Well, our second full day in Santa Fe, we had plans to go into the mountains and hike to the Jemez Springs waterfall and other places. The weather was not going to be completely cooperative with us as, once again, heavy rain was forecast for the afternoon and evening, and Winter Weather warnings said that elevations above 10,000 feet could expect five to eight inches of snow. We were up at 5:00 AM and out on the road to Los Alamos by 7:00, so no problems with the weather, right? Not hardly!
New Mexico highway 502 into Los Alamos near Anderson Overlook is a curvy, narrow, two lane road with sheer bluffs on both sides. About half the way up the mountain, we saw blue and red lights flashing. A jeep was overturned against the bluff in the lane coming down the hill. As we went around the wreck and around the corner, we found out why. The previous day's rain had frozen in the road, and the steep slope was glittering with ice. We could not go back down, so I white-knuckled on the steering wheel until we got up to a relatively flat place where the sun was shining and there was no ice or snow anywhere. I don't recall spinning a wheel, but if we had, it could have been trouble. Turns out, we cruised into Los Alamos on dry pavement with sun shining brightly on the mountains to our left. However, as we went through the main gates of Los Alamos, it didn't take us long to figure out that nothing would be open at 7:30 on a Sunday morning. In fact, the heavily guarded Los Alamos Laboratory Gates were not manned, and we could not get through. So, we had to take the road that went up to the ski resort. As we started up the mountain-side on the bypass, a single cloud skirted over the hilltop and blotted out the sun. As the cloud got closer, we could see it was snowing. We were in a quick snowstorm that lasted maybe five minutes, but after the cloud passed, the sun came back out. That would be the formula for our Sunday morning in the mountains. Intermittent sunshine between clouds that always brought snow. All right, to pictures.
Valles Grande above is the cone of a giant and ancient volcano. The entire valley is about seven miles long and two miles wide at the widest. See the bright blue sky? See the clouds? Even with the sky as bright as it was, every cloud that skimmed the mountain brought snow. Below is a view of Valles Grande just to the left of the picture above. I didn't want to get the ranger station in the picture.
Kellie and I had been to Valles Grande before and, though it is a "wildlife refuge," we had never seen anything other than prairie dogs. Well, this day, we got to watch an small herd of elk traverse from one end of the valley to the other. Kellie got some pretty good pictures. The two below are the only ones that I got worth looking at. Kellie also got a good shot of coyote that was close to the road. Maybe later, we will ask her to share with us.
After we left Valles Grande, the intermittent blue sky became less prevalent and the snow more steady. We did not want to get trapped in the mountains in a snowstorm, so we thought it best to get on back down to lower elevations. We did stop at the San Diego Canyon overlook and walked out to the overlook. Below is what we were capable of seeing on this day.
It was beautiful but not very photographic.
Anyway, by the time we wound our way down to the road where you can see the car, the temperature was up near 40 and the rain was pretty steady. In fact, we stopped at Battleship Rock a few miles down the road and walked around in a heavy rain with our umbrellas. Kellie took a few pictures of Battleship Rock. I did not because it was raining so steadily.
We arrived at our next stop at precisely 9:00 when the Jemez historic site opened. The Jemez Historic Site is an ancient Jemez (pronounced Hay-mez by the tribe) village where the villagers were forced to build a church by Franciscan monks who migrated to the area in the early 1600's. According to the reading materials, the church was built mostly by women and children because the men were too busy hunting and gathering to supply food to work on the church. The church was burned--at least all the wood parts of it--in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Another church was built later in a different location. The pictures below are of the original church completed in 1640 or so. The front entrance (pictures three and four) has been restored by archeologists to keep the site open to the public.
We finished looking around this ancient site around 10:30, and it started raining again.
In the next travelogue, I will take you through our hike at Red Rocks and tell you about the rest of Sunday. Later!