The warm light enveloping Kestrel and Piedra was at odds with the sharp wind at 40 degrees that felt more like 30 (or colder). I tossed my gloves on the ground a bit after this (dumb, but I was in a hurry to take advantage of a view), and my hands didn’t feel thawed till after I got back to the Jeep an hour later.
The heavily eroded hill in the distance is Flat Top. By virtue of the lingering snow, you can tell that we’re looking at the north-ish-facing slopes. That’s the hill I hiked up the last time we had snow. The treed ridge in the far background – marked with some open areas – is beyond Spring Creek Basin.
Interestingly, in editing mode, it looks like Word Press has doubled (?) the size at which it’s now displaying images, which is fantastic. The mustangs deserve to be seen large.
As the days of November slide toward December, the temperatures also are dropping. The light this time of year is magnificent, much warmer than the sharp breeze against your cheek would have you believe.
Sometimes I wonder whether it’s all real … or just happening in my hopes and dreams for these wild ones and the amazing corner of the world they call home.
If it’s a dream, it happens day after day, and I want it to never end. 🙂
Thanksgiving Day brought us a cloudy sky and a sharp breeze. At the very, very end of the day, then, sunshine illuminated the basin and gave us the golden glow of peace.
On this day of thanksgiving, I thought I’d share some images from the other day when I hiked to the top of Flat Top in Spring Creek Basin. Among the many objects of my gratitude: moisture. And these pix show it in most obvious form. 🙂
Starting about halfway up one of the western fins, this is looking west-northwestish across part of the western part of the basin. Filly Peak is the prominent hill at left. Part of Spring Creek canyon is visible on the right side of the image. Lingering clouds obscure most of Utah’s La Sal Mountains in the far distance. Note how much snow has already melted in the lower regions of Spring Creek Basin and far lower Disappointment Valley.
This is looking to the north-northwest.
And looking to the west-southwest. That’s Filly Peak again at far right. The already-meltedness is obvious in this image.
From the top, southern edge of Flat Top, this is the view looking across a small part of the southern part of Spring Creek Basin and across Disappointment Road (not visible), where the land rises to the south, encompassing more BLM land (outside the herd management area) before the invisible border where it meets San Juan National Forest.
From the east side of Flat Top, looking east: Round Top across most of the image, McKenna Peak at mid-left and Temple Butte at center-back.
The top of Flat Top isn’t really that big – and it’s also really not that flat, despite its appearance from below-the-top ground level. It’s made up of fins of ridges that stretch out and down, mostly to the northwestish and north on the north and west sides. In one little drainage, there’s a random little cluster of pinon-juniper trees – evidence of the collection, at least at one time, of moisture needed to grow trees.
The top of Round Top also really isn’t that big. I’ve been on top of that hill many, many times; the top of Flat Top, not so many times.
And here I am, back on the west side of Flat Top, stopping for one more soaking in of the view, even as the snow was soaking into the ground. Even more had melted in the time I was on top.
Those are my tracks from my hike up the ridge-fin. Melty-melty. I followed them back down …
… for one more visit with some of the wild horses for which I am so grateful. Look how the ground around the shadscale and sage already has been slurped by the plants. Yes, it was extraordinarily, sloppily, marvelously muddy. 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving to you all, for whom I’m also grateful! My family, of course, tops my list this day, and though I can’t be with them, we’re together in spirit, as I hope so many of you are with your own families if you’re avoiding travel.
Tesora seems to be my most willing partner for photos that illustrate the snow we get, on the infrequent snow days that we get.
This snow started as rain, and it was snow so wet, on top of ground so wet, it was soggy so fast, it’s amazing the world was white at all!
By the end of the day, it was pretty brown again, but it was that dark, soggy-brown-colored brown that’s ever so much better than light, dry, crispy brown that means we need more white in our world. 🙂
