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| Here we are to start the trip... at the trailhead of Charon Gardens... going to the rock rooms on the west side of Elk Mountain. | Another start picture... | Everyone is fresh, clean, excited and ready to go... foolish mortals!!! <grin> |
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| Brothers came with sisters.... | Trails, creek beds, follow the leader... | Mr. D talking about buffalo poop.... |
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| Many places in the great plains didn't have trees but dried poop like this was used to make cooking fires in the old west... | just don't smell the smoke!! <grin> | Also it provides a home for various worms, eggs, and other invertebrates for a while until it returns to the soil. |
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| The day started off really nice and cool...about 72! | But that was just a cover of what was to clobber us on the way back!! | It got to be 98 degrees and we were all hot, worn out and thirsty!! |
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| We found an old abandoned mine.... | Miners in the 1890's - 1900's thought they could find gold in the granite mountains... alas... no gold! | |
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| Take a break!! | The Guardian Watchdog... go ahead and push it over...I dare you! :) | It's probably only about 60 tons! |
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| This is the place just before you climb a mini mountain to go into the Valley of the Boulders | Maybe you can see the outline of the watchdog with this shot.... | Up the mountain... |
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| Doesn't seem like much until it keeps going up! | But then you get the same going down... | so it evens out... |
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| The Valley of the Boulders... each one is the size of a small house.... | pile them all up and you have lots of little rooms below that bats make thier roosts. | |
