A little bit of a throwback, as the recent wind (for the last few days?!) was reminding me of the day the wind brought snow. No snow since then, but Seneca always looks beautiful waiting for it!
Looking south, that’s snow coming over the southern ridges of Disappointment Valley.
This was toward the end of the 15 or 20 minutes I spent with Buckeye’s band while it snowed. There’s a fair bit of snow cover on the ground – and on the horses!
I thought the horses would likely turn their butts to the strong wind that was sending the snow straight at them broadside, but they grazed around as though it wasn’t windy at all. I kept *my* back to the wind and the snow because I didn’t want the flakes hitting my lens inside the lens hood and making it even harder for the camera to find focus on the horses (as opposed to the flakes in the air)… but the tradeoff was that the snow was hitting the eye piece of the camera, which meant I couldn’t see anything but watery blobs! So I was trusting that my camera’s focus beeps indicated that it really was finding focus on the horses and just sort of guessing at composition. Amazingly, it did a great job at finding focus on the horses through the air that was THICK with fat flakes blowing crazily past us. The wind and snow started out of the southeast, and by the time I left the horses, it had shifted a bit and was coming more from straight east.
The horses were getting pretty coated in snow by the time I left them – maybe 15 or 20 minutes after the snow reached us? – and I didn’t think about it until I was brushing myself off for the trip home, but I also was covered in snow. Ha! It’s like not noticing the biting cold when I’m with the ponies … but only later. Their magical bubble encompasses me and blocks out any adverse conditions (heat or cold, snow or sharp sunshine). 🙂 I’m completely sure that my presence doesn’t act in the reverse, for *them* … but I wish it did!
From bright blue skies to white-out blizzard! Mother Nature actually came through for us yesterday afternoon. 🙂
I was in about the center of Spring Creek Basin, and the snow was coming from the eastish/southeastish for probably two hours, and I was despairing of it ever getting really to us (“us” being a form of the royal we, meaning the horses – and me in their midst). At precisely 2:45 (I turned my phone on to look), the leading snowflakes started flying with the wind that had started pushing maybe 15 or so minutes earlier.
Fairly quickly, the ground went from dry and brown to showing kabillions of snowflakes to having collected so many individual snowflakes – blown by the horizontal wind! – that the ground was white. The horses were collecting nearly as much snow on their coats and their manes and forelocks and faces as the ground. It doesn’t show super well on pale Rowan, but I should have some more snow-pony pix over the next couple of days (by Monday, we’re supposed to be enjoying 60-plus-degree temps!).
The cold front announced its arrival in Disappointment Valley yesterday morning with wind and dramatic skies. Utah’s La Sal Mountains were blocked from sight by a snow squall in/over western Disappointment Valley most of the afternoon.
I drove into Spring Creek Basin briefly, just in time to see a little snow squall rolling from north to south across the eastern ridges of the basin. In contrast to the other day, when the snow blazed a trail across the basin, yesterday, the snow was all around but never atop us.
Horses were visible in the distance, but I decided that this would be more of a scenery day.
On my way out of the basin, I happened upon the group of about 15 pronghorns that have been hanging around together lately. By the time I saw them, stopped, got the camera out of my pack and aimed, at least half of them had dropped off their little ridge.
Away out yonder in those breaks and canyons is the Dolores River.
From back on the Disappointment Road, another isolated little squall was dropping snow along Horse Park, a narrow little valley between Spring Creek Basin and beyond. You can recognize part of the far ridge as the same one in the background of the Maiku pic a couple of posts ago. The rimrocks at the bottom, semi-foreground are the western boundary of Spring Creek Basin.
And just a little south of the previous pic, the squall was still moving south over Temple Butte. In the near foreground are cottonwoods and tamarisk along Disappointment Creek.
This is yet farther south (from my vantage point, I’m looking sort of southeast-ish). While I was trying to get the snow over the very far (and much higher elevation) ridges, a golden eagle was flying over the scene. See it above the cottonwood at left?
We’ll close with another, tighter view across Disappointment Creek and Spring Creek Basin. You can see the basin’s western rimrocks, Flat Top, Round Top, submarine ridge, McKenna Peak and Temple Butte – snow beyond.
