We rarely get morning rainbows; we rarely get morning rain (and even more rarely with sunshine).
Along with a lot of rain the last few days (about 2.56″), we’ve had a lot of sunshine.
This IS Colorado, after all!
Yeah, so THIS happened yesterday morning!
The cottonwoods along Disappointment Creek are starting to glow gold. And yes, it was sprinkling through the sunshine, which brought the magic. (The above pix are looking west; sun rising behind me above the rain clouds.)
Wonder what it looked like back to the east? Here ya go! A lot different, eh? The sun was rising to upper right. This is Disappointment Road/Road 19Q looking toward Spring Creek Basin (not the road TO the basin).
Now I’m at 19Q looking west up Road K20W (not to be confused with K20E(ast) to Spring Creek Basin).
The sign struck me as funny under the rainbow. I mean, really, do you need a destination when the treasure is right in front of you??
Here we are at Road K20E looking eastish/southeastish toward Spring Creek Basin as the storm was passing to the north. (Sorry about the crazy glare-arrow; my phone’s camera lens is cracked.) Don’t make the mistake of driving this road for at least a few days! The cottonwoods at right line Disappointment Creek, which, yep, was running!
The rainbow (at least the main one) lasted somewhat longer than 30 minutes?!
It.
Was.
EXCEPTIONAL!
And when it finally faded, little curtains of rain were still moving south to north across the eastern(ish) part of the valley.
A person can never have too much magic in their lives. 🙂
At least one part of Disappointment Valley got 1.35 inches of rain over about 16 hours yesterday (it started around dark Friday and ended mid-morning Saturday). Every minor ditch and arroyo to every creek bed (Disappointment, Spring and Dawson creeks) ran with water. … LOTS of water. None had been running previously; all had been dry.
While a lot of water ran off and away, there must have been a fair bit of soaking in; the rain was all fairly light and decidedly steady. The ground and the road into and in Spring Creek Basin are all SOGGY.
Come along on this virtual tour with me – yesterday late afternoon – to see what I saw:
It’s hard to tell either how wide or how deep the water is here in Disappointment Creek several miles up-valley from the turn to Spring Creek Basin off Disappointment Road, but given that it was previously dry, I *hope* you can see that it’s running like a milk-chocolate river. This is looking upstream.
Another view, from several miles downstream of the above image; this is just 50 or 75 yards south of the road to Spring Creek Basin. The creek channel is much narrower here; I hope you can tell how high and wide the water is?
Now we’re looking upstream at Spring Creek water flowing downstream (toward us) from Spring Creek Basin, a few miles east (Temple Butte is visible against the horizon). (I’m still on Disappointment Road, a mile or so north of the above Disappointment Creek pic.)
And, from the other side of the bridge, Spring Creek flowing downstream toward its confluence with Disappointment Creek (marked by the line of barely visible golden cottonwoods in the middle distance).
I know it’s hard to tell width and depth again; the creek arroyo here isn’t terribly deep, but it’s three or four times as wide at this point as in the second pic of Disappointment Creek above. These creeks carried a LOT of water yesterday.
Then I went looking for the condition of the Spring Creek arroyo in Spring Creek Basin (in case this isn’t obvious, Spring Creek and its tributary arroyos drain Spring Creek Basin – when it rains – and the main Spring Creek arroyo carries all that gathered water west across Disappointment Valley to join the also-muddy water of Disappointment Creek, and together, they carry the watershed’s drainage to the Dolores River).
I thought you all might like to see a bit different view of Spring Creek, and I had to walk the last half-mile or so because the road was still too mucky even for my faithful little buggy, so this is just upstream and around the curve from the first crossing, where I usually take pix of rolling Spring Creek after a good rain. If you’ve ever gone into the basin with me, you’ve heard the story about Custer dam (and I even wrote a bit about it earlier this year). This image doesn’t show it well because of the background, but if you look on the left and right sides of the image above the water, you might see that the ground is abnormally straight/flat? Those sides are what remain of Custer dam (marked on maps). The brief story is that around 1900 (?), someone(s) put an enormous amount of work (and likely money) into building a dam to contain water from Spring Creek (the lowest/central arroyo in Spring Creek Basin) and the north and south *major* arroyos that feed into it (and a whole lotta other arroyos feed into all of them). The people also built at least a few miles of irrigation ditch. The story goes that the first major storm after the dam was built burst the dam. As you can (maybe?) see in the pic above, Mother Nature prevailed. (Who could possibly think this country is farmable?!)
