Who else is feeling the need for a nap between Christmas and New Year’s Day? 🙂
It’s been blessedly quiet and peaceful in Disappointment Valley and Spring Creek Basin lately. The crazily unseasonal 60-degree temps are a thing of the past; today’s high temp is forecast to be a whopping 39F. Some places in Colorado are getting rain or snow from the storms that hit California (thank you, West Coast!). There’s an ever-so-slight possibility of “rain/snow showers” here next weekend. As always, our hopes are higher than the forecast percentages.
It’s been a crazy few days, and I’m almost over the rivers and past the mountains and down the plains and into the woods of home for Thanksgiving week.
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
Storms don’t last long here; rain showers don’t linger. The sky clears quickly.
Usually.
The above is the eastern horizon beyond Spring Creek Basin from not very far below the western rimrock boundary as the last storm (Tuesday morning) cleared. The rain was in the morning; the pic is from early afternoon.
Wowza.
Mustangs were grazing below me, but I couldn’t get them in the view until Buckeye had a chat with Maiku.
It may not look very damp, but it was – after a quarter of an inch of rain that morning! McKenna Peak and Temple Butte were wreathed in clouds (very unusually) until early afternoon, and this doesn’t capture that, but Tenaz is the star of the show anyway. 🙂
That gives us 0.35 inch of rain (Friday afternoon and Tuesday morning), which is more than we’ve gotten in about three months? At least. The ground still is pretty dry under the top layer of dampened soil, but it has to help the vegetation (and the water catchments, too).
Virga and rain (see it at lower center-ish against the far ridge?) from Spring Creek Basin looking west/southwest toward the far southwestern ridge(s) of Disappointment Valley.
Saturday:
It rained. 🙂 ACTUALLY rained. And for at least an hour (in at least some places).
OMG, the relief. … The gratitude.
It started with thunder and lightning, though, so hopefully the nearly immediate rain put out any fire(s) that may have started. …
The mustangs are chasing the growing green things (fairly limited this year) all over the basin, and you never know where they’re going to show up. I hiked way out on a hill in the southern part of the basin on a just-to-see mission, and it wasn’t until I turned around to head back that I spotted one horse in a little drainage. A little investigation soon found the band, tucked out of sight below another little hill, but they – like all the bands – are not interested in anything but *the green*, so the best thing to do is to sit quietly and wait for them to notice other band members coming over another little hill then snap the moment when they’re looking and/or shifting position toward another green patch. 🙂
You can see the dusty haze on the horizon toward Utah, but with the soft light, it was another lovely evening in Spring Creek Basin with Temple and her family. And any time with the mustangs is the best time.
Still-fluffy Kestrel was much more interested in her grazing than in me (which is perfectly fine and as it should be).
We’ve been having 60-plus-degree days. Nice, sure, if it was April or May. Way too warm already, and way too dry. I hope her fluff is because we still have some winter on tap (or at least the necessary moisture!).
Snowy weather almost always brings out the snoozies in the wild ponies. When I took this pic of Madison and Temple napping, there was another napping-on-the-ground horse to the right and THREE others, all lying down, to the left. Two of those three were standing when I first approached, but they ended up lying down with the others, leaving only the lieutenant stallion standing-napping a fairly close distance away.
I’d walked out to them, then to another band a bit farther away, and I took this pic as I was headed back to the road. In the mud, it wasn’t as easy a hike as on dry ground. Why not join them? It was a good time and excuse to stretch out and take a nap among friends. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 