Brumley Point | Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Flooding befores and afters, phase 2

5 11 2026

Let’s get back to it! There’s too much to do to be editing pix. I’d rather be out taking them … but the more I take, the more I want to share!

Yesterday in the post, I had made my way up-valley and shared what the erosion spot at Lake Disappointment looked like pre-fix, post-fix and post-more rain (!). More kudos go out to Denny and the San Miguel County crew; Denny at least was out with the grader. I don’t have a *current* post-yesterday’s fix, but I may slip that in at a later point. If you can believe it, more rain is due as I’m drafting this Wednesday afternoon.

I had gotten to a point overlooking a very flooded stretch of Disappointment Creek and was marveling at the astounding amount of water rampaging through the willows and tamarisk and cottonwoods, including adjacent areas that don’t usually carry regular creek water. Again, words like “regular” and “normal” are just out the window currently, let alone the last many years.

So let’s pick it up at the bridge over Disappointment Creek just below and west of the point where the southwestern corner of Spring Creek Basin meets Disappointment Road.

This is looking at downstream-rolling (running to the left) Disappointment Creek on Thursday, Oct. 22. The treed hill at farthest right and the ridge at far left are southwestern Spring Creek Basin. Foreground is private land.

From the south side of the same bridge, looking upstream at the creek water barreling toward us and under the bridge. The land on this side is BLM but not part of Spring Creek Basin.

By Monday, Oct. 26, this was the view looking downstream. The green cottonwood in the middle of the water two pix above is the one at right.

By Monday, Nov. 2, after a full day of rain, Disappointment Creek was swollen again. This was the same day as the panorama view in yesterday’s post – completely over any and all banks.

And the view looking upstream from the other side of that bridge. There’s a bend there, and there’s another bend upstream of it, so when the water hits that bend under the old pipe (from the irrigation-ditch days), the water was absolutely boiling. It’s hard to tell, but the flooding was more widespread this day than the first pix of this area, though I didn’t capture it very well with these pix.

And by the next day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, the water had dropped significantly again.

Hey, look at me, out in the middle of the muddy-water creek! Ha. That brown around the cottonwood is just mud again.

And up-valley we go.

On the way, still Nov. 3, I don’t think I’ve shown this view in any of these posts. Lone Cone, 12,618 feet, is the snow-covered peak in the distance. Brumley Point is the broad-based, flattish topped hill in the middle ground. Temple Butte, of course, is the promontory behind it. I’m on Disappointment road looking … I guess this is more eastish than anything … and on the other side of the fence is Spring Creek Basin. Brumley Point is on the basin’s southeastern boundary.

I’ve shared this view before. Note the snow in the pines atop the ridges on either side of Temple Butte. When I talked to Larry W, the Dolores County road-maintenance guy, he said that on Monday, Nov. 2, there was about 3 inches of snow at the T where Disappointment Road meets Dolores-Norwood Road. That’s only another 14 or so (?) miles up-valley from this point. But it’s why we say UP-valley is southeast: The elevation rises to the south/southeast/east in this neck of the high-desert-to-mountainous region.

In this case, the above pic is the “before” to the “after” above this one. This was Nov. 2, just a couple of hours after the rain stopped. The clouds were still heavy over parts of Disappointment Valley – including the eastern/northeastern ridges. Temple Butte is under that cloud. Note the snow at sort of mid-right. Inside the fence is Spring Creek Basin. Black Snag Road (and Disappointment Creek) is behind me to the south.

Now that we’re there, let’s check out the rise and fall of Disappointment Creek over Black Snag Road (nope, it’s still not there, no matter the water level).

And back to Oct. 22. This is Black Snag Road; the creek is ahead of me, and Disappointment Road is behind me. This is before Dolores County closed the road. (I think Mother Nature did rather a good job of closing the road (uh, “road”) at the creek crossing, whether the road was muddy, as pictured, or dry.)

This was my first view of Disappointment Creek there, and I was amazed then (Oct. 22).

By Oct. 26, the county had closed the road (or at least put up the sign), but people were still checking it out. None of those tire tracks are mine; I wisely parked at Disappointment Road and walked the 100 or so yards to the creek.

The water level was down to peaceful levels, and plenty of rocks of all sizes were exposed – right in the middle of where the road used to be. Upstream is behind me to the left, and downstream is on to the right.

Oct. 31 – Halloween. People were attempting to cross below the old road. Directly across the water is a great slab of bedrock before the dirt of the road goes uphill to the right.

It rained all day Nov. 1 and into the morning of Nov. 2.

I was awed by the creek in various places before I even got to Black Snag Road, but for the sake of simplicity (and photo-editing), I’m going to stick to the point where Disappointment Creek crosses what used to be (and will be again) Black Snag Road.

The morning of Nov. 2, after the steady, daylong rain. Where are all those rocks? Under all that water. This was more water than the previous flooding.

Nov. 3: Ah, right, there are the rocks. If you think they’re different rocks and/or moved, you’re right. Such is the power of flooding water. Notice the debris on the far side; that was high water.