Now I’m standing atop the south side of the dam looking downstream and westish. Just around the bend to the right is where the road crosses (when the arroyo is dry). It’s a weird perspective, and though I thought this would be a great perspective, it proved difficult to actually show. The road tops the area at the far (north) end of the dam, which is more to the right than “straight” across, but it’s only … 150 yards away, maybe? Or maybe it’s that from the far side part of the dam.
Now I’m down at the bend that you can see in the above pic, still looking downstream at the road crossing. You see it, right? Where all the rocks are at the left side of the pic. The road crosses the rocks, the arroyo and up the other side to the right.
Sorry, how about now? 🙂 Straight across. This should look familiar. … Well, except for the increase in rocks and the far side, which looks a bit like a wall. …
Looking upstream, there’s the curve where I was standing a couple of pix ago, looking to where I’m now standing.
The water, I should mention, had greatly receded at this point. This is probably some five, six miles (??) upstream from the first Spring Creek pix I showed toward the top of this post. I found evidence that the water reached probably at least another 20 yards up the road where I approached, from, say, the middle of the arroyo. It would have looked most definitely like Spring RIVER at its highest/deepest point. Spring Creek runs ONLY when we have a major rain event. … And when all that water from all that rain is done, so is the “creek.”
I’m gonna need my shovel. Again. 🙂
Are you tired? We’ve been walking around, in the super-mucky mud, in calf-high mud (or muck) boots. And we still have to hoof it back to the buggy. I was whupped.
But you can never, ever, ever beat that view. 🙂 Especially rain-dampened and -darkened. 🙂
I can’t wait to get farther in and take a gander at ponds. SURELY the mustangs have multiple water sources now. What an amazing deluge of rain. Much needed.
Don’t hate me for making up spectacular words to match the gorgeousity of the magic scenery, painted by Mother Nature. … Anyone would (and should) do it. 🙂
(And yes, I did get semi-soaked!)
“It won’t rain.”
The rain came from behind-ish me (southish), and though it lasted (at a guess) less than five minutes, it soaked my right pant leg and right shoulder/arm and left water dripping down my leg inside my pants (!). These two pix (above) are looking north as the rain has mostly passed over me and is continuing north.
From the same spot as the first two pix, looking now eastish, I watched the moon rise over Temple Butte (promontory) and McKenna Peak (pyramid).
The moon was still barely visible when the light hit the passing rain and formed the prism, but while trying to decide between my phone and big camera, I think I missed it before it rose into the clouds (argh!).
With more dark clouds rising from the south and mustangs mostly far and scattered across the northern part of the basin, I decided to return another day. … (Note: It’s not a good idea to go into the basin if it’s going to rain. The road can get spectacularly bad when really, really, super wet.)
Wellllllll (a friend and a new friend will understand that heavily accented word 🙂 ) … when your gut tells you to turn around and make for the place where the rainbow will align with the pot of gold you know to be there (if you know, you know), be like Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and pay attention to your gut!
I stood in the sunshine along Disappointment Road while the second wave of rain passed from south to north across Spring Creek Basin (the rimrocks are Spring Creek Basin’s western boundary; the basin stretches away to the east in the northeasternish part of Disappointment Valley).
And the spectacularity JUST. GOT. BETTER.
End to end under the powerlines.
Temple Butte is visible again as the storm moves north.
This is NOT part of the original/above rainbows; it was a newly formed prism as the rain continued to pass and clear and the sun found space beneath the clouds above the western horizon. This stretch of Disappointment Road goes straight east.
After dark, we got yet another little wave of the good rain stuff. *Sigh of contentment*.
Maybe more overnight and in the morning. (Fingers and toes all crossed!)
I mean … RIGHT?! 🙂 Magic, folks. Pure magic. No artificial ingredients added. 🙂
Ladies ‘n lads, there’s a whole lot going on in the world right now.
