Shallow Thoughts : : hikes
Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.
Wed, 01 Oct 2025
On a recent bike ride up at the East Fork trail, Dave had to go back
to the car to get something he'd forgotten, leaving me guarding his pack.
It turned out that was a blessing in disguise. While I waited, looking
up at the spectacular backlit sky high above the ponderosas, I saw
hundreds of little fluff pieces floating by, highlighted and glowing
from the sun behind them. Occasionally, I'd see long filaments drift
past: I assume they were strands of spider web, perhaps with tiny baby
spiders attached, invisible at that distance.
I tried to capture them on phone video, but unsurprisingly,
the video wasn't good enough to capture them, and neither were the
still photos.
Tags: hiking, mtb, bike, nature, New Mexico
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14:41 Oct 01, 2025
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Fri, 10 May 2024
Can you follow Lower Water Canyon (in the DOE open space lands south of
White Rock, NM) all the way to the Rio Grande?
In the decade we've lived here, we've heard that question and
asked it ourselves, and have heard a few anecdotal reports.
You can follow it down most of the way, but there's a pour-off near
the end that you won't want to do without a rope. Or there was a
pour-off fifteen years ago that wasn't that big a deal, but it's
changed since then and isn't passable now.
Or ... well, anyway, the story kept changing
depending on who we asked, and nobody seemed to have tried it in many years.
Now I've done it. It's a beautiful hike, and right now there's
an abundance of wildflowers in bloom along the canyon.
Read more ...
Tags: hiking, wildflowers, los alamos, openstreetmap
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12:42 May 10, 2024
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Sun, 17 Sep 2023
The weekly hiking group I'm in has quite a few members who
bring their dogs on hikes, as long as the trail allows it
(National Parks, Monuments and Preserves don't allow dogs).
I've seen various solutions for carrying dog water: bowls that
telescope out in use, and can be compacted flatter. Bowls out of
flexible materials like waterproofed nylon. Smallish cups.
Then there's the tricky job of pouring the unused water from
a flexible bowl back into a narrow-mouthed water bottle each time.
But dogs are more flexible than you might think. One of our canine
hiking companions, Lewis, has been trained to drink from a water bottle.
He just laps at the stream as it falls, and spills surprisingly little.
So his person can give him a drink at any time, without stopping and
digging around for a bowl.
I'd never seen this before, but it seems
pretty handy for a dog and person who go hiking just about every day.
Tags: hiking, dog
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18:04 Sep 17, 2023
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Thu, 31 Aug 2023
This week's group hike was to San Antonio Hot Springs, in the Jemez
above La Cueva. It was nice and cool up there, especially since the
trail is mostly shady, winding through ponderosa forest with views of
San Antonio Creek below and towering rock walls above.
Read more ...
Tags: hiking, sign, mysteries
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12:06 Aug 31, 2023
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