The view from the hill, up out of the arroyo, was pretty grand. And the mountains aren’t a bad backdrop. 😉
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Happy big 7-0 to friend, fellow mustang advocate and writer extraordinaire, Kathryn Wilder!
She is, as many of you may know, the author of “Desert Chrome: Water, A Woman, and Wild Horses in the West,” and her new book, “The Last Cows: On Ranching, Wonder, and a Woman’s Heart,” will be out next fall.
Read more of her writing at https://katwilderwriter.com/
Flash and Gaia (until recently, one of Storm’s long(LONG)-time mares) start their evening browsing in the mud among the patches of snow (! still) after rousing from a nap. Mysterium also is still with them, but she seemed to be already ready to head for a water source and was just waiting for them to wake up.
I do think I saw Storm a week or so ago, from a very great distance – and he was actually watching young Flash and his former mares. I still haven’t seen him close, but he seems to be OK.
Flash has acquired and lost, acquired and lost a few mares these last couple of years, but he seems to be doing well with Gaia and Myst … and they with him.
Fourth rifle season ended a little past sunset last night – thank goodness. Every year, the human pressure increases. Where once it was horrible only during third season, now all the seasons have their pressures … from the first of September through late November. It’s exhausting for the animals (of which I’m only one two-legged critter).
Flash perks up from his nap long enough to give me a handsome look. He has two of Storm’s mares, so at least they’re together.
Third rifle season finally is over in Colorado.
I think it’s not an understatement or anthropomorphism to say that I and the animals (of all species) are in a state of relief. Interestingly, I think the hordes were fewer this year, and while I think most were well-behaved (and I met and talked to a few very nice individual hunters – including a very friendly young man from Oregon), there was at least one instance (relayed to me by a hunter who witnessed it from quite a distance and up a ridge away) of shooting from the road (totally illegal), possibly after the 30-minutes-after-sunset rule, onto private property (which may or may not have been properly noted as such on their OnX map apps).
I witnessed at least two hunters leaving their camp well past 30 minutes after sunset to go … somewhere? And when starting to head out of the basin one night after sunset, from deep-east in the basin, was passed by two hunters going even DEEPER into the basin. Flouting the rules?! Draw your own conclusion.
The horses have been nervous to the rifle shots and accompanying echoes, which caused everything from startling in place to taking off running en masse.
Relief? Huge.
There’s still fourth season, which starts Wednesday and runs through Sunday (blessedly short), but we rarely get hunters during that season – and not the camping-here, driving-up-and-down-the-road-from-5:14 a.m.-to-well-after-dark (I lose track) hunters that third season is (in)famous for hosting.
Early Friday morning, I saw subtle color in the scudding clouds in the southeastern sky and decided to see what was happening (let alone keep an eye out for any nefariousness). … That subtle color had faded to grey by the time I got out on the road. … But then … starting with just a couple of bands of flame above the horizon … THE LIGHT EXPLODED.
And behind me to the west:
There was quite a lot of distortion as the moon sank – quite unlike the sharp views when it rises? – but take my word for the marvelousity (kinda like gorgeousity – all phenomenal!).
My big camera and long lens simply can’t take it all in, so I switched to my phone. In the foreground is Disappointment Road heading southeast. Visible in the distance are Temple Butte and Brumley Point.
Presented in the order in which they were taken. I know they all look similar … but the sky went from spectacular to SPECTACULAR, and show me a photographer who can *stop* taking pix of a such a scene (you can’t, and we certainly can’t).
Bear with me (because you know there’s more).
Continuing in order … looking a bit more to the east (left). I laid down in the middle of the road to take this one, something I’d never have done at the height of the hunting season.
Meanwhile, what was happening behind me, where the moon had already set?
More gorgeousity! Looking northwest to Utah’s La Sal Mountains.
Back to the southeast … starting to see a different color hue as the Earth continued its rotation and the sun edged closer to its morning debut.
Clouds and light and land to the southwest, where the moon set before the colors took off (darnit!).
One more of our beloved horizon mountains.
