Chamisa and Cliffs Greeting Cards
This photograph was taken in the Pierre Lumbre Valley (6,500’) part of the high desert of the Upper
Sonoran zone, the environment is the oak woodland and pine forest (also known as the pinion and
juniper environment).
The bright yellow chamisa in the foreground is in full bloom, it is mid
September, the birds are migrating south after a successful nesting season. The apple and oak trees
along the drainage have fruited and black bears are beginning to wander down from the mountains
and mesas to take advantage of the harvest.
Notice the broken limbs in the old apple orchard and piles of scat on the ground under the trees –
watch your step! The bears have left their calling cards. The towering sandstone cliffs above the
open valley are banded in broad stripes of yellows and reds, this is the Entrada Formation a
sedimentary deposit approximately 165 million years old. This layer dates to the Jurassic period
when great sand dune dominated this landscape. This scene is all part of the eastern edge of the
Colorado Plateau which expands north and west into Colorado, Utah and Arizona.
So much to see and explore!
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