Canyons of the Ancients

This place was so amazing and I'd only heard of it a month ago when I was talking to a local about trails.  And only a half hour drive from Cortez.

T-shirt weather in February!

The trail allows hiking, dogs, mountain bikes and unfortunately drilling.  Site of the McElmo Dome which holds asstons of CO2 which apparently is a valuable commodity to the oil and gas industry.  Who knew?  Supposedly Kinder Morgan, the company doing the drilling, has scaled back a significant amount of their operations due to the tanking of the oil and gas industry at the moment.  And no fracking has occured in all of Montezuma County between 2013-2015 and only one well in 2012.  But that could all change.  I'm anxious to see how this turns out and of course it will impact whether we move to the area or not.  Anyway, we couldn't see or hear any impacts from the drilling, if any was even going on.

The trail was beautiful.  My only regret is that we only went a mile or two up, had to leave Lola in the car because it was too steep for her and didn't want to leave her for too long.

The red and white rock formations reminded me of Sedona.

Maybe a cave dwelling?

So much awesomeness.  Can't wait to go back when I can explore a bit further.  Tough traveling with the dogs though, especially when Lola can go very far.  But the area is huge and if we move here there will be plenty to explore.