Some relief

14 07 2026

This pic, taken Sunday from between the main/original water catchment and Filly Peak in Spring Creek Basin, is looking southeast toward the Glade and Benchmark Lookout. A few days before, I’d seen the red swaths of retardant across the trees while looking at smoke up there, but I didn’t manage to get a decent pic that showed it. While fire continues to smoke in that area (that’s the Ferris Fire’s northeastern edge), clearly firefighters and aircraft pilots have been hard at work. So hugely grateful! Rick and Linda Freimuth, who staff the tower during the fire season (!!!) hope get the green light to return this week. The mustangs and I (you know they would if they could) will be cheering their return.

Now, some taken yesterday (Monday):

Storm brewing to the east. Spring Creek Basin’s western rimrocks and Filly Peak (lower left) are in sunshine, while Temple Butte, McKenna Peak, Brumley Point and the basin’s eastern ridges are shadowed by rain! Woo-the-heck-hoo!

Looking back to the west from the same spot as above. More rain! What looks like white smoke on the horizon at left IS smoke from the Ferris Fire … and I hope it got a good dose of the wet stuff. It wasn’t a high-rain-chance day, but toss the forecast and let ‘er rain!

Methinks the weather wizards were outsmarted by Ma Nature herself. 😉 RAIN, BABY, RAIN! This is from Chrome’s Point in western Spring Creek Basin, looking eastish at a curtain of rain that DID, as I was taking pix, make its way west. Unfortunately, I didn’t get tooooo wet. Ha – I would not have minded!

Ants congregating at the entrance to their mound. Apparently, “Ants congregate at their mound entrances after rain primarily to survive flooding. When underground tunnels fill with water, the colony is forced to evacuate. They move the queen, larvae, and food upward to escape the saturation, using the surface or mound entrance as a temporary, elevated sanctuary.” Interestingly, these ants and others I saw doing the same thing in the same relative area happened to be on some of the highest ground in the basin, near the western boundary. I guess that when you’re an ant, everything is at the elevation of ground level (ha ha!).

From the south wall of Spring Creek canyon looking eastish after the rain (it didn’t last very long, unfortunately).

Hope you don’t mind this view! It’s pretty spectacular. No, that’s not a road down there in the canyon; that’s Spring Creek arroyo, and just beyond (lower left), it leaves Spring Creek Basin to cross lower-ish Disappointment Valley on its way to join Disappointment Creek (neither of which are carrying water at the moment).

See the pinto pony? This is from the same point as the above two pix, looking generally northwestish across lower Disappointment Valley toward Utah’s La Sal Mountains. There’s a fence across this lower end of the canyon to keep the mustangs within Spring Creek Basin, and there’s a water gap (hanging PVC pipes to move when water DOES flow) across the Spring Creek arroyo. There are a couple of manmade structures down there, one behind McKenna and one kind of in front of him.

As it turned out, though he and his pal and a band were in the vicinity – and the reason I walked out – it was something else entirely that actually took me all the way to the canyon rim. … And that will wait for another post because I got some pix that knocked even my socks off.

To end this post, news that I never want to post because I want it to never have happened, some really tragic news from the Gold Mountain Fire near Ouray and Ridgway: A pilot was killed Sunday when his aircraft, used to aid firefighting efforts on that fire, crashed into Silver Jack Reservoir, in southwestern Gunnison County, on the northeast side of the fire. It’s the worst of all news to lose another firefighter. 😦


Comments : 6 Comments »

Categories : Benchmark Lookout, Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Ferris Fire, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Rain, Spring Creek, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon, Temple Butte, The Glade, Utah, Virga, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Synchronous dusting

7 07 2026

Maiku and Corazon, of course, weren’t thinking of the humor, but in these wildfire days, I’ll take a smile at any opportunity. (Pic from a couple of days ago; yesterday was basically a brown haze nearly all day.)

Fire news: The Ferris Fire is 51,622 acres as of Monday night, and containment has increased to 22 percent. Nearly 540 people are working on this fire, and I would lay a bet that all surrounding residents are unimaginably grateful for every single one of them. Isn’t that pretty fabulous? We may not know any one of them; we love each and every one of them for fighting for OUR lands, our homes, our wildlife, our lives. No caveats, just absolute and total gratitude.

I got lucky with timing on this one, which *was* taken yesterday evening from Chrome’s Point in the basin. It was around 6:30 p.m., and the chopper was heading north from the Ferris Fire, likely back to base in … Montrose? Grand Junction? I wanted to jump up and down and wave and flash high fives, but I probably looked like an ant.

Or possibly a humanoid alien. 🙂 The smoke was bad enough when I set out that I added a mask to my accoutrements. By the time of this pic (sunset-ish yesterday), I may not have needed it, but maybe safer than sorrier? And take a gander to the far northwest mountains (Utah’s La Sals). Is that virga?!? One (and probably a whole lot more than this (some)one) can only hope that even some of that was hitting the parched earth.


