@LM77 should be interested, arachnophile that he is. 
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Great photo, thanks for sharing!
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Makes me think of Tuolumne meadows in Yosemite. At about 8000 feet they may be at the same altitude? Just checked, your place is half a mile higher up.
Since you encouraged me and some folks here might be interested in a conservation success story, the Wikipedia page on Valles Caldera describes the overgrazing of the caldera meadows by sheep for many generations. The property was acquired by a conservationist in 1963, but he didn’t own the timber rights. He finally sold the entire 100,000 acres to the government in 2000. It’s still in the process of returning to the pristine place that it once was.
If you read down to the 2011 wildfire, the scars are still visible. Los Alamos is just over the ridge from where the previous photo was taken. I have a funny story about that, but it’ll have to wait. Here’s a 2011 pic of a bike I no longer own next to the Valle.
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That bike takes me back. In the late 70s had a Triumph Trident which was an awful lot of fun. Probably every motorcycle nowadays would out perform it but not much did back then. Looks like a beautiful place to ride.
Great bike! Here’s the story I promised. After I took the pic, I had a smoke and finished the ride. Back at my friend’s house in the afternoon, we saw a little plume of smoke rising in the Jemez Mts. A few hours later the plume was a column. My buddies are looking at me. “Weren’t you just there?.. Were you smoking?” It turned into the biggest wildfire in NM history and I was getting side-eye for a month until investigators determined it was caused by a power line. Whew!
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One cool thing to pay attention to is the “hairs” trichomes inside the pitcher plants mouth and on the inside of the lid is positioned to guide inspects down the throat and make it harder for them to climb out.
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Beautiful view. A wimpy reply. Weeds and rocks in the foreground, but a rainbow so bright at the bottom that my lousy phone can’t do it justice, and the top perfectly intersects the summit.
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Wow. Super exhausted. Strapped on a 80lb weighted pack and hiked 6 miles in a creek that ranged between 2 and 4 feet deep most of the way with about 30 spots where I had to climb a foot or two out of water and over fallen trees or duck below surface and swim underneath.
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Whew!
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It was hard. I am not motivated to do it again but I will.
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You just contradicted yourself. 
If you will, then you are motivated. …or maybe you’re just crazy. 
Do you ever see gators on your romps?
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Yeah. I occasionally stumble across them. Even seen a american freshwater eel before. Alligator snapping turtles also. They are mostly further down though where the water begins to get 10 feet deep and where the canopy is more open and water stays a bit warmer.
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These are delightful:
Endless forms most beautiful …
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Not my photos but these were taken yesterday in Berkeley. The ones of San Francisco are more dramatic if you do a search online. Yesterday all over the bay area was pretty surreal. Streetlights stayed on almost all day. My outdoor lights and those in the park behind me never went off. I frequently looked but could never spot the disc of the sun. On an up note, the air was no worse than moderate. Today it is less dark and with out the orange/red glow but the air is very bad. So no exercise outside for me or the dogs.
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