I’ve been enjoying the Master Naturalist course.  On Saturday, we went to the Sandia Mountains Natural History Center, which has been in existence since 1967, and is co-operated by the Natural History Museum and Albuquerque Public Schools.  We hiked up into the mountains and found a medallion tree.  According to the medallion, this Ponderosa Pine’s germination date is 1876.

Medallions have been placed on some of  the older  trees  in the Sandias.  Another medallion tree can be seen here.  Apparently, at one point, someone went into the Sandias and took core samples from older trees and put medallions on them with their germination date  and a significant event of that time.

At one point, the class came across an Abert’s Squirrel.  The squirrel was inquisitive, while also trying to sneak around the group of us!

As is clearly shown in the picture below, the Alligator juniper tree is aptly named!