Two more pix because I love this cottonwood tree:

Nov. 2: Rollin’ like a river. This is just upstream of the crossing formerly known as Black Snag Road. 🙂

And Nov. 3. Note the snow on the mountain in the far distance.

Disappointment Valley got another brief rainstorm (lightning, yes; thunder, yes) yesterday. No more super flooding. I’d like to show ya’ll some before/after pix of Spring Creek rolling under Disappointment Road down-valley, but my brain is tired, so that’ll be a phase 3 post. I’ve been to the interior of Spring Creek Basin to see and cross Spring Creek just once recently (in the last two weeks?!), and it wasn’t much changed except for a LOT more rock at the approach (southish side). I’m guessing it will be much more changed by the time I’m able to get in next … and I can’t wait to see the mesteños! I’m going through withdrawals!

We have needed this moisture all year (at least). It’s a little rough getting it all at once, but I am nothing if not GRATEFUL. It hopefully will put us in a little better situation than before the rains.

We didn’t have the damage of many, many other places in the Four Corners region (neither do we have the population). After 2 historic floods, southwestern Colorado now assessing damage.

Comments : 10 Comments »

Categories : Water, La Sal Mountains, Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek, Rain, McKenna Peak, Temple Butte, Brumley Point, Colorado, Spring Creek canyon, Disappointment Creek, Cottonwood trees, Autumn

Lead on

30 10 2026

Why did the mustang cross the road? To head down to a pond full of water, of course! Alegre is in the same band with Piedra, and it was that pond they were grazing their way toward at sunset the evening after the day of wild sky color.

I’ve pushed her back for a week; she’s been patiently awaiting her turn on the blog since Tuesday. 🙂

Comments : 6 Comments »

Categories : Brumley Point, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs

Drama added

27 10 2026

This pic is (and the rest of these pix are) from the fog day but later than yesterday’s post’s pix (!), after the fog had lifted. I was so crazed trying to get pix of the fogbow and other things that by the time I turned my attention to Temple Butte, which I *thought* was going to be my focus that morning, the fog had already cleared! It was fast! The good news for me is that some drifty clouds came back … and, also, more wild stuff.

Above: Looking across Disappointment Creek and lovely cottonwoods (some yellow, some still green) toward Spring Creek Basin. Visible: corral hill (if you know what you’re look at, you can see the storage tank), the south end of what I call bachelor ridge at far left, submarine ridge above/beyond it, Temple Butte at upper left, of course, and Brumley Point at left.

This view shows the fog, clearing to the south (the first pic’s view is basically to the left of this one). Disappointment Road is visible in two stretches, as well as part of the power line that runs up-(and/or down-)valley. On the left side of the road is Spring Creek Basin; on the right side is BLM (but not HMA).

Damp (soaked) soil + sunshine + passing fog/cloud humidity (you could SEE it in the air) = rising mist?!

That’s the south end of bachelor ridge; Round Top is beyond at right; McKenna Peak is at upper right.

Shout-out to Denny with San Miguel County for checking on and marking the erosion damage on Disappointment Road!

Ignore the power line across the top. There’s a better look at submarine ridge. Isn’t that mist cool? Way beyond – snow-covered – is Groundhog Mountain.

Who loves drama?! 🙂 McKenna Peak looking super cool at left. This is when the clouds were making a return to the scene.

Absolutely beautiful. And a bit different view of Spring Creek Basin that I rarely show (or maybe never have!).

Comments : 16 Comments »

Categories : Brumley Point, Colorado, Cottonwood trees, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, McKenna Peak, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte

Humidity in the desert

26 10 2026

How often do we have fog in Disappointment Valley?

I won’t say nevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvver. But it’s very, super, pretty incredibly rare.

When I went out to see what I could see – FOG! – I found some critters looking back at me!

At the noise of a truck coming, they disappeared into the … fog! There were more deer than I’d realized, probably at least half a dozen.

Ah! They didn’t actually disappear (at least yet). The fog makes even familiar landscape look completely different!

I wanted to check on the erosion spot again. … A county road-and-bridge guy came out later; he was out both Saturday and Sunday! And they’ve had someone checking every day. It’s narrow, but it’s well-marked. This is from the northeast side looking southwest.

Now I’m on the north side of the road looking eastish.

Meanwhile, Lake Disappointment (har har) continues to hold water. All I needed here were some ducks. 🙂

I’m 5 foot 10; standing in the bottom, the level of the road is just above my head. I’m not sure you can tell, but there are now two “hoodoos” – free-standing “pillars” – one nearly directly below the left cone, and one has the chamisa/rabbitbrush growing sideways out of it.

Mother Nature has been giving the gifts supremely freely the last few days (destruction in some places; there’s been a lot of flooding of towns and homes in southwestern/southern Colorado, northwestern New Mexico and southern/southeastern Utah (just that I know about)).

Just as I was thinking of heading on, I noticed something a little different about the sky. … My eyes followed it up and over and down the other side. … HOLY MOLY!

