Faulty Loop Hike from Canyon Estates Trail Head

Our California girl, Rita, led us on a beautiful hike in the South Sandia Mountains. From the Canyon Estates Subdivision we took the Southern end of the Crest Trail 130, climbing up to the Upper Faulty Trail and then looped back down the Lower Faulty.  On the way, we saw the Travertine Falls with a large dome of travertine that was riddled with caves.  The falls are fed by a small spring, with less water than it has been known to have. The total hike was 5.2 miles with an elevation gain of 1065 feet with a maximum elevation of 7674 feet

Rose, photographer

The Hoofers: Pat, Linda (guest) Kathleen, Jean, Jan, Jane, and Jennise. Back row: Rita, our leader, Brigitte,Ginny,Sally Barb, and Judy A.

Heading out

Beautiful rock formations

Rita leading us

At the base of the Travertine falls and caves

Moss covered falls and just a trickle of water

I went up to get better photos of the caves

Modern Petroglyph

Looking in the cave as far as it goes

A view looking up one of the inner caves

Other views of the falls and Travertine dome

A shot of the Hoofers from the caves

Interesting tree, at one time there was enough water to wash away the dirt from the roots

Heading up the south side of the Travertine Falls to the upper trail

At the top we find the spring which feeds the falls

The Mary Jane tree, this use to be a hang out for M.J. smokers

The remains of what use to be the smoking room

This is a picture that I took of the smoking room last year when we did this same hike. You can see here how elaborate it was--even had a stone line patio on the left side

First Bladder Pod of the season

The Huygens Manometer Medallion Tree Gestation Date: 1661

Another view of the Medallion Tree a Pinon Pine

A meditation garden, very small, the smokers didn't have enough brains to meditate too long

Field of Bladder Pods

View of the trail as we climb to the Upper Faulty Trail

Nature finds a way, this cactus found just enough soil to grow between these two rocks

Fuzzy lichen, looks almost like a little fuzzy worm

More of the dark lichen

On the trail we found many different stone art formations

Jean taking a look at the stone art

Nearing the top we start to get some views

Our first Dwarf Lousewort of the season

Once we found the first one, we saw many others popping their heads out in the warm spring sunshine

We saw many of these  stone rings along the trail

These two pieces of quartz (?) were embedded in this large rock; the erosion over time has revealed them

Banana Yucca

Another sedimentary rock that had layers of harder stones deposited in veins throughout its history.  The rock at one time was rotated to its left so that the veins would have been parallel to the surface, but had now fallen on its side

We often see tree that have changed directions after being cut or damaged

Views of Tijeras canyon

We saw many of these "geranium-like" leaves  growing in this area, but without the flower it is hard to identify (possibly Coralbells)

Here is another flower starting to bloom; even with a flower this one is hard to identify

Climbing up to the Faulty Trail

As we make our turn to head back Linda, Pat and Ginny, left us as they had to get back to town early.

The rest of the Hoofers took a break in the sunshine for lunch

After lunch we continue our way up and down the lower Faulty on our way back to the trail head

Another of the half dozen or so stone rings along the trail, this one stood out as it had quite a few more stones than the rest.  These stone rings were imbedded in the dirt, not just lying on the surface

This pile of rocks marks the turnoff for the CCC Trail.  The largest cairn I have ever seen.  I thought it was a geocache the first time I saw it last year and I actually started digging through it to see if there was anything buried... but no, someone just wanted to hold the record for the largest cairn ever built

Looking up the CCC Trail

This is where the Faulty meets the South Crest Trail

The Hoofers thought it would be a great place to discuss a future hike

It was quite a long discussion

I just kept myself occupied taking pictures!

Heading back down the South Crest Trail

More views

I had to zoom in on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, trying to see if that was snow or a strange low cloud bank. It was snow!

So this mountain use to be called Rattlesnake Mountain but once people started moving into the area it was changed to South Mountain...which made all the rattlesnakes leave

Zooming in on two twin water tanks (?)

Heading down the trail

Zooming in on the Mediation garden as some students from Bosque Prep are taking a short cut up the mountain, until there adult supervisor caught up to them and told them to stay on the trail

View of the spring

View of the Travertine Waterfall from above

This was such a huge rock I had trouble getting a picture of its massiveness

Amazed that this large Ponderosa Pine was so large and healthy at the base of the mountain

This tree was growing right out of the rock

Eagle-eye Rita found this fossil in the middle of the trail, she gave it to me probably because I did not get her lost on this hike as I have been know to do (just once, but I still am reminded of that!)