Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Yesterday morning, after the rain this week, Disappointment Valley residents woke up to sunshine in the clear blue sky.

The ground was frosty, and apparently, when the sunshine hit the frost, moisture was released from its frozen state – quite a bit of moisture. Fog ensued. 🙂 Like, CRAZY fog. Like, fog we almost never, ever, EVER see in Disappointment Valley (or Southwest Colorado, for that matter).

Everyone will recognize Temple Butte on the foggy skyline. The fog had started to clear a little …

When I got to the top of the hill, I was in the sunshine, but the western part of the basin was not. What *should* you see in this pic? Filly Peak! It’s usually pretty hard to miss.

This is looking basically northish. The fog was clearing from the east; Filly Peak and the heavy fog is to my left.

Still on top of the hill, now looking southeast. The visible ground is Spring Creek Basin; away out yonder in the foggy world is beyond the basin’s boundary. What looks like snow is glistening moisture from melting/melted frost.

I wandered back and forth along the top of the hill … first east, then back west, then downhill to the northwest, then back up, then down to the northeast when I thought I heard the squealing of stallions. But the horses remained as elusive as the view beyond the fog, and I never did find them.

There’s Filly Peak! From this view, you should also be able to see the La Sal Mountains (which are sporting a very lovely drape of white now!). This is looking northwest.

And one more view looking over the south side of the hill I was on (which is in the southern part of the basin, just above Disappointment Road).

The fog, which had dissipated quite a bit when I got to the top of the hill, rolled back in and covered the world again, then flowed back out. I later drove up the valley into bright and complete sunshine, then returned down-valley to the world of fog.

Later, in the interior of Spring Creek Basin, this was our always-wonderful view in late afternoon:

See those little wisps to the left of Temple Butte and McKenna Peak? That’s all that remained of our crazy-awesome world-covering fog!

For perspective, the previous pix were taken from a hill away to the right – south – of where I was when I took the above pic.

Though I looked high and low for wild ponies to photograph in the fog, they foiled my attempts. (I did see horses, but they all were distant, enjoying their wild lives.) And I enjoyed a great hike in the mud, which, after the dust we endured the last many months, was AWESOME. 🙂