with a buddy from graduate school at a guest ranch near Creede, Colorado. Here are several of the local residents.
Our remote cabin for the week at about 9,200 feet (2,800 meters) in elevation.
Greater Scaup (Aythya marila).
Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor).
Golden-mantled ground squirrel (Callospermophilus lateralis).
in the high country of Colorado last night at 11,100 feet above sea level. It was certainly quite chilly around midnight when this image was captured.
Snowdon Peak (13,077 feet) and the Milky Way reflected in Little Molas Lake. Look closely above the galactic core and you’ll spy a short meteor trail.
The subalpine scene at sundown.
Red, white and blue fireworks above Rapid City, South Dakota on the 4th of July 2018.
with the waning crescent Moon as its companion the day before Independence Day.
the size of the palm of your hand are busting out all over. This lovely desert plant is also known as locoweed or Jimson weed due to its hallucinogenic properties, of which I have no experience but it does sound interesting.
Sacred datura (Datura wrightii).
superimposed on mudcracks in fine-grained sediments. The preservation potential for these tiny sedimentary structures in the geologic record is not high, but their delicate nature makes them interesting to examine.
Average craterlet size is approximately 0.25 inches (~6 mm) in diameter.
of the steep gradient, coarse-grained and ephemeral Placer Creek channel through time, coupled with headcutting by knickpoint migration through the stream crossing, has created a challenge in upper Castle Valley for road maintenance. Compare and contrast the conditions that existed five years ago and today.
Placer Creek crossing on 1 May 2019. Note crushed culvert and concrete on downstream side of roadway. By attempting to maintain this knickpoint in the stream profile for the long term only exacerbated the erosion that eventually occurred here.
Placer Creek crossing on 30 June 2024. Significant scour has deepened the channel once again. The knickpoint has migrated upstream and behind the two large boulders on the left.
The road crossing is now graded to a more stable position in the short term, at the same elevation of the stream channel both upstream and downstream, now that the knickpoint has migrated upstream and no longer occurs right at the crossing as seen in the early image.
View upstream showing the knickpoint in the stream channel that will continually erode upstream with future events.
from recent thunderstorms spot the slickrock surface at the Moab Brands trail system north of Moab. Here’s a view north into the heart of Utahraptor State Park and the Klondike Bluffs in Arches National Park, and further beyond to the Book Cliffs and Roan Plateau on the distant horizon. A beautiful morning for a long ride in solitude.
have been posted again for Castle Valley, six days after an intense flash flood that inundated a wide swath of the valley with mudflows. Since then the Town has done absolutely nothing to excavate the sediment-filled ditches and restore their capacity so that they can efficiently convey storm runoff and protect private property.
Incoming thunderstorm cell from the west-northwest over Arches National Park.
Radar image of thunderstorm cell rolling over Castle Valley from Windy.
Runoff from 0.25 inches of rain in less than an hour quickly fills the ditches.
Placer Creek a short distance above its confluence with Castle Creek late this afternoon. The noise of chattering boulders impacting one another in the turbulent flow was quite loud. (Click on image to enbiggen.)
during the last several days, muddy deposits left behind on the landscape by the recent flash floods have become hard-baked by high temperatures. Desiccation structures - mudcracks - have developed on the fine-grained sediments.
on display in the canyons, washes and arroyos in mid- to upper-Castle Valley as a result of an intense thunderstorm two days ago. Erosion and sedimentation has occurred across a widespread area - both in and out of channels - but no structural damage was observed anywhere.
occurred late this afternoon in response to an enormous storm cell that passed over the valley dropping about a half-inch of rain in less than an hour on hard-baked soils. Overland flow and sheet-flooding began immediately and ditches ran at full capacity along roadways for more than an hour. The National Weather Service did post both flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings for the region and the last time an event this intense occurred was around 2010.
Peak runoff down the lane occurs as the storm cell moves eastward, with both roadside ditches running at full capacity. But a rainbow appeared and no personal property was damaged.
The low swale on the east side of my property took some runoff and sediment from small breaches in the berm along the roadside ditch.
UPDATE: The morning after in the mud bowl as the Town’s grader gets to work. There’s a lot of ditch maintenance that needs to happen beyond just clearing debris from the road surfaces.
took refuge beneath the eave during a rainstorm this morning, so I cracked the window open and snapped this angelic portrait.
Female (or immature male) Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri).
in the notch where the Dolomite Spire and Lighthouse Tower stand high above Big Bend in the Colorado River upstream from Moab, Utah.
one only has to drive a few miles and gain several thousand feet in elevation to access the high country in the La Sal Mountains where the columbine wildflowers are bursting forth.
Columbine (genus Aquilegia).
is the chief celebrity of Fruita, Colorado, having lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off in 1945. There’s even a local festival held in May every year to acknowledge Mike’s tenacity! Learn about Mike.
It’s easy to find Mike’s statue in charming downtown Fruita on Google Maps.
on the journey to ride around Earth at the equator, or at least accumulating the equivalent mileage of such an endeavor on my stable of eMTBs. The 3,000 mile (4,800 km) mark was indicated on my Trek Powerfly hardtail during my ride in the coolness of the early morning, putting me at about 70% of my goal.
and exercising its amazingly long tongue in anticipation, or maybe it’s just salivating, knowing that a sugary reservoir awaits.
Either a female or an immature male Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus alexandri).
used in the Pacific in 1958 during Project Hardtack to monitor the radiation in the upper atmosphere during the nuclear tests. Here’s my scale model lifting off from the Ken’s Lake Missile Test Range early this morning.
The snazzy Doorknob roaring off the launch rail under thrust from a “F” engine, achieving an 893 foot apogee during its minute-long flight.
last week, where some are speculating that “the fire was started by a diesel pickup with a heavy trailer powering up the grade spewing hot carbon from the tailpipe onto the dry grass along the road” to quote our local scribe.