A FOG BOW!!!!!!!!!

OK, I might be a total weather nerd, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fog bow (or fogbow?). It’s not like we get a lot of fog in Disappointment Valley (see above). 🙂

From this angle, the fogbow broke a little so I could see the little cloud beyond it.

This is what ol’ AI says about fogbows:

A fogbow (or white rainbow) is a meteorological phenomenon that appears as a ghostly, pale, or completely white arc in a bank of fog or mist.

How It Works

Droplet Size: Traditional rainbows form when light refracts through large raindrops (several millimeters wide). A fogbow forms when sunlight or moonlight interacts with tiny water droplets in fog or mist that are typically less than 0.05 mm (or 10 to 1,000 times smaller than raindrops).
Diffraction vs. Refraction: Because the droplets are so small, light undergoes strong diffraction rather than clean refraction. This spreads out and overlaps the individual wavelengths of light, smearing the colors together into a milky-white band.
Faint Colors: You might occasionally see a very faint red outer edge and a faint blue inner edge because those wavelengths are the least smeared.

How to Spot One

Positioning: You must stand with the sun or moon behind you and look forward into the fog or mist.
Conditions: It requires a delicate balance—fog that is dense enough to catch the light, but not so thick that it completely obscures visibility.
Other Names: At sea, mariners sometimes call them “sea-dogs,” and versions seen from high-altitude aircraft are called “cloud bows”. When created by moonlight, it is a “lunar fog bow”.

Is it amazing, or is it ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-mazing?! 🙂

The fog lifted … then returned – or clouds did. More rain, too. After Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, I’ve gotten almost 3.7 inches of rain. Absolutely incredible! Friends near Dove Creek (southwest of Disappointment Valley) said they got between 5 and 7 inches! WOWOW.

I’m trying to keep this post a little shorter, but I have more pix from the day. It’s still very, very soggy out. Denny from San Miguel County was out Sunday (and Saturday, too! and other guys earlier in the week) checking on the road erosion. They are very much keeping an eye on it, but if you’re in the area, take care!

Comments : 16 Comments »

Categories : Autumn, Brumley Point, Colorado, Cottonwood trees, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, Fog, Fogbow, McKenna Peak, Mule deer, Rimrocks, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte

Spectacularity

21 10 2026

In yesterday’s post, I promised for today’s post pix of a fairly stunning storm system that blew up over Disappointment Valley in the mid-or-so afternoon through sunset. This will be a photo-heavy (heavy on the heavy) post. The pix also are all from my phone. The immense scale simply wasn’t possible to capture with my long lens and narrow range of view. A few times, I wished I’d gone to the effort of getting my camera out of my backpack … but most of the time, I was too afraid to miss one second of what was happening, and, again, the sheer width of scale of the storm’s coverage across the horizon(s) was just too, well, wide.

I hate to be one of those telling you to “read through till the end” for the best part, but … well, let me know whether the final pix, of sunset light in the EAST, were worth waiting for.

Onward!

As wide a field of view as my phone can capture, it took four images, stitched into a panorama, to produce this image, looking from southeast at right to north-northeast at left. So if possible, imagine the scene not as a flat, two-dimensional view but as a curved (?) view. The storm definitely was coming from the southeast and moving north (left) … and around/beyond the basin, across the north, to the west? I sat for a long time at the main/original catchment watching it and taking pix as the sky evolved – in sunshine the entire time.

This was the first pic I actually took. There’s a pretty obvious downpour straight ahead, which is basically east-northeastish. It was not raining over Spring Creek Basin at this point, but the clouds were definitely shading the far, whole eastern horizon. Thunder was rumbling now and then, but I never saw lightning. The vast majority of the basin was under sunlight. There ARE mustangs way, way out, at the leftish side of the image.

A little more detail of the rain running across the landscape from near/over (?) Benchmark Lookout (at the leftish side of the dark hump of “hill” at far right) across upper Disappointment Valley and beyond Temple Butte (the edge of the promontory is just spotlit by a bit of sunlight).

And swinging a bit more to look east.

Meanwhile, a lighter rain system was moving north to the northWEST. You might be able to make out Utah’s La Sal Mountains through the curtain of rain (way) beyond Spring Creek canyon.

This is roughly what that looked like on the radar (a little delayed, I think). The blue dot was me, in the middle, in the sunshine. 🙂

There are the mountains; see ’em? I think the rain was moving across lower Disappointment Valley and maybe/probably not quite as far west as Utah. I’ve been in the same place taking all these pix (I sat there for quite a long time): at the road by the fenced-enclosed aprons that catch rain (and snow in the winter) and direct that water down to the 12,000-gallon green steel tank … and from there to the main water trough you can see downhill and to the right of the tank. (The farther, smaller, black trough is wired off because it’s a lot smaller, and darker, and the horses don’t prefer it. The big trough is the main trough. You can’t quite tell from this distance, but it has a triangular metal cover over it that enables the horses to get to the water and also helps prevent evaporation (or better than it would be if uncovered).)

