While awaiting expected storm development over the mountains to peel out across the nearby plains, why not head up into the high country for a spell and explore? Doing so here led to a nice little area of wildflower-framed rapids alone one of the Cimarron Rivers in northeastern New Mexico. Why “one of”? Somehow, there are two, both ultimately emptying into the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. This one, locally known as simply “Cimarron River”, drains Angel Fire and Eagle Nest Reservoir before descending through the Sangre de Cristos foothills in Cimarron Canyon (here), ultimately yielding its waters to the Canadian River after flowing under I-25. Meanwhile, the so-called “Dry Cimarron” rises off Johnson Mesa near the Colorado border, winds across extreme northeastern New Mexico, then back and forth across the northern line of Oklahoma for a couple hundred miles, somewhere becomes simply “Cimarron River”, then finishes its run in Keystone Lake along the Arkansas River west of Tulsa.
2 SW Ute Park NM (3 Aug 20) Looking N
36.5381, -105.1538