Gosh, I love this place. 🙂
Wherever you are, I hope you’re warm these next few days!
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. 🙂
There’s not quite as much snow under-hoof as there appears to be in this image with Skywalker, still wet from recently falling snow. … But at this point, ANY little bit is needed and welcome.
When a wild pony poses, you generally have about 2.7 seconds to either take the shot or get into position to take the shot … or you don’t get the shot because wild ponies don’t generally hang about posing for paparazzi.
Flash did me a super solid and posed for probably at least 12.8 seconds before he moseyed on after his mares.
Plenty ‘o time. 🙂
That’s snow in the background, swirling and whirling with the wind between us and McKenna Peak and Temple Butte. It snowed in the morning, too, but other than the far eastern ridges of Spring Creek Basin, it left nothing behind. … And by the time I took this pic in the evening, most of what had stuck to those ridges was gone again.
Keep trying, Mother Nature. We need that moisture badly (and that makes me think of the terrible wildfires in California, where I read they’ve had just 0.16 inch of moisture since May … ouch. THAT is just astoundingly dry). Keep trying, Mother Nature. …
Forget the goats. Join the mustangs for a little stretching session. 🙂
That’s McKenna Peak in the background, still under foggy snow. We got a skiff of snow that morning (Tuesday morning), but it didn’t last long. Nor did it make the ground any kind of damp when it was gone. Our need for snow is getting a bit desperate.
When I was a young Coloradan, newly moved to Durango from Texas, my then-co-workers at The Durango Herald can attest to the fact that the first time snow fell that winter, I went a little bonkers with excitement.
Not much has changed, 22-plus years later. 🙂
We had another great (rain to) snowfall overnight, and it was a wonderland of white this morning – and muddymuddymuddy underneath. The snow is nearly all melted – at least down-valley – now, but rather than wait for tomorrow, here’s a peek at the Thanksgiving-Eve bounty in Spring Creek Basin:
Shortly after sunrise, Chrome’s Point, looking south-southeastish. Flat Top and Round Top are at left in the distance, and Filly Peak is at right.
Looking back north-northwestish, the difference in light is dramatic (this was maybe only 10-15 minutes after the first pic?) as the clouds linger at the higher elevations south and east of Spring Creek Basin and have started clearing to the west and north (though the mountains were engulfed in clouds the whole time I was out).
Holy heavenly light. If I’d been able to see that spotlight of light, with my own eyeballs, at the time, I would have brought out the big gun (these are all from my phone – handy little pocket cam that it is). Wow. Knife Edge is ahead to the left; Brumley Point is visible at far right. Temple Butte and McKenna Peak are still completely within the clouds.
Round Top – aka Saucer (as in flying) Hill – with snow still pouring from the moisture-laden clouds to the southern ridges of Disappointment Valley and beyond to the Glade.
I was just below the base of Knife Edge with mustangs when Temple Butte and McKenna Peak were starting to emerge from the still-billowing clouds. Dramatic much?!?
Heading back to my buggy and the road, looking upstream at the Spring Creek arroyo toward its source at McKenna Peak … Temple Butte behind it … submarine ridge to the right … Brumley Point straight ahead (it sits right on the basin’s southeast boundary) … Round Top at far right. Water WAS trickling through the bed of the arroyo in some places (like where I crossed).
From the ridge at the main/original water catchment (oh, how I hope this snow provided lots and lots of water for our catchments!), looking eastish across the basin. I mean … who DOESN’T get giddy at the sight of snow?! 🙂 Knife Edge is the ridge at far left with the top rim just barely free of snow. See the trees at the base of the ridge at almost farthest left? That’s where the ponies are (the ones I visited, anyway).
This one’s a little out of order, but it sums it all up. 🙂 I love mustangs; I love snow; I love Spring Creek Basin and its mustangs in the snow!
That’s our water. Our moisture. Our lifeblood for growing things.
So, so, so, SOOOOO grateful this Thanksgiving Eve. Happy gratitude to all you wonderful readers and your families on this, my very favorite holiday. Hope you all get to spend it with those you love, in places you love. 🙂
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 