And looking southeastish again. Apologies (not really) for the redundant pix … but this is one of my favorite views in the whole, great, wide and wild world … especially when it includes rain!

See how DARK it got to the northeast? Again, that’s beyond Spring Creek Basin – at least at this point (spoiler alert). But see that lit “column” of rain? Wild? I spent a lot of time and phone space taking pix of that cool thing as it moved with the storm system across the northern horizon toward the west (and I was in sunshine all the while).

Checking the progress of the rain to the east-southeast again. At this point, I think it was getting closer to Temple Butte – the rain, not just the shade of the rain clouds.

Another look up to the northeastish at that remarkable flame of spotlit rain. Notice, too, that we’re starting to get a great shadow of clouds over a great portion of the basin now. (I promise there were mustangs out there; I was watching about five bands way, way out while I watched the spectacular sky-show.)

I mean …

… it was …

… just soooooo …

… COOL!

Checking northwest again, over the canyon. That’s the north side at right, and you can just see part of the south side at far left. It’s not that wide; it curves a lot.

Ah! Rain has made it far enough west to cover Temple Butte (the promontory), at least, and maybe reaching McKenna Peak (the pyramid) and the eastern part of Spring Creek Basin. But note how sunny it still is.

Another very wide-angle view (just one frame). At farthest right, definitely getting rained on now: Temple Butte and McKenna Peak. At left, the remnants of that crazy … I don’t even know what to call that?! Looking like someone was shining a gigantic spotlight from the ground to the heavens. And still, I’m sitting in the sunshine.

At that point, I decided to head out. I wasn’t sure about crossing the V-arroyo (it gets pretty pillowy-muddy in heavy rain and is difficult to impossible to cross in that state), and most of the horses were well north of that point – and that’s before you even get to the first Spring Creek crossing. While thunder had been rumbling like a slightly disgruntled giant, I hadn’t seen any lightning, but in the wide open, I have a healthy respect for it (and a recent encounter of a near-simultaneous lightning-strike-thunder-CRACK is pretty close to front of mind lately).

Now I’m at Chrome’s Point in the far western part of Spring Creek Basin, and rain definitely is falling within the basin’s boundaries to the east. If you zoom in on Temple Butte and McKenna Peak, below the left base of McKenna in the golden-landscape area, you’ll see the fenced-in water-catchment aprons (looks a bit like a tennis court). On the road, just left of the far side of the fence corner is where I sat to take all the photos above this one.

And from Chrome’s Point looking northish (leftish is almost directly northish). Can you tell that the storm was moving across our north to the west (left)? I know that if you’re not familiar with the area, it’s hard!

So I left the basin thinking “what a great show put on by Mother Nature!” And also that at least the eastern-northeastern part of the basin looked to be getting some of the good wet stuff (which was not in the forecast, by the way). …

Yowza! That’s RAIN. Over SPRING CREEK BASIN! This is looking east while heading south on Disappointment Road, well west of the basin. …

Wait. What is that … ?

What that, you ask? THAT that!

It’s a DUST DEVIL. … With pouring rain in the background! Just like the weird rain column seen earlier from inside Spring Creek Basin, this dust devil was illuminated by the sunlight hitting that part of Disappointment Valley west of Spring Creek Basin (the ridge topped by rimrock at far right is part of the basin’s western boundary). See the far-far ridgeline curtained by rain? That’s the very same northeastern ridge that meets the sky in the previous pix taken within Spring Creek Basin.

I was so wowed that I was standing in the middle of the road holding my phone up and out in the classic pose as a truck was approaching. Fortunately, it was someone who knows me and knows my photo-centricity, and he kindly did not run me over. 🙂

Kinda great for zilch on the rain front in the forecast, eh? 🙂 And I will tell you that the ground was still satisfyingly damp out in the basin last night (as you read this), and now we have another day or three or five (who really knows?!) of rain chances in the forecast.

See the rainbow prism? That’s directly over Filly Peak in Spring Creek Basin.

Did I mention there’s snow again on the mountains on our northwestern horizon (Utah’s La Sals)? As a point of interest, Mount Peale is the highest peak in the range at “12,721 to 12,726 feet.” Moab is on the other side.

There was just about every bit of light imaginable during the time I watched the storm pass: glorious sunlight to dappled light to ominous rain-darkness. Something else interesting? I never got so much as sprinkled on, no matter where I was.

Oh yeah, and the light that produced multi-colored rainbow prisms (can you call it a rainbow if it doesn’t form a bow?). I think there were at least five, maybe six of these prisms. None formed a complete rainbow (if you can believe it), and none of them lasted very long … except this next one:

See the rainbow forming at upper left? (And check out that spotlight at farthest right!) Unfortunately, the prism was faint while the spotlight was on Buck Knob and its vibrant redrock layers, but, um, WOW.

It’s getting a little more visible …

The. Light. Was. Phenomenal.

