Do you see it? High in the sky above Bounce? Slightly left of center?
This fall, friend Pat Amthor, one of our Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners representatives (from Four Corners Back Country Horsemen), visited the basin, and we saw two of these, one on either side of the setting sun. This one is faint, but it’s there. Bounce was overlooking three bands, who are below him, grazing through the snow. Duke, Kreacher and Hayden also were nearby.
Does anyone know what that iridescence in the sky is called? Pat and I were calling them sun dogs, but I’m not sure that’s right.
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 
It is unusual but lovely. Shining down on Bounce.
He looks awesome resting there.
I’ve always called them sundogs. Paraphrasing from Wikipedia, a sun dog is parhelion from the Greek meaning beside the sun. They appear as colored patches of light to the left and/or right of the sun at 22 degrees distant. They’re made from the refraction of light from plate-shaped hexagonal ice crystals, called diamond dust (Isn’t that lovely?) which act as prisms. In certain situations the refracted light will make a halo around the sun, in others, just the sundogs on either side. The sundogs are reddish nearest the sun and then grade through orange to blue; since the colors overlap they appear more muted than a rainbow. I’ve always thought of them as harbingers of a weather change, but I haven’t got the science to back that up.
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Cool. Sounds like we were right after all! That describes just what we saw.
I was brought up to call them “Spirit Holes.” Definitely not scientific, but still meaningful in a way…
Nice photo all the way around! 🙂
I like that. Very appropriate.
Thanks. I was taught that they’re very significant and that they’re special to those that see them. I’m sure that’s the case here.
Really like the idea that this particular one was seen over Bounce…