INDEED!

I spent two days in the Durango area visiting Rob and Sue Graham -  friends from my college days.

There was only time for a short 4-hour, 6-miler in the mountains.  The trail head started off Dry Fork Road; meandering on trails overgrown with Gambles' Oak until reaching a plateau.  This oak is diminutive by oak standards.  Heights average 15 feet with a circumference of 15 inches.  A wildfire had burned off the above ground portion of the trees, resulting in regrowth of dense thickets from the base.  From there we walked to a view point of the La Plata mountains; still snow capped.

Had I stayed a week or two my lungs would adapt instead, I gasped for breath hiking to 9000 ft. in elevation.

Mule's Ear (Wyethia amplexicaulis)

A break from bushwhacking thickets of Gambel's Oak (Quercus gambelii)

 

                                        Rocky Mountain Clematis (Clematis pseudoalpina)

Greater Short-Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma hernandesi)

"I bow to no mountain"

Rocky Mountain Iris (Iris missouriensis)