I’d like to say that Temple was just contemplating the bounty of the recent rains and the continuing benefit of being able to drink from a pond and not slurp from a seep. … But really, she was just watching her band members on the far side of the pond while she and two other band members drank from this side of the pond.
After a morning of drizzles, the sky cleared to that perfect Colorado-blue, then started to cloud up again ahead of overnight rain. Gotta love it – and we do!
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. 🙂
The mustangs don’t *always* cooperate when spectacular things are happening on the horizon. Posing really isn’t their jam (though they sometimes do it very well, indeed). However, although there are no mustangs in these pix, I decided they showed off the gorgeousity of Spring Creek Basin to such a degree that they stand on their own (and there *were* mustangs nearby; you just have to take my word for it!).
The rainbow Sunday evening was faint … and then it was BRIGHT. Never more than that little section, but wowza. Every strand of color was bright and clear and distinct:
That extreme brightness didn’t last very long. All I did when processing was to add a touch of sharpening. (I mean, really, how can you improve on that with a mere computer?!)
Then, last night, as I was leaving the basin, this interesting light-prism phenomenon, in nearly the same area of sky:
Mother Nature is booming in the high country with her annual aspen show, but she apparently didn’t want us in dry, brown Disappointment Valley to feel left out. 🙂
We are grateful!
Soooooooooooooooo magical!
Weird distortion courtesy of the crack across my phone camera lens (boo!). Otherwise … beautiful!
Do you see the lingering rainbow? Subtle as sunset light. 🙂
Not-so-subtle sunset colors looking west!
And ending the day with a view back to the east/southeast.
Blessed. No other word for it.
Skywalker looks as though he’s earned a bit of a nap in the shade of a big hill with a grand view of a developing storm east of Spring Creek Basin.
Photographers love stormy conditions. Is it any wonder?
Am I right?
A bit wider perspective.
Mustangs were around, but they were not as cooperative as a person could wish with that amazing background ever-changing. 🙂
Flash and his band were grazing from the still-sunny side of the bowl to the already-shady side of the bowl (what I call the series of open areas between ridges in the far northwest). I was uphill of them, which made it hard to also capture the very faint rainbow in the southeastern sky. And this was quite a bit later from the first two pix.
Gaia lingered longest (thanks, girl), but she mostly gave me butt shots (thanks, girl!). 🙂 This one shows more of the rain-mist behind the rainbow.
And a last image from nearly last light … just a hint of a prism in a couple of sections in the sky at right. I mean … stunning!
We’ve gotten a few little rain waves the last couple of days. “Rain” might be overstating things a bit, as they’ve been really more like 10- to 15-minute drizzles. The ground soaks up that moisture incredibly quickly, and it’s dry very soon afterward. But we’ll take it, and the night I took the above images, I found a pond with water. Actual water. 🙂 Joy!
Zowie America! That LIGHT!
The rainbow would start to form farther south/right not long after these pix were taken, as the storm was passing to the north (left) and dissipating. It never did grow to either blazing brilliance or a full arc. The left side was even more faint than the right side (which also was trying to double-arc), but if it had fully arc’d, it would have been HUGE.
No rain on us, but chances are better through Saturday?!
A hard, brief storm passed through Disappointment Valley and Spring Creek Basin (and the whole local area) Saturday, so you know what that means:
It’s hard to tell in this still image, but that water is moving. It’s flowing toward me along the ditch at left from just another 100 or so yards up the road (this is Road K20E, just east of Road 19Q). In some places, it had already stopped running, but the ditches were still soggy. There was more evidence of it having washed across the road farther along toward the basin (you can see the familiar horizon with the rimrocks, Filly Peak, McKenna Peak, Temple Butte, submarine ridge and Brumley Point rain-darkened (!) in the distance as the storm recedes to the east and southeast.
And of course, I knew what I’d find within Spring Creek Basin:
We had a number of these last year. This year, not so much. … ALWAYS fabulous to see water running across the first (as you come to it) Spring Creek crossing. It was already receding when I reached it in late afternoon, but the water (very muddy) was happily gurgling along.
From downstream a bit from the crossing (you can see it at just-left-of-top-center) looking upstream. There’s a rocky “beach” to the right that’s at least as wide as the creek bed itself, and it doesn’t look as though that flooded this time.
And from the same spot as above, now looking downstream. There’s a big curve straight ahead, and around that a bit is a seep that has water fairly consistently where the horses like to drink.
At most, floods like these last maybe 24 hours. This one probably – maybe – lasted 12? The rain came down pretty hard, but it didn’t last very long. And the rain, as hard as it was, didn’t penetrate very deep into the soil; an inch – maybe? We need a day(s)long rain that just sooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaks in deeply. That’s what the fragile, drought-stressed vegetation needs.
All the mustangs I saw were on the north side of the creek, and I didn’t cross it. 🙂 Can’t wait to see the evidence elsewhere in the basin when I *can* get across the muddy arroyo!
Heading to water. Chipeta is showing her age (she’s at least 20 now), but she still looks beautiful, especially under that dramatic sky. 🙂
Cue the angels:
As I was wandering the desert (seriously), hoping that tonight (which was last night) would be the night the clouds would part and I would get to see the moon rise … the clouds DID part, and a rainbow DID shine! I ask you: How does that happen!?!? 🙂 I’m not complaining, mind you, but Mother Nature is a wondrous, mysterious creature.
And then, this:
My desert wandering paid off!
If I ever get those glorious scenes with a gorgeous mustang right in my foreground, I’m going to keel right over without being able to hit the shutter even once, probably. 😉
This was the last night to get the moon rising with the sun only very recently set. When the moon is actually full on Sunday (happy lunar eclipse if you’re on the other side of our world from North America!), it’ll be rising in a dark sky.
But last night, as I walked away (OK, I might have been doing as much of an Olympic race-walk as I possibly could with a camera pack on my back, binoculars in the case on my front and carrying a monopod that really is not a hiking stick), THIS was hustling me along (and yes, there was lightning):
See the moon rising above Temple Butte and McKenna Peak and submarine ridge at lower right?
Conclusion: Sometimes the rainbows come and go well before the post-sunset rain. 🙂 (And I think the valley got fairly widespread (though light) rain!)
Happy, happy!
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 