2009-09-25 35 -107

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 [

redaragorn

After missing out on the Albuquerque geohash on the way west, we finally made it out to Grants and headed south after the Malpais. We headed northwest into the Zuni Mountains on the bumpy road up Bonita Canyon. After a few miles, I parked the car and walked a half mile or so over to the geohash. Little squirt made the entire walk there and back on his own despite the fact that it was up and down most all of the way. He did good, and was a willing participant in my drag-along achievement.

Check out the track here.

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