Little Florida Mountains - east side

The Little Floridas don't look like much more than low brown hills from I-10, or NM 549, especially when contrasted with the Floridas towering behind them with the many ups and downs of its wild ridgeline of towers, peaks, pinnacles and hoodoos.  Closer inspection reveals a different situation.

  More than a week before I had noticed all the yellow at the base of the Little Floridas, and thought they  might be good for a poppy drive and then coming back from the hike in Lobo Draw ( in the "big" Florida Mountains), I caught a glimpse of the Little Needle Eye arch off in the distance, and got the notion to do a hike over that way soon. A couple of days later I went.
 Beside the arch,  I saw something called "Indian Post Office" on the  topo map of the area. I wasn't sure  what the label is referring to ( I'm still not sure), but the name certainly is intriguing. In addition, Google Earth research  revealed the narrows of Bobcat Canyon which I thought would be fun to explore.
 My friend David met me at the Akela Flats exit and then we drove on until finding our turnoff from NM 549. We opened the gate and had only driven a short way on the Luna Mine Road when we stopped to read this sign.

 My plan had been to drive to the mouth of  Black Rock Canyon, from there it would be only a mile walk to enter Bobcat Canyon. After exploring there, we could check out the mining areas, other canyons draining to the east, and the aforementioned Indian Post Office. Now we had to re-think the whole thing. At first we drove down the pipeline road immediately on our right, looking for another mine road that would take us in the same direction.  We could see one off on  a hill, but when we found it in the bottomlands, it was all but invisible and definitely not usable. The pipeline road itself had a washout that was deep enough to prevent us driving any further east as well. The maps indicate a "jeep" road leaving out from near the Adobe Deli, but it looks questionable on Google Earth and would necessitate backtracking to Lewis Flats Road etc., etc. We parked and just began walking along the BLM property line at first and then bearing southwest. Shortly after connecting with Luna Mine Road, a truck was coming behind us. Initially we thought " land owners out to harass us," but it was only a couple out to look at the poppies. More than likely they had driven right by the sign that caused us to change our plans, and it made me think maybe we should have just ignored it too.
 It wasn't a bad walk though, and there were plenty of poppies, as well as other wildflowers to enjoy as we went.




When we started seeing rusty cans, broken dishes and bottles, as well as chunks of  black manganese ore, we knew we had arrived on the outskirts of the mining area. Now where to proceed? Above the mines and tailings piles, the east face of the range presented itself as very rugged little bit of territory. Rough cliffs of red conglomerate with many alcoves and crevices,  were fractured by narrow, steep and boulder filled ravines where a scant few junipers grew. I zig-zagged up through the bluffs straight ahead finding the necessary breaks in the cliffs to continue ever upward. I found a huge alcove, big enough for many people to stand under, but found no evidence of a human presence either ancient or more recent. There was mountain lion scat though. I circled around to the west from there, hugging the cliffs until I arrived on a narrow windy plateau.






I caught a glimpse of David who had climbed up and over a grassy swale at the Little Gap and was coming  up a steep gully from the north. I later found out he had difficult time getting through the cliffs at the top ( invisible to me) to arrive at the same plateau. I investigated some more alcoves in the huge orange rock prominence just to south.  It occurred to me that maybe this formation was the " Indian Post Office, " but why it had that name when there was no evidence of use by Indians that we could find, I don't know.

We now circled around it finding more alcoves, including one with native tobacco growing it, but nothing else, pottery, petroglyphs, lithics, to indicate past use by native peoples.



At one point, I was high up enough in the canyon to catch sight of the communication tower on the top of the mountain. I had the idea of walking on the top over to Bobcat Canyon, but that was not to be. Instead we began to make our way down. After flushing out a javelina from the brush, I found a way down into the crazy conglomeration of boulders, bedrock, and bit of water that is the upper reaches of Coyote Arroyo which is just north of the Little Needle Eye.

My knees were shot for the day, and I was wishing to get down to level or at least gently rolling ground as quickly as possible. I hit a waterfall, which forced to the south side of the streambed where I noticed a mine road above and opposite me. I wasn't climbing up to it, so I continued further south and down.  An eagle soared out of the rock just below me. A rare chance sighting from above. It turned as if it were coming back toward me ( yipe!) initially, but then went out to glide over the flatlands to the east. I came to a stoutly built barb wire fence of a more recent vintage that was holding its own quite well. The wire was quite tight still and the lower strands low, so I continued on  parallel hoping for an opening. Eventually, I climbed over, where it was tied to heavy piece of timber.
The poppies here were magnificent. The grew all the way up the side of the mountain above the arch and made the whole hillside shimmer.

