Our Pati

8 01 2019

Seneca; Temple Butte and McKenna Peak

Check out this wonderful article in the Telluride Daily Planet by writer Katie Klingsporn:

https://www.telluridenews.com/news/article_d8e1bd26-112e-11e9-b31f-0f3d56d820bc.html

In the photo above, Temple Butte is the prominent promontory behind snow-covered McKenna Peak (shaped like a pyramid).

Seneca is the lovely mustang, walking through her lovely, winter-white-coated world.

Thanks so much to all who contributed to the success of our application to name Temple Butte in honor of Pati (and David) Temple. It’s the least we could do to honor a woman who did so much for the wild she knew and loved.





Third

3 11 2018

Mule deer does and fawns in Spring Creek Basin.

So begins the worst, busiest, most anxiety-inducing week of the year in Disappointment Valley: third rifle season. Deer and elk are the targets.





Bay, beautiful

24 10 2018

Madison

How does brown GLOW?

Madison knows. Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley know.

They ALL glow. 🙂





Eye candy

23 10 2018

Pitch's band

Disappointment Valley and beyond (all the way to Utah).

They’re beautiful, eh? I mean, what a view. 🙂





Big bad bobkitty

12 10 2018

Bobcat

OK, not “bad” at all – it just went with the headline. 🙂

SO COOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!





The light of the rain

10 10 2018

Disappointment Road double rainbow

Double rainbow over Spring Creek Basin from Disappointment Valley Road, looking southeast.

Disappointment Road double rainbow

Rainbow over Seven’s swale in Spring Creek Basin.

Disappointment Road double rainbow

The other end of the above rainbow. … It was INTENSE.

Sunset light on Temple Butte.

Temple Butte and McKenna Peak in the very last light of the post-storm day.

Glorious. 🙂





Blessed are those who wait for rain

8 10 2018

100718rainradar2

We’re not the most patient lot … but we just might be the most grateful. 🙂

Colorado Highway 141, across the top of the screen, runs across the broad, lower, northern end of Disappointment Valley. Southeast of the rightmost 141 marker and south of the open space in the green blob that is life-giving rain is Spring Creek Basin. The rain has fallen fairly steadily with small breaks since Saturday mid-afternoon.

The world as we know it is SOGGY. And it’s FABULOUS.





Fullness of beauty

24 09 2018

Full moon rises above Temple Butte and McKenna Peak in Disappointment Valley.

Full moon rises above Temple Butte and McKenna Peak in Disappointment Valley.

The full moon rises over Temple Butte and McKenna Peak on the eastern edge of Spring Creek Basin.

It’s officially autumn. 🙂





Drinking, calm

13 09 2018

Comanche drinking at the corral catchment.

After Comanche was sure the interloper meant no harm to his girls, he returned to the trough for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg drink of water. 🙂

I sat uphill from the trough to stay out of the way and had to get the camera low to see any of his eye (the eyes make the photos, they say, but even so, only part of his eye is visble) below the evaporation cover. That’s why there’s a soft layer of unfocused vegetation in the lower foreground.

The black square-looking thing in the center of the trough is actually a long rectangle made of steel mesh on a steel frame. It’s a critter ladder that provides a perch for birds and little beasts to get a drink without drowning. The stacked wood outside the trough slightly to the right is where the pipe from the tank comes out of the ground and into the trough. It’s filled with dirt to insulate it in the winter (when the water is turned off).





Prongs on the hill

11 09 2018

Pronghorn buck on corral hill.

Our mustangs aren’t the only ones taking advantage of the basin’s water catchments. This handsome fellow waited on the hill for Comanche’s band to drink at the corral catchment (built just two years ago). The horses were VERY interested in him.