised myself to get out more to use my camera to shoot more and different images.  So far I have been on a couple longer hikes in support of that promise.  This one is from a late Novemebr hike along the Rio Cebolla.  It was below freezing when we started warming up to the 50's by lunch.  Because it has been fairly warm this fall there was spotty ice along the stream banks.  I had to really crop the image so the ice becomes a small potion of the image.  There is a lot of unresolvable detail in the ice that detracts from the original image.  A tripod really helps with placing and keeping the camera still for this image.

This was taken in Vancouver BC in the area of English Bay looking west.  This is a fairly classic composition with the horizon placed at a 1/3 position horizontally and the couple at one of the 1/3 positions vertically.  The image is somewhat underexposed enhancing the feeling of the sunset.

I like the following two image because of the selective lighting on the leaves.



The last two images were taken on two different hikes.  The lake image was taken in the Pecos Wilderness this past fall.  The sunset-peak image was taken around the Gilman tunnels in the Jemez Mountains.

I hope you enjoyed my 12 favorite images of 2012.

Thank you for stopping by,
Mark

Jemez Mountains



Rio Cebolla valley



A few weeks ago before snow was promised a coworker, Byron, and I decided to go for a day hike up in the Jemez Mountains. He is a borderline fanatical fly-fisherman and has tried to recruit me to be a like minded fly-fisherman. To this point I have resisted. We get along fine on our hikes, he fishes and I photograph whatever gets my attention. We both have a great time!

We went up to the Rio Cebolla just north of the Seven Springs Fish Hatchery. The hatchery grows cutthroat trout which live in upper portions of the Rio Cebolla.

We hiked and fished approximately 2.5 miles up the valley, I’d guess 3 – 4 miles of stream, with all the twists and turns it takes. Byron caught four brown trout (catch and release) and I shot dozens of images. All we saw that day were two other fly-fishermen.

It was cold that morning when we arrived, the outside car thermometer said 19!  It warmed up to the low 50's by the time we stopped for lunch.  You can see ice along the edges of the stream in several of the images.



View around Gilman Tunnel



On our return trip back home we went by way of the Gilman Tunnels along the Rio Guadalupe.  The tunnels were created in the 1920’s for a logging railroad.



View around Gilman Tunnel



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark