Florida Mountains Wilderness Study Area - Owl Canyon

South Peak

South Peak

Tres Hermanas Mountains in the distance

old junipers

Above the box falls

box section

rock tower that was my constant companion

South Peak from NM 11

East Branch of Owl Canyon

Hackberries

This canyon is on the south end of the Florida Mountains.  It has no name on maps, but I've seen it referred to as Owl Canyon in a couple of places. I parked way too far away as is my frequent habit. The road actually improved greatly beyond where I stopped, I discovered on the return hike. I went cross-country on the way out negotiating my way through a virtual catclaw forest and going up down cobble-clad washes until reaching the escarpment of bare  brown rock mounds that come down to meet the desert floor.

 I found my canyon, which resembled a gravel road at this point and then I moved on to the east and into the box section.  

Getting out of the box section at the back was more than a little dicey. My choices were going under a huge boulder at the dry waterfall, or clawing my way up a steep (and I mean steep) wildlife path through the rock. I chose the path but it wasn't a good choice. The dry waterfall definitely wasn't. On my return trip I realized there was trail of sorts that takes off from the end of the road and bypasses both of these options quite nicely.

 I continued on, stomping the sand and gravel, weaving through and sometimes walking on the many boulders. A dilapidated fence was a brief obstacle. Eventually, I came to a little grove of hackberries growing on the bank and followed the deer path that threaded its way through them. 

Shortly after I came to the first dry waterfall, which was dry, but when I made my around it I soon found the barest trickle of water silently running in the cracks of the bedrock. 

I continued up and up, easy walking on the bedrock now. At the second falls, I had to side step my way around huge boulder, while avoiding getting the bottoms of shoes wet from barest of slicks coming down the mountain.

 I made it up to a third high, very steep falls that was once again dry with just the white mineral residue staining the nearly black rock.

It's all intrusive igneous here but with xenoliths and crazy pinkish veins running everywhere through the groundmass of gray granite.

 I love getting back into these canyons of the Floridas. They are quietly majestic and I find it hard to put into words the spell the towers, cliffs, cascades and falls put upon me. The junipers, growing ancient, twisted and huge (at least compared to those growing out in the open hillsides) in the near perpetual shadows of the peaks, bring me joy as if I was meeting a beloved person from history.

 I lingered for awhile.

 I headed back down. I found the trail just past a wilderness study are marker, that led me to the road which I followed all the way back to the truck.

 There were poppies here and there. Not many, but nice just the same

Good Sight Mountains

Good Sight Mountains

Barrel cactus. West Potrillo Mountains in the distance

Pile of rocks in an alcove

Wall in the ravine

Florida Mountains in the distance

Nest in the cliff

Old juniper on north facing slope

Dry cascade I was able to walk up

 Yucca that was at least 25 feet tall

Cooke's Peak in the distance

I guess I was determined to get out to the Good Sight Mountains at least once before the weather warmed up. I feel obligated, but I'm not totally sure why, to  see the places that others don't want to see, or are just a little too hard to see. That's the Good Sights. Access to the western escarpment, really the only aspect of the range that's worth seeing is very limited especially if you want to approach from the west.   Access from the east and north is on tedious unmaintained roads, where you are never sure if they are just going to give out altogether, and the one I chose this particular day still left me back aways from the crest of the escarpment, so I ended trudging up and down hillsides and valleys of shin high rocks.

The wind was not good. I hadn't really looked into the weather that closely, and perhaps, if  I had seen it was going to be blowing a steady gale, I wouldn't have gone at all.The wind was cold too. The temperature probably got to the low sixties, but I never took my beanie off which I wore underneath my sombrero. Skies were blue. The sun bright.

Highlights of the trip:  Seeing three deer on the ridge and then seeing those deer down in a valley with cows and antelope. Exploring the breccia cliffs, boulders and alcoves, even though there wasn't much found in the end, they at least kept holding out potential for a good chunk of the hike. A hillside covered with small barrel cactus. This had not come up before. Some walls of unknown origin. A tiny bit of water in the bedrock of one little canyon. The tallest yuccas I've ever seen. A raptor's nest. A very tiny brown calf frolicking.

Artifacts located: a horseshoe (age unknown), a shell casing (20th century Russian ammo as I learned later), a sardine tin  and other rusty junk.A very dubious piece of pottery.  There was abundant  dark  chalcedony laying about in the flatlands below the cliffs, but they were just raw chunks, not projectile point debitage.

Lowlight of the day: the drab winter look in the drainages of a range in poor condition.