None of you need me to tell you that.
What I do want to tell you is that there is a hard-working core group of folks (some of whom don’t even know and/or aren’t involved with each others’ work … and many working in great collaborations) who are dedicated to Colorado’s mustangs, on and off their home ranges. I can list our on-range groups easily (Friends of the Mustangs, Little Book Cliffs; Sand Wash Advocate Team and Wild Horse Warriors for Sand Wash Basin, Sand Wash Basin; Piceance Mustangs, Piceance-East Douglas), but I don’t want to try with the off-range-focused groups for fear of leaving some/any out. Believe me: They are out there, and they are dedicated.
As much as so many are divided these days, we mustang advocates are united in our love of our mustangs and goals of securing good management or good off-range lives – and sometimes both at the same time.
This post is late because I forgot to schedule one ahead of time (and/or I may have thought I’d have time to do it when I got home …), but I was just visiting a sanctuary and herd in northwestern Colorado where beautiful mustangs roam, and there are people as dedicated to protecting them and providing safety and wild futures for them as I am here for my Spring Creek Basin beauties.
The trip renewed my sense of hope that, at least in this, we have options and opportunities to continue the important work of advocating for our mustangs, wherever they might be in Colorado, with people who are united in doing the same (however differently).
That’s pretty cool.
(This golden eagle indulged our visit right along the road for many wonderful moments, and s/he seemed to be an excellent example of the sentiment of hope that goes with this post.)
The mustangs don’t *always* cooperate when spectacular things are happening on the horizon. Posing really isn’t their jam (though they sometimes do it very well, indeed). However, although there are no mustangs in these pix, I decided they showed off the gorgeousity of Spring Creek Basin to such a degree that they stand on their own (and there *were* mustangs nearby; you just have to take my word for it!).
The rainbow Sunday evening was faint … and then it was BRIGHT. Never more than that little section, but wowza. Every strand of color was bright and clear and distinct:
That extreme brightness didn’t last very long. All I did when processing was to add a touch of sharpening. (I mean, really, how can you improve on that with a mere computer?!)
Then, last night, as I was leaving the basin, this interesting light-prism phenomenon, in nearly the same area of sky:
Mother Nature is booming in the high country with her annual aspen show, but she apparently didn’t want us in dry, brown Disappointment Valley to feel left out. 🙂
I see them very rarely and treasure every (any) sighting. Please forgive the non-mustang, non-Spring Creek Basin posting of this encounter, but I was just that excited to make their (very brief) acquaintance.
A dramatic background any time, but wow, did we get some dramatic light on McKenna Peak and Temple Butte to perfectly highlight Maiku and his compadres.
“We” were these fine folks from Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, who came out for a visit to Spring Creek Basin:
They didn’t bring horses to ride, but they saw a fair number of our fair mustangs. 🙂
Left to right: Marlo and Gail; Tim and Linda; yours truly; Patty Ann and her daughter, Chelsea; Larry and riding partner Jeff.
I do love showing off Spring Creek Basin and our wonderful mustangs, and a couple of bands gave us a good look!
Photographers love stormy conditions. Is it any wonder?
Am I right?
A bit wider perspective.
Mustangs were around, but they were not as cooperative as a person could wish with that amazing background ever-changing. 🙂
Flash and his band were grazing from the still-sunny side of the bowl to the already-shady side of the bowl (what I call the series of open areas between ridges in the far northwest). I was uphill of them, which made it hard to also capture the very faint rainbow in the southeastern sky. And this was quite a bit later from the first two pix.
Gaia lingered longest (thanks, girl), but she mostly gave me butt shots (thanks, girl!). 🙂 This one shows more of the rain-mist behind the rainbow.
And a last image from nearly last light … just a hint of a prism in a couple of sections in the sky at right. I mean … stunning!
We’ve gotten a few little rain waves the last couple of days. “Rain” might be overstating things a bit, as they’ve been really more like 10- to 15-minute drizzles. The ground soaks up that moisture incredibly quickly, and it’s dry very soon afterward. But we’ll take it, and the night I took the above images, I found a pond with water. Actual water. 🙂 Joy!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 