Chalk dust and fool’s gold in the Placitas hills

We top a rise, and the path sloping down it transforms: red and white, beige and purple. We’ve chosen the Chalk Dust Trail, and it’s aptly named.

The trail twists us up and down the hills of Placitas. Snow-dusted peaks tower beyond. I’ve been off the trail for a month with various ailments. The hot sun and the cool wind pulse life back into me.

We see almost no wildlife, just a few small birds at the trailhead. But the rocks! Quartz and mica. Pyrite (fool’s gold). Fossilized seashells, embedded in rock and not. We even find potsherds for only the second time (the first was in these hills, too.)

Every time I stop to take a picture or a rest, a rock examination ensues.

I long to go all the way up to the snow zone, but my feet already throb. We retrace our chalk-dusty steps. My husband thumps a rock onto the ground. It makes a hollow sound, like the ground at White Mesa.

Clouds puff and stretch across the sky, bathing ridges in shadow.