The year ends...

under very dry and mild conditions with an unimpressive snowpack in the high country. Look closely, the rising waxing gibbous Moon can be seen in the center of this image.

Snowpack in the La Sal Mountains is about half normal at the end of the calendar year 2025.

A noisy aerial invasion...

of the feeding stations is occurring by a nomadic gang of jays. The image below captures only a few of the blue brutes and the regulars don’t stand a chance when they’re around.

Pinyon Jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus).

Exquisite mudcracks...

displayed on a bedding plane on a fallen slab from the Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic (237-201.3Ma)) near Courthouse Wash. This sedimentary structure formed as muddy sediment dried and contracted due to reduction in water content, then buried and preserved with sandy sediments from a subsequent flood event.

The Henrys on the horizon...

as seen from a lofty perch above Castleton on a clear and cold early winter day.

The Henry Mountains, 90 miles (145 km) distant. From left to right (south to north): Mount Hillers (10,741 ft (3,274 m)), Mount Pennell (11,413 ft (3,479 m)) and Mount Ellen (11,527 ft (3,513 m)).

The collapsed salt-cored anticline in the heart of Arches National Park, 25 miles (40 km) distant. The Book Cliffs are 39 miles (63 km) distant.

The Tower briefly emerges...

and then becomes obscured by low clouds as the latest early winter storm slowly passes, the first of which that dropped snow flurries on the valley this season. Meanwhile, the high country is off to a good start, sitting at 100% median snow water equivalent for this point in the water year.

Time series plot of snow water equivalent for the Lasal Mountain SNOTEL site.

All fluffed up...

with its winter coat on in response to the first hard freeze overnight as it stakes out the feeding stations the following morning.

Juvenile Cooper’s Hawk (Astur cooperii).

A window into the Paradox Formation...

is found in Onion Creek where the peculiar geology of the salt-dominated formation is on full display. The light-colored gypsum caprock is highly structurally distorted, demonstrating the plastic nature of the buoyant salt body as it rises and displaces other clastic rocks in the geologic section.

View eastward, across the Onion Creek diapir. The Paradox Formation (Middle Pennsylvanian (315.2Ma - 307Ma)) is the light-colored unit in contact with the red beds of the Cutler Formation (Lower Permian (298.9Ma - 273.01Ma)).