Indian paintbrush in Spring Creek Basin.
I always forget how BRIGHT and vibrant they are … until the next spring rolls around and they blaze with color in the basin’s brown ground and green sage (and greasewood and shadscale and sage and other bits). Wildflowers this year are tiny and hugging the ground. The first prince’s plumes have started to stand tall … always a good sign.
The morning of the snow, this little loggerhead shrike was calling from a bare tree just outside Spring Creek Basin (the dark band in the background is the rimrock that forms the basin’s western boundary). The cold didn’t seem to bother him/her much, and s/he allowed me to approach fairly closely to capture his/her lovely portrait.
*****
Happy Earth Day! More than ever, we need to cherish, protect and honor our planet.
I *adore* kestrels.
These pix all are significantly cropped, and as previously mentioned, I am no bird photographer! But wow. I’m extremely grateful to this extraordinarily handsome gentleman for perching close enough and giving me enough time to get several sharp shots before he took off (he dodged off to the (my) right, despite the fact that he launched first to the left).
I mean … I *ADORE* kestrels!
Just ask Kestrel. 🙂
This is what the original interpretive sign looked like (I know you were wondering!), courtesy of Kathe Hayes, who retired a few years ago after working many years for San Juan Mountains Association as the volunteer coordinator. Long-time readers will remember Kathe’s name associated especially with the alternative spring break program, which brought in college students from the University of Missouri every year to work on various projects in Spring Creek Basin and other public lands (both BLM and U.S. Forest Service) around Southwest Colorado.
When Kathe read about the new kiosk installation, she sent me a text and some emails about the history of the FIRST sign installation at the west basin boundary:
“Excited to see that Laura [Heaton] was involved in the installation of the new sign in Spring Creek Basin. As you know as a child, she was involved in the installation of the first sign along with a group of college students from the University of Missouri and Ranger Rick from BLM. I remember Laura and I climbing up the side of the hill and rolling large rocks down so that we could surround the sign so cars would not drive over the sign. A lot of hard work and dedication went into the original sign, and I was sad to see that it had disintegrated. But I am grateful for the new sign and the information it portrays about the wonderful Spring Creek Basin. Thanks for your help in this, TJ.”
Also:
“I was really excited to read about the installation of the new sign. I believe the old one was installed around 2008. It prompted me to resurrect a photo of the original. Laura was involved in the installation of the original sign, as a young kid working alongside the University of Missouri students and Ranger Rick Ryan (BLM). Wow, such good memories for me.
“Attached is the original sign photo. It was a lot of work back then, getting that sign created and approved.”
Not much has changed in that respect. 😉 I asked Kathe if I could share the image of the original sign and her words about the history of it.
“I remember this about installing the original sign. Rick Ryan (Ranger Rick) had been mixing cement in a wheelbarrow and then pouring it into the hole to secure the base of the sign as we all watched curiously as to how this was all going to work. Laura said that that’s not how my dad would do it [Laura’s dad is well-known rancher Al Heaton; their family is well respected in the entire region of Southwest Colorado. She is, quite literally, a local!] and I just laughed. Laura‘s family was instrumental in the success of the Alternative Spring break program. I doubt I would have continued without their support. And Laura was my little shadow since she was about 6 years old. Her parents let me drag her all over the place. She loved being with the college students who loved playing games especially spoons.”
Wild and crazy how things come back around full circle, eh? 🙂
Thanks so much for the history, Kathe! We miss the alternative spring break program (I think it lasted almost 20 years with Kathe’s guidance?), but we sure loved each year’s crop of students and all the work they did for us in Spring Creek Basin! And we now have Laura as one of our BLM range team members, carrying on that good work!
I cannot begin to tell you all how much I *LOVE* this new information/map sign kiosk JUST installed at the western entrance/boundary of Spring Creek Basin.
It has been in the works for at least the last year. On April Fool’s Day, rangeland management specialists Ryan Schroeder and Anton Rambur came out to augur and dig out the holes for the three posts for the kiosk (in the snow and greasy-muddy road, I might add). The day after April Fool’s Day (gorgeous but nippy), we were joined by Laura Heaton (range tech), Nate West (wildlife biologist), Brian Yaquinto (archaeologist) and Jon Whitehead (recreation) to put the whole thing together and set it upright in the holes (shout-out to my awesome little Kubota tractor!) and cement it in place.
Let me also mention that this was Ryan’s third day back to work. I never anticipated that I’d be RE-introducing him when I introduced our new range team, but there it is, and here they are. 🙂 I’m so stoked to be working now – again – with all three of them.