 I saw the large mine workings at Black Rock Canyon, and thought about walking on to Bobcat Canyon, but I was played out for the day from all the up and down on the steep rocky slopes. I turned around and began the 2 mile walk  back to the trucks. I assumed David would have been way, way out in front of me, but eventually I caught sight of him, maybe 5 minutes ahead.

Sleeping Lady Hills, Spring walkabout- Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument

An afternoon in the wind and sun. Gravel and sand greened up with wild mustard and invasive dock. Heading toward white hills, I surmise there must be fault separating them from the dark basalt/andesite peaks and cliffs that make up much of the higher parts of the range.  Bright yellow lichen grows on the contrasting red rocks that outcrop in strange forms on both sides.

Trudging about on the clinking cobble of tuff.
 A well engineered cow trail curves through the greening bunch grass that grows on the northeast slope. We follow it.

A black cow lies several days dead in a shallow ravine. Creosote bush grows as far as the eye can see. We look for bits of pots, or flakes of quartz at our feet, but find none. On the very few suitable boulders we see, we hope, in vain, to find petroglyphs.

Florida Mountains - Lobo Canyons, Florida Mountains WSA

Two of the upper branches of Lobo Draw have narrow, cliff bound sections, with just a small ridge separating them.  I've been looking at them for awhile as  a relatively low key outing to the Floridas. I had planned  on visiting sometime when we were camping at Rockhound State Park, but after getting shut out ( by a locked gate ) on  a trip I was planning to Goodsight Well, I decided I was almost to the Floridas anyway, so off I went.
 The roads getting there are rough and a bit slow, but very manageable in dry weather. Their shortcomings hardly noticed on this day's adventure because of amazing bloom of poppies and other wildflowers in the rocky slopes all along the way.

 It's advisable to drive past the windmill on the road along Lobo Draw, before parking because much of the land east and downstream is indicated as private property on land ownership maps, even though none of it is posted.

 I crossed the  arroyo, a rough, boulder laden ditch in its upper reaches, and quickly found the path of one of the two abandoned roads heading up on either side of the north canyon.  It was nice to have orange-gold poppies poking through tiny yellow wildflowers to keep my spirits up along the way, because even though I was on good hiking trail using the old road, it's a bit of a trudge up to the ill-fated Atir Mine buildings, especially in warmer weather, with the route gaining about 700 feet in elevation in less than a mile.



Reaching the mine, there are ruins of several buildings, and I could see parts of the ore tram system anchored in the rock going up the  hillside  high above to the actual mine.





I set out quickly to explore the box canyon immediately adjacent. It's very rough going, as is almost always the case with hidden canyons like these. If  I wasn't being impeded by boulders and waterfalls, then the grapevine and other thick vegetation was blocking my way. There was a tiny bit of water flowing with some pools below a pea-shooter 12 foot waterfall. Just above, it was being fed by trickle from a 100 foot ( or more) falls that came from a side canyon and wet the bare rock in its descent.











It seemed like most of the water was coming from here, but I ascended a narrow wildlife path along the opposite wall in the main canyon to investigate further. Topping out I looked down and could tell very little, as the stream bottom was concealed by boulders and live oaks. The main canyon, cut through  what appears to be a contact zone between granitic, volcanic and sedimentary rocks also takes a turn, so the upper reaches which Google Earth shows as having a couple of very high, but usually dry, waterfalls could not be seen. It looked very thick below me and the going would be very slow. If I had only planned to visit this canyon, I might have continued( although I don't think I would have gotten far), as it was I turned around.
Heading back down I saw the remnant of the road that went up to the mine, and when the dividing ridge was low enough I crossed over to the second ( south ) canyon. There was an old road here to help as well, but it was still a climb. The second canyon, perhaps because it lacks water most of time was much easier to enter. Evergreen oaks, barely budding hackberries and other small, bare, deciduous trees and shrubs guided the way between the towering gray cliffs. There was even a  path on  soft soil and the plentiful ground greenery we call "weeds." Alas, it came to an end too soon. The way was blocked by an enormous sharp sided boulder choking the passage.

On closer inspection there appeared to be a  passage underneath it, used by animals much smaller than myself.
 I drank my water, and enjoyed the complete shade before heading back out into the wind and sun for my uneventful trip back down.