Comments : 10 Comments »

Categories : Benchmark Lookout, BLM, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Catchup

5 07 2026

These pix were taken the evening of Friday, July 3:

I wasn’t going to go to Spring Creek Basin on Friday. Just watching the smoke from a relatively safe vantage, I *cannot* even begin to fathom the strength and accompanying exhaustion of the firefighters, the law-enforcement rangers, officers, deputies, residents evacuating the Ferris Fire (and others around the region; we’re all in our own communities of what-ifs and fears and plannings). Then, in the evening, the smoke did one of those giant plumes on the west/southwestern side (where it crossed the Dolores River), and my journalist brain kicked in (journalist brain = aka nosy-nellie = aka curiosity-never-hurt-anybody, eh?), and out I went. Above: From Chrome’s Point at the western side of Spring Creek Basin, looking nearly straight south, see the plane above the treed ridge (that’s the south ridgeline of Disappointment Valley at the lower-ish southwestish end/side of the valley)? I regularly use Chrome’s Point to glass a big swath of the big basin that IS Spring Creek Basin, and from there, I heard the drone of a big plane (air tanker), and to my surprise, I actually saw it. It was much higher when I first spotted it, flying from right (west) to left (east) … then it banked to go south, and as you see it above, it’s turning east/southeast again and just about to drop out of sight. Again, there’s a fair (!) amount of distance between the fire and the basin, so there was no way I’d see it drop its load of retardant slurry … but I’m sure you can find impressive videos online of those pilots doing that amazing work.

This was as backed out as my big lens could go to give you a view – and context – of the western end of Filly Peak at left, the straight-south, far southern ridge(s) of Disappointment Valley and Friday evening’s blowup of the west/southwest side of the Ferris Fire, burning south of Disappointment and Spring Creek Basin in northern Montezuma County (where it started) and right up the westish-middle of Dolores County. San Miguel County is the next county north, and that’s where this part (and most of) Spring Creek Basin is located. … Interestingly, though I thought I hadn’t caught the plane in this image, when I was way zoomed in on the computer to clone out (dratted) dust spots, I’m pretty sure I actually spotted it, juuuuuust above the tree line at far right. Again, the pix above are from Friday evening.

This is a very wide-angle phone shot from Disappointment Road looking south/southeast/eastish, earlier in the evening than I took the pix above from inside the basin. The familiar landmarks of Brumley Point, Temple Butte and McKenna Peak are at far left. That is really not something you want to see – that kind of super-active fire activity! – but flames on the hillside south of your home has to be about a billion times worse (see below).

The Ferris Fire now is up to 41,337 acres, and containment has dropped to 7 percent as the fire has grown (as of Saturday night). A staggering “500 personnel are now working the fire. A Complex Incident Management Team has been ordered to provide additional management and logistical support.” That information is from a 7:30 p.m. July 4 report on Watch Duty (if you live in the West, or know people who do, for goodness sake, download it to your phone if you can; it’s massively informative, and the network they have to report on so many fires is nothing short of amazing).

As of Saturday, July 4 (hope you all celebrated Independence Day safely!), maybe Friday (?), Disappointment Road is closed to through traffic. From the west, heading up-valley-southeast, the closure is at the old Perkins corrals; coming down-valley, northwest from the Dolores-Norwood Road, the closure is just above/southeast of Ryman Creek Road. Ryman Creek and Black Snag roads already are closed. In its run north, the fire bypassed Benchmark Lookout (thankfully being aggressively protected by firefighters; if you’re on Instagram, follow @benchmark_rick; Rick and his wife, Linda, staff the tower during fire season … it’s so crazy that they’re not actually there during this fire, but thank goodness they’re safe! they’re helping with supplies at the Salter Y Spike Camp) and started down/north toward Disappointment Valley on Friday night. Up-valley neighbors watched actual flames, as did (at least) San Miguel County deputies, who were stationed up there until around midnight. Smoke is bad enough … seeing flames on the hillside south of your home … I can’t imagine. 😦

Today’s big shoutout goes to San Miguel County Undersheriff Nick Xavier, who, along with deputies Todd Rector, Derek Kibel and Jeremy Platt, and Dolores County deputy Branson Smith, has been keeping me updated about the fire in this neck of the Disappointment Valley piñon-juniper woods. Along with above-and-beyond information-sharing by my BLM range guy Ryan Schroeder (Anton Rambur and Laura Heaton are on the fire), my gratitude is high to all of these folks for keeping calm and keeping eyes and ears on the situation.

From Undersheriff Xavier’s mention of pix he saw, three links to – get this – images of the Ferris Fire with the aurora above flames:

Link to a reddit post by someone in Lewis, Colorado (north of Cortez), looking north. Click the little arrow on the right side of the pic to see the second image.

