Our mule deer friends are back in the valley. 🙂 We’ve missed them. (Elk are back, too, most often visible very early and/or very late.)
This scene was photographed from Disappointment Valley Road in lower Disappointment Valley looking east-ish toward Spring Creek Basin. Pyramid-shaped McKenna Peak and prominent promontory Temple Butte are familiar in the background. The sort of mid-ground area is Spring Creek Basin.
Lower Disappointment Valley has melted into basic brown again, for the most part. High temps melt snow, which creates mud, which leads to undriveable roads.
Naturally, we’re craving colder temps and more snow. 🙂
As I type this Sunday evening, we’re hoping Monday’s forecast for snow proves accurate, even down here in the “low lands.”
Above, Killian was digging through the (fairly) new snow to get to the grass beneath. They’re working a bit harder for their grub this winter (!), but they take it all as it comes. They’re WILD, after all! 🙂
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.
So begins the worst, busiest, most anxiety-inducing week of the year in Disappointment Valley: third rifle season. Deer and elk are the targets.
How does brown GLOW?
Madison knows. Spring Creek Basin and Disappointment Valley know.
They ALL glow. 🙂
Disappointment Valley and beyond (all the way to Utah).
They’re beautiful, eh? I mean, what a view. 🙂
OK, not “bad” at all – it just went with the headline. 🙂
SO COOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!
Double rainbow over Spring Creek Basin from Disappointment Valley Road, looking southeast.
Rainbow over Seven’s swale in Spring Creek Basin.
The other end of the above rainbow. … It was INTENSE.
Temple Butte and McKenna Peak in the very last light of the post-storm day.
Glorious. 🙂
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.
The full moon rises over Temple Butte and McKenna Peak on the eastern edge of Spring Creek Basin.
It’s officially autumn. 🙂
