The Pine Ridge

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Sunday morning we woke up and headed over to Martha's to leave for an afternoon at the Pine Ridge. The ride out was over an hour on a dirt road in a van with a broken A.C. Needless to say it was pretty miserable. It might have been a bit better had the scenery not been so gloomy. What was once a beautiful pine forest (think Vermont) has been ravaged by the pine beetle for the last 5 years. What remains today is intermitant pine stands with massive pine mast artifacts in between.

Our first stop was the Rio Cave. The cave has two entrances which can be seen from either side, and a sandy peninsula in the center. Our next stop was the Rio On Pools where we ate lunch and passed the time for about two hours. The spot was incredible, with natural pools and falls spread out over a massive area, it'd be so easy to lose yourself there for a whole day. The last stop on our trip was the best. Big Rock Falls is a 100 foot waterfall. Below it are some really great swimming pools. We managed to jump the water fall from about 20 feet up, but spent most of our time at a diving spot in the lower pool.

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