A couple of (OK, several) images of the construction and installation of our brand-spanking-new, kick-ass kiosk in Spring Creek Basin:
Actually, let’s start with the old interpretive sign, familiar to anyone who has driven into Spring Creek Basin. You might think the sign looks white because of glare or overexposure by the camera. …
But no. It really is that blank. The high-elevation, Southwest Colorado sunshine will do a number on just about anything. … Hence the new sign. 🙂 (Note the scratches at the top and (at least) left side. What made those scratches, you ask? Horse teeth, I tell you.)
Laura and Ryan check out the new map and info signs. OMG! They are SOOO COOL!
Who took the images for the signs? I’m so glad you asked. 🙂 I am BEYOND proud! (While all of the BLM folks were gathered around to look at the signs, I ID’d for them all the mustangs in the pix. Above: Hollywood, Shane, Houdini, Alegre and Maia. I’m also hugely grateful that our dearly retired herd manager, Mike Jensen, and the BLM’er who put the signs together, Jason Byrd, allowed me to dust off my copy-editing skills in service of both the info panel and the map. I realize now that I didn’t take a close-up pic, but Temple Butte is noted on the map, the first time I’ve seen the name on any map since we got it officially named by USGS in late 2018.)
While Ryan digs out the edges of the middle post hole just a little bit more, Brian, Nate and Anton started attaching the posts to the roof structure, resting on the forks of the tractor.
With all the vertical posts attached to the roof structure and the cross pieces (to which the sign boards would bolt), Jon arrived with the Qwikcrete and water to mix into a slurry in the post holes to help support the posts for a very long time to come.
And up she goes! OK, this doesn’t really show the tractor doing the heavy lifting, but it did. 🙂 Thanks, Ryan, for taking the camera while I worked the tractor!
In go the bolts for the first sign panel! (Yes, we did joke about how many BLM’ers it takes to screw bolts into a sign. 🙂 You almost can’t see him, but Jon is holding the sign behind Brian while he and Ryan thread the first bolts and Anton holds the left side of the sign.)
Anton holds the second panel while Jon (left) and Brian insert bolts to attach the sign to the frame.
Eagle-eyed readers will note that the sign very correctly welcomes visitors to Spring Creek *Basin*!
I want to express my enthusiastic gratitude to our particularly awesome BLM’ers for making this new info/map kiosk come to life in Spring Creek Basin. It has been, I think, a little more than a year from conception to standing tall at the west basin boundary to greet visitors to Spring Creek Basin, magical home of our mustangs. Pictured, left to right: Nate West, Brian Yaquinto, Jon Whitehead, Laura Heaton, Anton Rambur, Ryan Schroeder and yours truly (I actually brought my tripod so I could be part of the picture record!).
Huge gratitude also to Mike Jensen (retired but never forgotten), who offered me the opportunity to share some of my favorite images of the mustangs and my copy-editing skills (and texted this in reply to telling him about the new sign: “Wow awesome that looks great. See no worries I left you in good hands.” :)); Doug Vilsack, Colorado BLM director, who agreed that we needed a new sign when he first visited Spring Creek Basin in 2023; Derek Padilla, Tres Rios Field Office manager, who has been super supportive of Spring Creek Basin from the get-go; Joe Manning, TRFO assistant manager, also incredibly supportive and who agreed that it was a project worthy of funding; and Jason Byrd, recreation specialist (?) at TRFO who designed the signs with my images and all my edits and made the most gorgeous informative panels in all of BLM-dom.
Thank you, ALL! And now, when any of you visit Spring Creek Basin, you know the story of how our fabulous mustang kiosk came to be!
I am giddy with excitement and anticipation. 🙂 First of all, we have our full BLM range team back together again! As of Monday, rangeland management specialist Ryan Schroeder is fully reinstated and back to work with range specialist Anton Rambur and range tech Laura Heaton at Tres Rios Field Office. And he got to get his hands dirty – literally – with Anton (Laura was under the weather) out in Spring Creek Basin yesterday to …
…uh … just what the heck WERE these guys doing?!
A hint is in the background. 🙂
Leave a guess in the comments and let me know just what the heck you think these funny guys were doing!
All will be revealed soon, and it’s going to be awesome!
A young bull elk and a cow elk check me out from right above Disappointment Creek, which still is not running yet this year. They still look awfully fuzzy don’t they? The temp was at least 67F in the valley yesterday. Spring is here.
On Wednesday, BLM rangeland management specialist Ryan Schroeder texted that he had been reinstated at his job at Tres Rios Field Office in Dolores, Colorado!!!!!!
On Friday, rallies to support public lands and federal employees were held at Tres Rios Field Office (also known as Dolores Public Lands Office; BLM and U.S. Forest Service), Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum (national monument), and at Mesa Verde National Park. Those rallies were followed by a combined rally at the intersection of U.S. Highway 160 and Colorado Highway 184 in Mancos.
