hiking New Mexico – Page 27 – Living Wonderously

I finally got my cactus fix today. It turns out that the Embudito Trail is one of the trails that goes through the desert environment preferred by the beautiful Claret Cup cacti that I had remembered seeing when we visited Albuquerque in March of 2012. Oddly enough, I remember on the hike 2 years ago we were wearing shorts in March, but, today, when it’s already May, jackets and long pants were necessary.

As the Embudito Trail winds its way higher up into the mountains the Claret Cup cacti are left behind to be replaced with a forest environment. Some of the wildflowers we saw along this section of the trail we have learned to identify. Others we have yet to learn.

IMG_20140501_104222162 — Unidentified white flower

IMG_20140501_104551943 — Golden Smoke along trail

IMG_20140501_105122103 — Franciscan Bluebell

IMG_20140501_111114184 — Creeping Mahonia

IMG_20140501_125049372 — Thistle. These grow down in the lower elevations. Another prickly plant with surprisingly pretty flowers, but no comparison to the Claret Cup cacti.

There were probably better days for picture-taking to capture the views of Albuquerque from the South Crest Trail. The afternoon winds kicked up dust and dirt in the desert, making the air too hazy to see very far. But since we hadn’t yet been on this popular trail we got enough pictures to give a sense of the place and didn’t worry too much that they weren’t professional quality photos. After all, most of our photos have that problem.