Sat, 11May - Entering the Bears Mouth

Rained hard for a while last night.  This is where it pays off having a two man tent.  Awoke in the morning to the sound of turkeys walking beside my tent.  Boy they can be loud.  Lots of cute fuzzy desert rats, sometimes 6-8 at a time, runny around the trail this morning.  Must have been a lot of dead cows in one area because many of the rock cairns had bones on them.  

As I dropped down a series of switch-backs from the high Mesa, past a rock formation called the Bears Mouth, the trail really got interesting.   Near a pyramid shaped mountain named Cerro del Ojo Frio there is a rumor of quicksand.  I found a spot in an arroyo where there was a huge bed of silty sand at the bottom of the drainage.  I could imagine this would turn to quicksand if it had water.

The end of the day was hot but I was surrounded by sandstone ridges.  After a long flat section I began to climb up, over, and around the sandstone.  Made camp on the edge of one sandstone ridge with a view of the Mesa below and more sandstone ahead.