The cottonwoods along the bottom of this pic line Disappointment Creek. Spring Creek is farther north, running out of Spring Creek Basin, which is to the right/east. They both run westish; Spring Creek runs into Disappointment Creek, and, eventually, FARTHER west, Disappointment Creek carries all its salt and sediment into the Dolores River. This view is looking purty near north. The shorter, yellow-y-er (that’s a word, creatively speaking) vegetation is willow and maybe some rabbitbrush/chamisa, too. The cottonwoods at this elevation are just starting to go gold.

Do you start to see why there are so many pix in this post?! The light KEPT CHANGING. What the heck are those beams right of center?! I never did figure it out.

Wide-wide view for perspective. The road runs straight east here.

And on I went up-valley (to the southeast). I mean, who knew what else Mother Nature had in store?

Disappointment Creek. Picture NO water here, and that’s what it usually looks like. This was when I first realized how heavy the rain must have been that I’d seen earlier … remember the very first pix at the top of this post? Spring Creek Basin is across the road (that I’m on) to the left.

It’s really hard to understand how this is such an astounding view if you don’t know what it usually looks like, but for one thing, there are usually giant rocks visible in the creek bed there.

This is Black Snag Road; Disappointment Road is about 100 yards behind me. … Actually, this is Disappointment Creek – err, river – making fun of the idea of there being a road under that rollin’ water (let alone a culvert … ha ha ha!?). This is where I wish I was adept at video and/or even knowing how to insert it. Because the sheer volume of NOISE (let alone water) was INCREDIBLE. Larry W. is the Dolores County road guy for this part of Disappointment Road; I couldn’t help but think of him while I watched this; it will fall to him to fix this … eventually.

That pile of dark dirt is sort of the edge of … well … where the water shouldn’t have gone around?! Seriously, do not mess with Mother Nature. She makes her own paths.

I’m not entirely sure where those rocks would have come from. I hadn’t been down to look at the crossing for quite a while until this moment, but the road is sort of … there.

It was hard to take a still pic that conveyed the noise and just sheer quantity of water rolling through the *ahem* creek bed. You see the rocks … and up to the right is a WAVE of mud-water. I think the culvert is sort of in that area? And/or rocks meant to stabilize it and the edge of the road.

Disappointment River. 🙂 Seriously.

Meanwhile, this was happening behind me (as I looked at the river, err, creek crossing); looking in this direction, the creek is behind me. Disappointment Road runs across the base of the pic; down-valley (northwestish) is left, and up-valley (southeastish) is right. The fence along the road – the boundary of Spring Creek Basin – is visible at left and right. The foreground is part of Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, but Temple Butte – lit up at right – is outside the basin, as is McKenna Peak, the tip and eroded slopes of which are visible at left.

Nope, it was not over!

Disappointment Creek flowing downstream from just upstream of the Black Snag Road crossing.

It was *this* close to sunset. 🙂

Mother Nature wasn’t close to done for the day.

I mean … can you die of absolute, heart-bursting joy at the gorgeousity of the world?! Hopefully not; too much yet to see. I hope you’ve stuck with me. … Really, it gets BETTER.

Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down.

As I went back down-valley, THAT was happening behind me. Ahead of me (behind me as I take these pix), to the west, the clouds were nearly gone, the sky nearly clear again. The color was all back to the east. (Note: These horses are not in Spring Creek Basin. I’ve never crossed over here, but this sunset was too amazing not to share, and this is where I was when I saw it.)

My jaw might have been on the ground. I hope you find these colors and cloud shapes impressive. … The pix don’t really do it justice; it was one of the top most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in my life.

I might finally have run out of words.

Was it worth it? 🙂

WHAT. A. DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mama Nature, I never cease to be amazed. Keep on rockin’, Lady.

Thanks for coming along. 🙂

Comments : 12 Comments »

Categories : Advocacy, Autumn, Benchmark Lookout, Brumley Point, Colorado, Cottonwood trees, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area, Rain, Rainbow, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon, Sunset, Temple Butte, Water, Water catchment

Water, gooooooooood

11 10 2026

“Follow the … ” mustangs! (No, not spiders; that’s Harry Potter, and we weren’t looking for a basilisk.)

Most of the coolest things I’ve found in Spring Creek Basin are a result of following the mustangs. They know all the best places.

Am I right, or am I right?! The last time I’d been to this pond was much earlier in the summer, and it was dry.

Isn’t it a divine sight, all that lovely, rippling water?

Water is gold in the West. To know that we’ve gotten enough rain now this year to fill this pond fills ME with immense joy and relief and gratitude.

The horses drank their fill and moseyed farther on to chase the green. … And speaking of green …

To my surprise (the horses weren’t phased), this mallard drake landed on the water right in front of us!

No matter how many times I see ducks on our desert ponds, I think I will never cease being surprised! And grateful that they find an oasis in the otherwise dry landscape.

The sun was fairly low on the western horizon, and fortunately, he was still lit by sunlight despite the berm/bank of the pond and a distant hill between us and that horizon. Depending on how he turned, his head feathers flashed iridescent green or nearly black. No hen landed with him, and I didn’t see one circling.

