Guns and Cockleburs

Yesterday was the first day of the general elk hunt, so we stayed out of the mountains and opted to ride in the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge.  To our surprise, we heard guns there, too.  Apparently, it's some kind of waterfowl season.  Is it just me, or does a wildlife refuge hunt seem like an oxymoron? 

We began by climbing high on a ridge overlooking the Green River and its riparian corridor. 

When we reached the highest part of the ridge, we started down, following an old, eroded roadbed through desolate cliffs to reach the river:

The river supports rich vegetation: 

Trails near the river are shaded by cottonwoods, now turned gold: 

We saw Canada geese:

and a flock of sandhill cranes:

The one downside was accidentally travelling through a morass of these:

The horses' tails collected hundreds of them.  Oh, well, their tails needed brushing anyway.  No harm done.  Next time we'll avoid the burrs.