I have to keep reminding myself that you are in a forest just a few miles north of the Sonoran Desert. The wettest parts of Nevada come nowhere close to scenes like this. The closest I can think of is in Utah's Dixie National Forest east of Cedar City.
Love those meadows you're walking through. They remind me of the Rockies.
Duane
It reminded me, too, of the Dixie and Unita National forest in the alpine regions, but not as much beetle damage to the spruce and maybe more biodiversity. It is also a tad warmer than up there in Utah. It isn't but a few hours from Las Vegas, probably two hours more than the Dixie and less than Unita. This is still the Rockies. Mt. Baldy is 11,400 feet. The region is around 8500 to 10,000 feet generally. The southern Rockies won't become the Sierra Madre until northern Mexico. There are conservation sites a mile or more from our camp that host Black Bear and herds of Elk. These showed evidence of habitation everywhere we went...yea, we fell in love with it.
I'm so pleased that you all enjoyed this so much. There will be another day's activities in a different area posted next week. We learn a different way to react to encounters, new explorations and it was another very good day.
Jbee
