After finishing the Santa Elena Canyon hike, we stopped at the nearby Castolon visitor center. There are some older historic buildings there that Cindy wanted to shoot. I didn't shoot any of the buildings, but stayed busy looking for any reptiles that happened to be around. The park boasts 56 species of reptiles, but so far I have seen a grand total of zero - and I've been looking wherever we go. I didn't spot any here either so I grabbed a shot of some scenery before we headed up the road.
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| one of the views from the Castolon visitor center |
It was dark when we were in this section of the park earlier in the day, so now we were able to see more of the beauty the park has to offer. The first area we stopped at was near Tuff Canyon (which we hiked on a later date). The rock in this area is unusual in that it was a very light color, made from volcanic ash or tuff. You can see it in this next photo.
Just up the road from this is a scenic pull off that includs the rock formation called Mule Ears. A little farther up the road was the parking area for the Mule Ears Spring Trail. We didn't hike this trail, but pulled in for the views from the parking area.
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| Mule Ears view |
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| Mule Ears view |
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| view from the Mule Ears parking area |
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| Mule Ears Spring Trail |
Our next hike was the Lower Burro Mesa Pour-off Trail which is just a little farther up the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive which is the name of the road in this section of the park. The trail is an easy 1 mile out and back that ends at a very interesting box canyon. There are excellent close up views of some very colorful rock formations and more interesting desert plants.
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| Tree Cholla (Cylindropuntia imbricata) |
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| Yellow Wasp (Polistes flavus) |
The trail ends in a box canyon that is home to a 100' high pour off that shows how powerful falling water can be. This must be an amazing place after a big rain.
The last picture stop of the day was at the Sotol Vista which has excellent expansive views of the section of the park where we had spent the day. There are more trails in this area and we would return on another day!
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| views from Sotol Vista overlook |
Your blog journal is so much fun to read! Days 3 and 4 were pretty Ah-mazing!! The photos of the river through the canyon are so, so beautiful and serene. Having the hikers in the pic to give a sense of scale created a wow moment.
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