"Lost" on Water Canyon Trail 281

Today, we walked up Water Canyon Trail 281 for the first time since the June 2011 Las Conchas wildfire. It looks so different - with less trees to block the view, you can see how rocky the south facing side of the canyon is and the canyon looks so much wider.

The canyon looked so different, in fact, that I thought, in the photo below, that I was approaching the meadow everyone calls Sawmill Meadow, below Red-tailed Hawk Point. Husband parked on a rock while I followed the obvious trail a little further up canyon, marveling at what I thought was a brand new hiking opportunity opened up by the wildfire.

Eventually, I realized I had mistaken the first (south) fork of Water Canyon for the main canyon channel. Truthfully, though, being in the throes of such a delusion is exciting!  I concocted in my mind a brand new landscape, which, when you think about it, is exactly what the wildfire did!

Approaching first (south) fork of Water Canyon