Jemez River

I really like those burritos at the Farmers Market. But, they just can't compete with the ones actually served at Santa Fe Baking Company. Crispier. Gooier. Warmer. We had some yesterday morning.

And then headed to East Fork of the Jemez River for a little hike. It's about an hour to the trailhead, about 10 miles beyond the Caldera, and we hit the trail around noon. It starts through a pine forest and the smell was just wonderful. It's an easy, meandering trail.





And, at one point, you can go down to the river, or to the "box," kind of a little canyon. We opted for the latter, at which point the trail just drops about straight down for a quarter-mile, opening on the river.



And the first river crossing.



We sat for a bit, considered our options, and figured that by following the river, we'd meet up with the trail eventually, and avoid that climb back up. There was some traffic, other hikers and fishers doing the same thing.

And so the river crossings continued. I stopped photographing at some point. We grew to understand another hiker's comment about why he wears sandals on this trail, so he didn't have to keep taking the boots off and putting them back on.



We got away from the river trail (or it got away from us), and we wound up on some of the cross-country skiing trails, which led us back to the river. And to the cows.



That's when it started raining.



Yes, the weather out here can turn at any minute, we know. We've read that. We've experienced that. We also know that, every day this past week, it's rained in the afternoon. So, with the rain jackets safely in the trunk of the car, we settled in under a tree to wait for it to pass. After about 30 minutes, and with the promise of clearing skies, we headed back out. At which point it stopped. It was just about a quarter-mile to the road, and from there, a quarter-mile back to the trailhead.