I had to travel to Thoreau ("threw") New Mexico to attend a Wilderness First Aid course for a trip with the Boy Scouts later this summer. Since it was just me, I loaded up the bike and traveled the back roads, including a gravel county "road" through a very remote section of New Mexico - it was me and a couple of ranchers!
After the gravel road section which took me to the
Very Large Array, I made my way to
El Malpais National Monument to check out the La Ventana arch (above). That stretch of road was pretty cool - large lava field to my left with towering sandstone bluff to my right. The trip was through some very strong winds, which made my choice of roads all the smarter.
After the last class, I loaded up the bike and started back south, but since I hit the road after 6 pm, didn't want to go too far. So I made my way to
El Morro National Monument, where they have a free campground. Since all the National Forests up that way are closed due to fire restrictions, I was worried that the 10 sites would all be taken and would have to drive further south into the Gila National Park. Turns out it was just me and one other person who never came out of his/her van. It is close to Navajo and Zuni lands, so I had very dark skies very close to a new moon...and I brought my star tracker with me!
I got some nice photos of the Milky Way (which is the brighter cloud of stars in the left of the photo, above), but decided I had enough of those, and
turned my eye back to Rho Ophiuchi - the orange star with the orange cloud and dark dust fingers in the upper middle/right part of the photo. I combined it with a photo of a bluff to the south, just had to turn down the brightness a good bit to make the night scene work.
That next morning, I snapped some photos of El Morro proper (above) and made my way back home.
That trip took me through the Gila National Forest, which has a very large wildfire - more than 215,000 acres when I went past. This photo is from the south and east, on a road I discovered last year that winds and twists its way through the mountains for miles and miles.
We actually had rain in the Lincoln National Forest today (and parts of the White Sands Missile Range) - I am hopeful that they will lift their closure soon!
Cheers,
Marc