Unfortunately, the sun was sinking as fast as it does, and I had a fair walk back to the road, and when I stood up, the drake lifted off from the water into the sky.

I hope he returned to that place of safety … maybe with a hen.

As I type the draft of this post, it’s raining, which means more fresh water for the ponds, the catchments, the vegetation, even recharging the seeps …

… like this one. That’s bedrock, a layer of shale (?) in the foreground (see my toe), and you can see the layer of it around the left side in the lower wall of the arroyo. Underground water hits these rock layers and comes to the surface, and the horses make good use of that water (note the hoofprints; a band had been drinking there as I walked up to the pond). There’s at least a 2-foot drop between the rock I’m standing on and the water in the bed of the arroyo as it continues, where it runs down a slight slope, as it might (hopefully) do with this rain!

Comments : 10 Comments »

Categories : Brumley Point, Mallard duck, McKenna Peak, Ponds, Rain, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte, Water, Wild birds

Up and coming

9 10 2026

If these kids are representative of the country’s young folks, we’re all gonna be OK. 🙂

Earlier this week, Disappointment Valley and Spring Creek Basin – and one mustang band! – played host to a group of eighth-graders from Boulder’s Watershed School and three of their teachers. They got to see Buckeye’s band after a long drive from Meeker, where they’d camped after a great visit to the Wild Horse Refuge near Craig. Then they camped above Disappointment Creek, just outside Spring Creek Basin. In the morning, BLM range specialist and herd manager Anton Rambur and range tech Laura Heaton arrived to lead the students in a vegetation-monitoring project up the same hill. Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla also came out to see and talk to the kids about the variety of land management that happens throughout BLM public lands in Southwest Colorado.

The kids spread out in small groups and pairs to conduct their utilization (grazed/ungrazed bits of galleta (a native, warm-season grass that’s growing after the recent rains) along lines of five steps at a time) under the watchful eye of Buckeye and the band.

And then, while they listened to Laura and Anton guide them about how to fill out their sheets with the information they’d gathered, Buckeye decided that he and the band were ready for their morning drink … which meant ambling up the trail … and giving the kids a good check-over … before heading down the other side of the hill to the water catchment.

Top THAT, any other school trip ever, anywhere! 🙂

We stayed up top to listen to Derek and give the horses a chance to get down the hill, to the catchment to drink the lovely fresh rainwater in the trough … and they came up a different trail back to the top of the hill, checked us out again and returned to grazing.

Oh, my lovely, wonderful, awesome and amazing mustangs. 🙂 You do me SO proud!

Then back down to the corrals and buses, where Anton and Laura helped them do the math involved in figuring out how much the horses are grazing in that area of the basin. At the end, I heard numbers ranging anywhere from 7 percent to 50 percent use/grazed plants, so even in our drought, we’re in good shape for the horses not eating everything in their paths. And the students learned a little bit about what BLM folks are looking at to manage the rangelands that support wild horses – and other grazing/browsing wildlife like elk, deer and pronghorns.

I got to talk more about PZP and show off my darting rifle and let some of the kids see how light it is and how quiet (no darts involved!). And I marveled the whole time at the insightful, curious questions the kids asked and the answers Anton and Laura gave to provide the kids with a well-rounded picture of what it takes to manage a herd of wild horses on public land in Colorado.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-mazing!

Here follow a load of pix of Watershed School students and teachers Amy, Diana and Pete, BLM’ers Laura, Anton and Derek … and the mustangs they got to see:

Laura points out characteristics of grasses to students. We saw past-prime cheat grass, and they concentrated on newly growing galleta. (We also saw Indian ricegrass, grama grass, alkali sacaton and/or sand dropseed (my hat is off to you if you can look at the latter two and tell them apart!)

Students examine a clump of grass that shows last year’s growth as well as recent growth.

Laura and Anton talk about how to measure clumps of grass. The idea was that the students walked five steps in a line, measured galleta at their toe or within reach … then another five steps … until they’d measured 10 samples. Teacher Amy is in the foreground (this is the second time she has brought one of her eighth-grade humanities classes to Spring Creek Basin; the last time, it poured rain! as you can see in these pix, they lucked out with spectacular October weather), and teacher Pete is in the brown hoodie and camp. … Start to notice the “little white dots” in the distance.

Teacher Diana is at right while the students watch Laura measure the grass clump. For a little perspective, I’m facing nearly directly north toward the main, west-ish part of Spring Creek Basin.

No mistaking that horizon. 🙂 Laura helps one of the small groups of students with their monitoring while two other groups walk their lines in the background.

Boys walk their line with the basin’s south-facing rimrocks in the near distance and Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the far distance.

It’s hard to get a whole lot farther from Boulder than Disappointment Valley (OK, we’re not the *farthest* southwest corner of the state), but students were focused on the vegetation and their project. How cool is it that they’re able to take trips like this instead of learning from books only, only in a classroom?

