Cottonwood trees | Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Fallin’ for the view

24 10 2025

It really is that divinely beautiful right now. 🙂

Top to bottom: Temple. Madison. Temple photobombing Madison. 🙂

Mustangs in Spring Creek Basin, which is part of Disappointment Valley but does NOT include Disappointment Creek, along which you can see the glowing cottonwoods snaking across the distant landscape, headed west.

(Disappointment Creek currently is as dry (well, muddy, as I type this during intermittent rain waves) as Spring Creek … maybe with a few more puddles along its considerably longer length. But it generally runs from … February? Ish? Into July if we’re lucky. That’s enough water to (mostly) support the cottonwoods along most of its length. Spring Creek runs only when there’s a major rain event. We have a couple of cottonwood trees in Spring Creek Basin (I think I can count them on one hand and have fingers left over), but they’re in higher drainages that may not get more flow (?) but might get more rainfall. The cottonwoods seen in the distance in the above images are along Disappointment Creek outside/west of Spring Creek Basin.)

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Categories : Colorado, Cottonwood trees, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs

Fabulousity

15 10 2025

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. 🙂

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

Bald is beautiful

2 02 2025

Switching gears – and hair for feathers – this morning, please enjoy this juvenile bald eagle that was hanging out in some cottonwood trees near (dry) Disappointment Creek.

S/he looks like s/he dipped her/his head in some of the seeps that are producing mud-water currently, but based on this illustration, I believe s/he’s a juvenile, about 4 years old.

There were no other birds around – eagles or otherwise. I was incredibly happy that the eagle was “sticky” and allowed me a few minutes to photograph him/her from my truck.

You may not have known (I didn’t!), but before Christmas Eve, the bald eagle, while a definitive symbol of the United States of America, was not, in fact, its national bird. “On Christmas Eve, President Biden signed the legislation declaring the bald eagle the official national bird.”

We don’t have a lot of bald eagles in Disappointment Valley anymore, though I’ve been seeing them all winter between Disappointment and Dry Creek Basin (on the way to Naturita and/or Norwood). (And I’ve kicked myself a million times for not having my camera those times … though it’s harder to stop in the middle of the highway than on lonely Disappointment Road!) A generation or so ago, there must have been many, as evidenced by the title of “Where Eagles Winter: History and Legend of the Disappointment Country” by Wilma Crisp Bankston, the late mother of an up-valley resident (whose brother and sister also still own land nearby).

While we have golden eagles year ’round in the Disappointment Country, bald eagles are mostly winter visitors. It’s always a treat to see any of these magnificent birds.

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Categories : Cottonwood trees, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, Eagle

White gold

25 10 2022

Did I mention that Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley got rain?

And then we got snow. 🙂 And before Halloween!

This was yesterday morning in Disappointment Valley, just beyond the rimrocks and southwest of Spring Creek Basin. No ponies-in-snow pix; too muddy, and that snow was melting fast! For fare somewhat different than you usually expect to see on this blog, please enjoy this mix of pix of golden cottonwoods crowned with good-as-gold moisture: