Memorial day in Silver City

We have a national cemetery less than 10 miles from our home.  Fort Bayard National Cemetery.  This is where we will spend our Monday with the American Legion folks in town.  Fort Bayard was the home to the Buffalo Soldiers, black soldiers in the 1860's sent out west to protect the settlers from the hostile Indians.  We have so many places of national significance around here.

The road faces the mountain range when you drive out.  Just below the mountain ridge in the background, to the far left lower ridge,  is a spire that is called the praying nun.  You can see it from almost everywhere around here.  A very significant landmark.  You can see it centered in your view when you drive out the cemetery.  I wonder if the designers did this purposely, it is a fantastic view.

Handgun training, Top of Bear Mtn, Rockhounding trip

We had to take two days of training to apply for our handgun licenses.  NM doesn't recognize GA licenses.

Video of Pam at range during shooting portion of test. pam scored 96 and don scored 100.

Top of Bear Mountain.  A couple of folks asked if there was a guest book at the top and the first trip I did not find it.  This trip I found and signed the guest book at the top.  56 minutes to the top, 1.2 miles.  Found a nice trail that you can stand up on and hike.  

 We went with the "Rolling Stones" rock hunting club on their monthly field trip and we stopped by an old CCC Camp from the 30's where they build dams and roads through the mountains.    Our destination was an old Gold Mine, The Grand View Mine.  We are collecting Iron Pyrite, fools gold.  Found a bunch of nice square crystals and also found fluorite crystals.  Visited the famous  Royal John gold mine before we drove back to town.

2012 fire and recovery.  

The creek/river that is in front of Pam in this photo you can see in the photo below it.  This is looking up the creek.  Huge boulders piled up in huge hills in the creek bed.  Spectacular geography and geology. Very remote area of Gila National Forest. 

Settler miner cabin.

Backyard birds, Gila Bike Races, Pam rockhounding, Sunset over Silver City

Been a couple of days since we removed photos from camera.  Here ia a mis-mash from the past week.

I have been trying to plant a garden but the very large and delicious looking California Quail like to dig holes and take a dirt bath in my garden

Finally got Pam out for a rock hunt

Cleland Mill site.  Old silver and lead mine

Gila Bike Races in downtown Silver City.  1 mile route around downtown professional bike racers.

Grant County Courthouse in background.

This is a .mov movie.

Abandoned mike near Little Bear mtn

Walking in the Continental Divide

Sunset from our back yard.

You can see the lights of Silver City in the background

Bear Mountain. Scaled it. Boom. 8014'

I found a nice parking spot in the Gila National Forest so this spot has been my base camp for hiking Little Bear Mountain and Bear Mountain.  Little Bear on the left side of the road and Bear Mountain on the right.  I scaled Little Bear last week at about 7500 ft.  Bear is over 8,000 ft. Tuesday I tried my first attempt to scale Bear Mountain.  The brush is thick and at some places not passable, then on the way up two cliffs.  So on the first attempt I got about 7600 ft and had to abort.  Today I decided to take a ravine up as far as I could to get around the cliffs and then climb around them to the top.  3 hours to climb .75 miles with almost 2000 ft elevation change.  Made it.

Roadrunner in our yard

Chasing a deer down the road

Bear encounter and Little Bear mountain part duex

Sunday night before going to bed I went outside to have a smoke.  It was pretty dark and about 10 pm and I seen a large black animal in the side yard.  It was coming up the mountain from the neighbors who have chickens so I thought it was a big dog getting into the chickens.  I shuffled my feet in the gravel driveway and it took off at a fast run.  It ran into a chicken wire covered portion of the barbed wire fence and stopped at a dime.  It layed on the ground for a second and got up and ran down the long driveway up the mountain,  In the morning i seen it had knocked over a 6x8 timber which was buried and cemented in the ground.  It had to be a couple hundred pounds to knock out that timber.  Glad it ran away.
  

Second trip to Little Bear mountain.  Got new hiking boots for an anniversary present so I thought I would test them out.  Instead of using the trails I hiked directly down Little Bear to the ravine and walked the creek down about a mile.  Total trip 2 miles in 4 1/2 hrs.  Found an old mine shaft.  I love my new Danner hiking boots.