Doña Ana Mountains, Selden Hills

I made three trips into the Doña Ana Mountains and one into the Selden Hills over my Christmas break. One trip was with photographer friend David Daniel to the Lucero Canyon petroglyph site which I hadn't been to in many years. Everything appeared to be good shape although I noticed that now people are driving right up the canyon practically to the site. They must be coming in the long way from the south because the last time I checked access was blocked from north end. We hiked in from the Radium Springs exit on I 25.
 On a second trip, also with David Daniel, to the Dagger Flat area, we saw coming in that the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument sign is missing.  It was also very difficult to escape the fact that the roads needed to access this area just keep getting worse and worse.
Both days were sunny and unseasonably warm, which made it nice to be out, but is always a little disturbing.
 On the third trip,  my wife and I went up the north branch of Cleofas Canyon, walked on bike trail on the ridge and back through tiny tributary on a much cooler but still sunny day.
 On a cloudy and windy afternoon, Seamus and I crossed the river and went up and down a couple of nameless canyons just south of Buckle Bar Canyon. I did all the larger canyons that lie north of Buckle Bar up to and including Lytten Canyon a couple of years ago, finding some very interesting sites in the process. So, now I am on a mission to explore all the major drainages that lie north of Radium Springs and south of Buckle Bar on the east side of the river.  Nothing much to report from these first two, but we did see deer, javelina and a small herd of some very large breed of goat roaming the hills. We also found a small remnant of native bosque with cottonwood, hackberry and tornillo trees( I'll be back for a fall color photo) on the old Broad Canyon Ranch property, which still awaits its transformation into a state park.
Note: no photos from the Selden Hills hike as I forgot both my camera and my phone. Hard to believe in this day and age, but in conversation with David Daniel, I reminisced  about visiting places when I first moved here and taking no photographs.