Mineral Creek, Alma, New Mexico
Mineral Creek is one of about four year-round waters in this area... in combination with the San Francisco River, and the Gila River. The Whitewater Creek, home to the Catwalk
southwestern New Mexico's main tourist attraction, also runs year-round in the Catwalk slot canyon, but at the point where it blunders out of the slot canyon into the flats, it almost
immediately disappears into the rock streambed, and reappears where? Who knows. But getting back to Mineral Creek, it normally runs year-round, but in times of extreme drought,
as we seem to be having right now, it can dry completely up, which makes survival very difficult for those particular denizens who sift their breathing oxygen right out of the water,
which, when it goes away, makes survival very 'iffy'. As the pictures below will show, the flow right now is on the edge of doing just that, i.e., stopping altogether. Which is extremely
frustrating to the F & G folks, that only recently restocked the creek after the last time it disappeared.

At the beginning of the hike. One of the locals that would have loved it if we had just stayed home. :-)	A shady glen at the beginning of the Mineral Creek slot canyon
As is easily seen, this is NOT a place for kayaking!
As can be seen, we are progressing further into the slot canyon
	A good view of the extent of the 'flow' at this time
Mocha indicating that he wanted a 'selfie'
Maxie, scouting ahead...	There were multitudes of small fish in these pools. I certainly hope that they survive