Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Nature on the Carlito Springs Trail

 
It was rather amazing how much Nature was in her glory on the Carlito Springs Trail.  Altho there are quite a few images in this blog posting, I really did narrow it down to my absolute favorites!
 
Ouch – Prickly Pear Cactus
I have taken many, many images of Prickly Pear Cactus in the years that we’ve lived here in New Mexico, but this one has to be one of, if not the best, image I’ve captured of this cool cactus.  I love the soft lighting that existed here.  It’s also a great contrast to the very sharp and (relatively speaking) very long spikes on the cactus!
Purple Blooms at the Springs
After hiking up the trail, which is very dry and definitely not what one would call “lush”, it was such a delightful change of pace to reach the springs, and see all the vibrant greens, cool crisp looking water, and the delicate purple blooms that rimmed the various springs at the top of the trail. 
Top of the Trail
I just loved how clear the water was in the springs!  You can clearly see right down to the bottom of the pool in this image!  It almost makes one want to dangle one’s toes in what must be some nice cool water…..but if we all did that, the water probably wouldn’t be that clean and clear!
Out of the Rust
For some reason, I have always thought of daffodils as being a bit of a delicate flower.  Well, this one certainly set me straight.  I can’t really think of much more of an inhospitable environment than a bed of rusty cans!  Yet, here it was.  I think the rust cans were left over from when folks either lived or visited the community that’s at the top of the trail.  No recent littering!
Sunshine Blooms
You’ll see these blooms again as a photo sketch/painting in another post, but here’s the “straight shot” as I think of it!  I really loved that I was able to get down to the level of the flowers (they were growing on a bit of a ledge almost at my eye level) and just fill the frame with such happy looking flowers!
Coming Out of the Shadow
I don’t know what this little yellow flower is, but I loved how persistent it looked, growing in the exact location!  It is peeking out from between the “leaves” of a banana yucca plant that was sort of growing out from under a piece of a tree branch that happened to fall there.  You can see just a bit of the tree branch in the upper left corner of the image.
Moss Rock
Isn’t this a cool image?  It’s a close up of moss growing on a rock along the trail.  Now, I have always thought of moss as something that grows in a darker, damp place, but this rock is out in the bright sunshine, nowhere close to the springs!
Barrel Cactus Ready to Bloom
We don’t tend to see a lot of barrel cactus growing in the area where we live, but I did see a number of them on this trail.  People don’t generally think of cactus as a blooming plant, but they do!  We’re a bit early to catch this one blooming, but you can see the buds of what promise to be red flowers that will be in full bloom in a week or so.  Too bad we’ll be many miles away from here at that time, so this is as close as I’ll come this year to seeing a barrel cactus bloom!
Enjoy!


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