Another pair walking their line with other groups in the distance. See that GREEN grass? Yeah, thank you, RAIN! A little goes a long way in this high desert.

Diana follows the boys back up the hill after they finished their line. Can’t get enough of that scenery.

All gathered again to ensure they’d filled out their sheets well. … There was math to come!

These city students were not afraid to drop to the ground among the grasses and shadscale and four-wing saltbush – and cacti!

Laura, left, and teachers Amy and Diana helped the kids with their utilization sheets (these are the same that BLM employees use while out monitoring rangelands). They’re a little hard to see (wide-angle lens, not my big gun), but look straight out over the kids’ heads. …

We were being watched!

Just like the evening before, Buckeye’s band was over the top of this hill, down toward the north. Here, they’re a little east of where they’d been previously. The previous evening, after they arrived, I hiked the kids out to the trees – there’s a little arroyo that starts there – and we picked up the trail to the west, which we took a bit farther left of where the horses are seen here.

I’m not sure how long we’d been on the hill, but we weren’t in a hurry, and the students were absorbed in their project. While they worked, I took pix and kept an eye on Buckeye’s band to gauge their comfort level (they were at least a few hundred yards away from us). By about this time, as the students were nearing the completion of the monitoring part of their project, I started to notice that the full band was appearing, and Buckeye was inching a bit closer. … And then it hit me: They want to make a trip up and over the hill and down to the catchment trough for their morning drink. Sure enough, they walked on up the trail, but where I thought they’d veer off more to the west and go down the trail I brought the kids up the evening before, those curious ponies came right up the trail to where the students were gathered! I cautioned everybody to just sit tight and stay fairly quiet and let the horses explore this mass of humanity on their usual empty route to water.

And the gathered group of students and adults got the mustang sighting of their lives. 🙂

Pretty amazing, eh? 🙂

While we were watching Buckeye’s band watching US, Tres Rios Field Office Manager Derek Padilla hiked up the hill to join us. He talked to the students about the variety of jobs available with the Bureau of Land Management (and U.S. Forest Service, where he spent the first 27 years of his 30-year land-management career) and the variety of ways BLM’ers manage the multiples uses that happen on public lands.

He and Buckeye might have worked it out between themselves because the band had plenty of time to head down the hill to water, drink and then return up a different trail.

After one last farewell to the ponies, the group returned down the hill to the buses to complete the math (!) part of the project and have some lunch and a last round of questions and answers with Laura and Anton.

Yes, math does have real-world applications. 🙂 Laura and Anton helped students with the formulas to calculate the results of their utilization (grazed/ungrazed) survey. Results: The horses have plenty of forage, even after our stressful droughty summer. Whew.

Before they left, at least one of the teachers and a few of the students got to check out my darting rifle. It’s very lightweight, and it fires off of a CO2 cartridge (pressurized to the distance of a mare). NOTE: NO DARTS WERE IN THE RIFLE. I let them put some air in the rifle and pull the trigger to hear the sound and have the feel of it. A surprise to a couple: No kick. 🙂

Kudos to these kids and their teachers for thinking outside the box and creating the experiential learning experiences Watershed School is known for. *I* sure never got to visit wild horses as part of any class trip, and I attended lots of schools in many states and Germany! They are super curious and intelligent and asked some of the best questions I’d ever heard – and I get a LOT of questions and have a lot of answers. Speaking for myself (I’m sure Laura and Anton and Derek would agree): We had a blast introducing these young folks to Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin and (at least a few of) our amazing mustangs. 🙂

You’re welcome back any time!

Thank you so much to these Watershed School teachers and students, and to Anton, Laura and Derek, and (I have to say it) to my boy Buckeye and his girls, for making this a fantastic visit and learning experience in Spring Creek Basin!

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Categories : Advocacy, BLM, Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Education, Fertility control, Filly Peak, Kids & Horses, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Mustangs, Partnership, PZP, Rimrocks, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Tres Rios Field Office, Water catchment, Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, Work projects

Illusion

4 10 2026

Oh my goodness, Mount Brumley is erupting!

Just kidding. 🙂

That’s Brumley Point (it *looks* like an old volcano, doesn’t it?), and that’s not smoke, it’s a giant cloud, positioned juuuuuuuust so.

Rowan tried to help me illustrate the illusion, but we weren’t quite in the right alignment by then.

This might have been better as an April 1 post, but it’s October. Happy … *FALL*! 🙂

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Categories : Brumley Point, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs

One more year till 20/25

19 09 2026

Next year, this date – Sept. 19 – will mark 20 years since I started documenting Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs.

TWENTY. YEARS.

Sometime next fall (I don’t remember that exact date now), I’ll mark *25* years since the first time I visited Spring Creek Basin – in the rain, in a van full of people I didn’t know, and we didn’t see horses because we never actually got *into* the basin (even if it had been dry, a van might not have been the best choice of vehicle?!). I went back soon after that by myself … and, well, now it’s been 24 years *this* fall. You know that saying “blood, sweat and tears”? Yeah … it’s been ALL of that … a whole lotta alla that.

