2009-09-17 35 -106

redaragorn

I knew that I'd have time to FINALLY get out and find my first geohash today, so I was a little disappointed to wake up and find a nice steady, soaking rain. Not that you're ever TOO disappointed to get a good rain in the desert. When the market opened and I got the coordinates, though, I found that it wasn't far from home--on the west side of Albuquerque near the Rinconada Canyon section of Petroglyph National Monument. I grabbed my hiking stuff, but I was glad I threw in the raincoat for good measure.

It was raining all morning. Not super hard, but good and steady. I got to the trailhead parking lot and wondered for a second about how silly I was being, then pulled on my hiking boots, put on my raincoat, and headed out into the grey. I took the trail around most of the way, then headed up the basalt cliffs to the southwest at the nearest point to make a beeline to the hash. Let me point out that going overland on the west mesa in wet weather is not especially pleasant. I was rather wet and muddy by the time I reached the hash point. I didn't see a whole lot of point in hanging out there, so I took a couple of quick pics and retreated back to the relative dryness of the car.

Check out the track here.