Page 67 - Walks In The Black Range, Vol. 4

I got up on top and was now standing where I stood nearly six years before on FT 146 and then turned around not realizing that the trail was supposed to continue straight down the watercourse I had just come up. The forest here was as green and beautiful as it was back then and maybe as it’s ever been, even though I was only short distance from ground zero of the huge fire. A little ways upstream the entire mountaintop has burned.
The ascent up the canyon had been a little slow and a little warm but, after clambering back down the falls, the descent was quick and easy. Back at the road, I decided to explore to the north on the closed section of the road which was rapidly returning to a natural state with fallen trees concealed in thickets of wildflowers.
I was looking down into Rustlers Canyon, when I decided I had enough. The road still continued for perhaps 1/2 mile down across the drainage and then up on the other side. I could see the Mineral Mountain Mine and the plateau where the road dead-ends across the way.