Hiking the Mineral Creek Slot Canyon, Alma, NM
Mineral Creek is a classic on again, off again, New Mexico creek. It offers up its treasures only at the whim of the rain gods, and can, as it did this year nearly dry up which would
have been a very large disappointment to F&G as they had just recently re-established the fishery in this creek after it had dried up the last time. Right now the creek is flowing very
well, however it does not get too far past the trailhead, where it quickly peters out, sinking into the rocks to bless the aquifer, rather than flowing into the San Francisco river which
would be its eventual destination if it were able to avoid the siren song of the too porous rocks in the streambed. This hike took us 2.4 miles up the creek past one point where the creek
was reduced to a trickle for a ways, only to reappear in force several hundred feet later.

Maxie has already explored the trail ahead. "Nope, nothing to see here!"	Always fascinated with geology. In this case lichens and rock
The first of the 23 crossings of this meandering creek
This drainage is an endless display of the potential variety of New Mexico geology
	Utah isn't the only place with arches, however you would have had to be a lot taller to really see this one
In many places the water seems to have cut a channel in the granite	In the afternoon light, the rock on the left looked almost blue
Another place where the creek is just a granite channel	Maxie is noting that a lot of the rock looks a bit unstable
Here the creek is flowing across the top of granite. No gravel streambed here	A quite tall trailside cholla
	Another week and this cactus would be fully ablaze with color