Apologies to sailors for swapping words to the usual rhyme. 🙂 (Not really.) It WAS very windy, which I imagine wouldn’t be so fun if you had to row against it or sail with it propelling you away from your destination. But wow. I hope many, many photography-minded and beauty-loving people stopped what they were doing and admired the sunrise yesterday.
Speaking of big babies … Odin is still dependent on mama Shane (or so he probably likes to think … and she seems content to let him continue to think). 🙂
(Reminder: All that snow is gone now, currently.)
Seneca … so gorgeous in evening hues of light and bronze.
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We got SNOW yesterday! LOTS and lots of snow. On top of lots of rainy mud. To say it’s *soggy* in Disappointment Valley right now is the hugest of huge understatements. 🙂 Once again, I went into the basin to try to find ponies, but the snow was constant, and the visibility was extremely limited, so I returned without any snowy pony pix (or even pronghorns this time).
This moisture is extremely beneficial for our vegetation, the ponds and the water-storing catchments. After a long run of very warm and very dry weather, it’s nice to be in the mud again.
I just adore the richness of a beautiful bay mustang against the blues and golds of a rich desert background. Tenaz.
La Sals beyond Disappointment Valley/Creek cottonwoods.
We had rain in the valley – to the tune of almost 0.80 inch total (way, way more than we got in all of September). To say I’m “grateful” is a vast, vast understatement. 🙂
Now THAT looks like autumn. 🙂
By the time I was out with Mariah and her band on Saturday, the snow was noticeably melting, and clouds were lowering over the peaks. Sunday had more rain and super sogginess, and if I could have seen the mountains for the heavy clouds, I bet they’d have shown pristine white caps again.
Yes, major-super gratitude. 🙂
Prepare ye for brilliance.
When I went into the basin Saturday evening, this was the view to the northwest beyond Spring Creek Basin, its namesake canyon and lower Disappointment Valley. You can just see eastern Utah’s northern La Sal Mountains at the right edge of the vast curtain of storm-rain.
This pic, with its sage-covered foreground, semi-jagged horizon and gorgeous-glorious sky with angel rays above an isolated downpour of distant rain, illustrates *The West* to me.
Fast forward a couple of hours, and this was developing above our southeastern horizon: end of Valentine Mesa, Temple Butte, McKenna Peak, the crowns of submarine ridge and Brumley Point over Knife Edge, The Glade in the far distance (hi, Rick!) beyond Round Top and Flat Top.
At the same time as above, this was the view to the west. I thought we were going to get last light through that window to the right of the sun, but the clouds had other ideas.
While my very long lens is perfect for capturing pix of the mustangs, not even my wide-angle lens (if I’d had it along) is wide enough for this amazing view of Storm’s band under the, uh, storm clouds (he WAS born under a storm!).
The light on those clouds – and the very far ridges (bottom center between submarine ridge and Brumley Point) – with that narrow band of dark, dark blue (that’s rain away off yonder) … WOW. And just right of very bottom center is a young wild pony who recently left his family and is usually with a calm elder-ish bachelor but this evening was having fun (between peaceful-grazing energy-restoration periods) creating havoc among a few other widespread bands.
Storm at right heading back to his band after leaving a deposit on a stud pile on the road (where I am … really needing to leave as dark approaches but unwilling to leave the gorgeousity).
Other than sharpening, this pic is exactly as it came out of my phone’s most-excellent camera (how DID we survive without cameras in our phones that we can take to the wildest places on Earth?! I won’t be without my camera-cameras … but I do love my phone’s camera for the wide, wild shots). Nerd info: The other pix also had some shadow-lightening applied (with sharpening) to better see the horses in the foreground, but that’s it. WHO NEEDS AI when you have this kind of light happening right in front of you????
It’s straight-up magic, folks. Ma Nature is kind of a genius. 🙂 All I do is point and click. And share. 🙂
We didn’t get rain out of either of those storms … but we got *divine* and very fabulous rain Sunday morning!
(Thanks to Harry Potter for this post’s title/quote!)
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 