Caja del Rio trip

Yesterday's sightseeing tour was to Caja del Rio, slightly southwest of Santa Fe. We haven't had much time to do fun sightseeing since moving, so this was a nice opportunity to see the lay of the land in the Santa Fe area. I've generally only been there for meetings, so I got to be a bit of a geo-tourist and passenge, instead of drive. Yahoo.

The road to Caja del Rio (the Rio Grande River canyon south of Otowi Bridge) goes past Santa Fe's landfill and across the Cerros del Rio volcanic field (as best I can tell from my limited home references). Once we got fairly close to the Rio Grande, we did a loop along the canyon edge on a Forest Service two-track. This was the five-year old's first two track drive on a bumpy road in a very long time (we did need to put it in low in several locations), and at one point she said "this road is making my underwear creep!"

The view across the canyon towards White Rock and Los Alamos. I think the tall, triangular-faced mountain in the background is Polvadera Peak. You can see the Rio Grande at the bottom of the canyon.
The five-year old and the SO looking north at a tributary canyon wall.


Part of what they were looking at - interfingered sediments and basalts. I have the Geology of the Jemez Region II (put out by NM Geological Society, 2007) at the office and plan to try and figure out the possible formations in this shot.


The windshield view from looking across the canyon. The five-year old said "We're gonna die!" (she says that about a lot of things, tongue-in-cheek).


Another underwear-creeping part of the drive. Silver Fox at Looking for Detachment wrote recently about two-track driving, so I'd thought I'd include these to continue the meme.

A set of beautiful lupines at the last part of the loop, near a stock pond.