That means this fall marks my 19th (today) and 24th anniversaries. I still find that pretty shocking to say out loud.

Two thousand seven was a roundup year in Spring Creek Basin. It was the third that decade (and we still had 2011 to come). BLM said the stallion known to most as Traveler (to me as Grey) would stay. They promised. … One guy broke that promise. … One guy made it right. Grey went to Cañon City, and about a week after he had been removed, we brought him back to Southwest Colorado, where his two-week quarantine turned into three weeks (courtesy of the promise-breaker). Four weeks after he left Spring Creek Basin, David and Pati Temple returned Grey/Traveler to the basin, Pati opened the trailer door, and he returned to his wild life, where he lived until his passing a few years ago.

Photo print of Grey by Claude Steelman moments after he was released Sept. 19, 2007, into Spring Creek Basin

“He’ll never have a band again,” the BLM promise-breaker said dismissively at the time. Within a month and a half, Grey had a band again.

Grey’s Return Day was Sept. 19, 2007. After the pomp of Grey’s momentous release (a couple of other people also were there, including renowned Durango-based wildlife photographer Claude Steelman), I stayed in the basin to start documenting every mustang I found. It took three months of weekends. Nineteen wild and crazy – and now, immensely satisfying – years ago.

*Grey, toward the end of his life; we thought he was close to 30*

So today, I celebrate both the anniversary of Grey’s return and release and the day I started documenting my beloved mustangs, what has become the path of my heart through this lifetime.

My *wall of Grey*; photos of Grey by me circa 2003-2004? Gorgeous painting of Grey by talented Colorado artist Teresa Irick (@tiartcreations on Instagram) based on a photo by me

When I first started this mustang-advocacy journey, 20 years into the future felt like some random date that would never arrive. Now, wow.

I want to do something kinda fun to mark the occasion next year, and this is a head’s up. A few of you have read and commented and shared the mustangs for a lot of years now, and I’d like to send you each a photo print of the mustangs. I probably haven’t taken it yet, but I have a year (!), and I’ll let you choose. You might know who you are. 🙂 I thought I’d also ask readers – on that date, and don’t worry, I’ll remind ya’ll ahead of time – to leave a comment on that post, and I’ll put all your names in a hat and mix ’em all up, and I’ll have a mustang friend pick a name and send that person a pic, too. I want to celebrate YOU who support and love these mustangs, too! There also are a handful of people who have been with me for long years on this mustang journey, and I want to recognize them, too (more about them next year).

Hollywood and his mares, 2019; Hollywood and Houdini are both gone now … Shane, Alegre and Maia are still together

When you’re starting a thing, you never know where that thing is going to go, how it’s going to go, how long it’ll go on. When you have a burning desire to do something strong, something worthwhile, again, you just never know. That’s the future. … That’s LIFE.

So many people have had a hand (even just some fingers) in the accomplishments realized for bettering the management and preservation of Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs, and I can’t even imagine (and I don’t wanna) what path my life would have followed if I hadn’t discovered this herd and all the amazing people I’ve met along the way. We’ve all shared something: love of horses. Love of WILD horses. Love of mustangs.

Remember that promise-breaker? I realized several years ago that I’m *grateful* to him. I definitely couldn’t see it at the time of what felt like deep betrayal by the system, but if not for that guy, would my Irish stubbornness have come to the fore and would I have dug my boots and heart so deep into ground I’d never known but has become my rooted ground?? As I said: *grateful*.

Winona with sons Cheveyo and Lyra; Lyra is gone now, and Cheveyo is a band stallion; Winona, of course, is one of our wise ones

And you know what? Holy … horse. 🙂 Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area today is one of the best managed herds in the country (if not the best? forgive me a tiny bit of bias, please, but I don’t know of any others quite like ours). I am so grateful to the BLM folks at Tres Rios Field Office who made that happen and continue to work with our shared goal in mind.

Because we shared a dream and a goal and got to work doing it, not sitting by waiting for someone else to come along and dig in and get ‘er done. I sure didn’t start that dream for Spring Creek Basin, but I tip my visor to those who did … those who welcomed me to the fold so I could join the journey to the goal. And in that time, we have gotten done EVERYTHING we’ve aimed to achieve … bar one that we haven’t gone full force on, and that’s in the hands of bureaucrats, really, which is unfortunate, but it’s still possible.

Comanche’s band in the dust of early summer, 2020

I’ll probably (of course I will) write another long-winded post about this on my actual 20th anniversary, but on this, my 19th, *thank you* to every single person who has given even the tiniest bit of love to Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs. My love and gratitude to each one of you.

And hang on for (at least!) another year, with the mustangs and me, to celebrate the big 2-0. 🙂 No worries: The 20th won’t be anywhere close to the end. To paraphrase something I heard someone say someone told him: I will continue to make as positive an impact as I can in all the time I’m given in and for Spring Creek Basin and its mustangs.

I’m so glad you’re here, with us.

*Grateful*