With two successes this morning in Baca and Bent counties, I headed up into La Junta to refuel and get some drinks, then took some detours to US-350 leading southwest out of La Junta, towards the Otero highpoint, located in its southwest corner. The land was stark but pretty, ringed by many small mesas and bluffs lining the Timpas Creek drainage. My particular objective was a series of bluffs bordering the Otero-Las Animas county line, so I had to leave the highway at the abandoned railroad siding of Bloom, where I took a good dirt road in about a mile, fording a creek in the process, with cattle standing in it. Then, I followed a lesser two-track across the grasslands. This road was in good shape. I passed througfh a gate then slowly made my way toward some reservoirs and finally parked at another gate, with the bluffs now in view. Total mileage from the main highway was about 7 miles.

I hopped the gate and started in. I hiked cross country through a stand of juniper, then out into a wide opening, hiking in a northwest direction toward the bluffs and using a fence line to my left (west) as a bearing device (the fence line is the Otero-Las Animas county line). The first highpoint area was reached after a quick hike up the bluff-side, where a small cairn at the fence line "marked" the highpoint. Hiking back, I chose to stay on top the bluffs and hike across 3 more highpoint areas before descending down into the lower areas and catching a road back to my truck. The weather was actually getting toasty- low 90s. Total hiking was about 3 miles and about 1 hour with a total of about 300 feet of gain.

It was just about noon, so I drove the rest of US-350 toward Trinidad, about 50 miles away. The highway parallels a railroad which I think may be abandoned. Every 10 miles there were these towns/sidings that were in disrepair, and appeared to have their heyday in the 1950s, judging by the architecture and the style of painting and advertising. My feeling was that someone could probably do okay with a convenience mart/gas station at one of these places since there isn't any along the way from La Junta to Trinidad, about 70 miles total. There are people that live in these "towns" but it appears they just back a trailer in amid all the wreckage and junk. Oh well. The drive was nice. The big mountains of the Rockies started to appear, first as dim gray shadows in the far horizon and later as giant beautiful peaks with fine detail. I spent some time in Trinidad and Walsenburg before driving toward West Spanish Peak, my objective for tomorrow morning.