I’d call that excellent timing. 🙂
Folks gathering and collecting their signs in the parking lot of TRFO/DPLO.
A law-enforcement ranger pulling in, greeted by a crowd of supporters. I believe this was a Forest Service ranger, but I’d like to give a shout out to our BLM law-enforcement rangers, who are absolutely the best. I’ve worked with a handful of different rangers, and absolutely every one of them has been stellar. At least one of them was just in Disappointment Valley this past week. Two BLM rangers have an enormous chunk of ground to cover – all of Southwest Colorado, something like five or six counties? – and they have told me they make it a point to patrol through Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley as often as possible. Hats off to those guys!
Supporters crowded both sides of the entrance to the DPLO/TRFO, as well as across Highway 184. Lots of folks honked and waved in support of the public lands in Southwest Colorado and elsewhere. I don’t know the percentages, but this region IS public lands! Agriculture (cattle and sheep grazing), timber, oil and gas, hunting and fishing, wild horses, recreation – hiking, mountain biking, camping, backpacking, horseback riding, birding, kayaking, rafting, etc., etc. – all depend on BLM, Forest Service, national monument and national park lands. Jobs aren’t limited to federal employees; they are interconnected among a wide variety of livelihoods. And those folks are our friends, our neighbors; they are part of our communities.
I would hazard a guess that at least (at LEAST!) 95 percent of the people who drove by – whether they honked/waved in support or not – use public lands. We saw vehicles with mountain bikes on racks, sprinter vans, trucks hauling campers and stock trailers, dump trucks, utility trucks, big rigs (one driver from Los Angeles actually pulled his rig to the shoulder and asked what was going on … then gave the supporter who talked to him a bottle of Gatorade!). Vehicles with Colorado plates, Texas plates, California plates, New Mexico plates, Wyoming plates. To say we all use our public lands in these vast reaches of the West – let alone Southwest Colorado – is super simplification. We all have our own uses, and we all should value these lands set aside for us to enjoy and treasure.
Bonnie Candelaria (right) and friends Joy and Lisa (?) were supporters at the event. Bonnie runs the store and cabin rentals at Groundhog Reservoir between Disappointment Valley and Dolores. Every single person she talks to there is using public lands: San Juan National Forest (at least), which surrounds Groundhog.
It was wonderful to see such a great and HAPPY turnout of support for our public lands and federal lands employees. Ryan is the only one I know personally, but the Forest Service side at the Dolores Public Lands Office lost some employees to the rash of terminations, too. I hope those folks also get reinstated ASAP.
We counted at least 65 people – including some youngsters! – at this rally. Simultaneous rallies were being held yesterday morning at both Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum and at Mesa Verde National Park. Then, at noon, folks converged at the highway intersection in Mancos (it’s literally a one-stoplight town :)), and Ryan (who was at CANM for the morning rally) texted me later that an estimated 150 to 200 people were there to show their support!
Huge appreciation to the organizers (I’m not entirely sure if there was a main group, but I think League of Women Voters of Montezuma County, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and Dolores River Boating Advocates, at least, had a hand in it). It was fantastic to join like-minded people in our appreciation of the amazing treasure that is our public lands.
Pink and brown birds!
These and at least a couple (few?) hundred more were flocking (is that a thing?) hither, thither, over, around, past and settling around me and a band I was with the other day in Spring Creek Basin. The horses WATCHED them fly and flock and land and twitter (the correct and natural way) and flutter all around us. They were nearly always in motion, and all I could tell was that they were LBJs (little brown jobs). I knew they weren’t bluebirds, but I didn’t know what they were – and I still don’t.
If you happen to know what these beauties are – that *pink*!? – please, please let me know. I think both males and females must be together, as some are less pink (do you suppose it’s the males that are more pink?).
Spotlit by heaven’s sunshine is Temple Butte. You’re not used to seeing it from this vantage point, are you?
That’s because when I took this image, I was way up high among the ridges that form the southern boundary of Disappointment Valley, and I’m looking uppish-valley (!). Snow was still blowing through the region, and the sunlight was finding different and varied windows through the clouds … and
IT
WAS
SPECTACULAR!
Every time I’m up there, I’m reminded anew how absolutely gorgeous is this part of the world. Spring Creek Basin is back to the leftish, and with the clouds and sunlight and waves of snow … it was more painting than reality. But it WAS reality, and by gosh, it was gorgeous.
(I even saw a band of mustangs from up there, but they were very far away and nearly impossible to see other than through binoculars. I think I did take a pic with them in it, but they’re not in this pic.)
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 