Prairie Dog Rustlers: A Short Hike in White Mesa

Saturday we wanted to get out of the house for a bit. We took a couple of hours and visited an area close to home: White Mesa. White Mesa is 28 miles from our driveway. It's actually a lot closer, but we have to follow the roads. It took us just about 40 minutes to get out of our car and started on the hike.
Our original intentions were to hike in the Ojito Wilderness Area. We wanted to traipse around in the area that the Seismosaurus skeleton was discovered. We got sidetracked by the interesting gypsum formations and stopped there instead. We'll get out to the Ojito again soon. We'd like to figure out where they found the Seismosaurus, but that's another adventure. There are plenty of places in the area that we'd like to explore.
We left in the afternoon with our neighbor Kaylie. She was excited to go with us, so we brought her along. We were driving and saw an interesting mesa and formation, so we decided to stop and hike. After a short walk along an old two-track dirt road, entered a small canyon at the base of the mesa. Before long we made it into a small canyon and found a beautiful rock outcrop that was entirely composed of gypsum.

We took a few pictures in the crevasse of gypsum and the kids scampered around on the rocks. We then found a track ascending the ridge to the top of the mesa above us. We followed the track. Well, we followed Jesse, Kaylie and Silas who rushed up ahead. Solomon and Amelia tagged along with mom and dad. They weren't interested in going any higher up the trail. About 4/5 of the way up to the top of the mesa, their complaints wore down Alice and she waited with them at the base of the trail.

At the top, the trail looped around the mesa and met up with other mountain biking trails. There were some nice pinon pine and juniper along the trail. The weather was beautiful. We soon returned to the base of the trail and met the others. It was only a short trip, but an enjoyable