Link to a post by “Meteorologist Chris Nunley from Cortez, Colorado. This is Facebook, but I could see the post, and I’m not on FB, so hopefully you’ll be able to follow the link, even if you’re also not on FB.

Link to a post by “Meteorologist Joe Ruch CBS Colorado” of the Ferris Fire and northern lights. Also a FB post.

Did I see the northern lights? No, no, I did not. Once again, I slept right through the show. One of these days (err, nights …) … !

And your pony pic from Friday night:

Maiku kicking up dust (we don’t need any more smoke OR dust!) while smoke from the Ferris Fire (coming from the south/left) and Babylon Fire (across our whole western horizon) casts a golden glow over our ponies that isn’t nearly as lovely as simple golden sunset light.


Comments : 12 Comments »

Categories : Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

A tale of two skies

3 07 2026

It should go without saying: Every day, the fire – and the smoke – is different. The Ferris Fire is up to 28,801 acres and 10 percent contained. As Watch Duty says, “That still leaves a lot of uncontained perimeter, but fire crews are still on the line this hour [6:42 p.m.] working to increase that number and there will be personnel working overnight again tonight [Thursday, July 2].”

Yesterday morning, Disappointment Valley was pretty socked in with dense smoke again, but it cleared faster than the day before (which is still relative, as smoke still lingered closer to the ground into early afternoon). Fortunately, it’s lifting by late afternoon and evening.

Yesterday afternoon, it became, as noted, a tale of two skies: smoke across the entire east, from south to north from the Ferris Fire; low smoke across the western horizon from the Babylon Fire in southeastern Utah (81,494 acres!) and clear blue sky above, south/southwest across the west to the north.

These next three pix are the Ferris Fire smoke:

That’s the southern – probably southwestern – edge of the Ferris fire, south of Disappointment Valley (more the upper valley than the lower valley, which is behind me). The smoke is drifting to the left, which is north.

Looking southeast/eastish straight up-valley and up Disappointment Road from southwest of Spring Creek Basin. (I know, it’s weird; up-valley in Disappointment Valley is up/higher elevation, and it’s southeast, which people usually refer to as “down”!) The rimrocks at lower left form the western boundary of Spring Creek Basin, and that’s Filly Peak, within the basin, just above them. On a clear day, you could see Temple Butte and McKenna Peak and Brumley Point from this vantage point.

This is looking east/northeast/north. Even with my phone’s widest angle, I can’t get the entire smoke-drift in one image, south to north, basically. See that blue sky at left in the photo above and to the right in the first pic?

Now let’s turn directly around and look west/northwest, and this was the view: mostly blue sky above the low smoke layer, mingling with some low clouds, from the Babylon Fire, drifting again from south to north across our western horizon. Quite a difference in the two halves of the sky, eh?

Now a couple of evening pix, looking at the changed smoke from the fires:

Seneca and Chipeta, looking west toward Spring Creek canyon, sunset and the Babylon Fire smoke.

Flash’s band, looking south to the sunset-colored smoke from the Ferris Fire.


Comments : 7 Comments »

Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon, Temple Butte, The Glade, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Glow-up

2 07 2026

Yesterday was not the prettiest day under the smoke layers. … In fact, until late afternoon/early evening, it was pretty downright ugly (!). The fire moved toward the Dolores River canyon on its west side, and those delicious new fuels sent up a great deal of smoke. Morning found us super socked in … and it just didn’t lift or drift until much later in the day, which was – you guessed it –another red-flag-warning day. Today, the same.

The mustangs continue to fare well through it all. They have forage, they have water, they have each other. When it comes right down to it, they have the important things kinda nailed. Mysterium, Gaia and Maple above.

If you’re using the Watch Duty app, you can find the below information there. I thought the updates Wednesday night for earlier in the day were informative, so I’m going to post them here (and huge thanks to those folks doing the updating?!). There has been a massive amount of work done by firefighting ground crews as well as air attack. It’s humbling to know those folks are out there giving every ounce of their strength to fighting this fire. The Ferris Fire apparently has its own Facebook page, but that’s beyond my knowledge.

Michael Silvester • Senior Manager of Operations & Standards

22 minutes ago • Jul 1 at 9:58 PM

The Ferris Fire is expected to reach the Dolores River Canyon tonight as it backs down Doe Canyon. Fire crews will continue monitor this area closely tonight and will be in close communication with Dolores County out of an abundance of caution.

Tomorrow [today, July 2], a number of engines will staff the west side of the canyon. The Incident Management Team is also coordinating closely with the local fire protection.

Michael Silvester • Senior Manager of Operations & Standards

3 minutes ago • Jul 1 at 9:32 PM

Zone 8 [I believe this is directly west of the fire] is now on “Set” status & the parameters for that zone can be seen above, per the update from Dolores County Office of Emergency Management on Facebook. SET Means Be Ready to Leave & means there’s a wildfire in the area, and conditions could change quickly. It’s time to be alert, stay informed, and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

When you’re SET:

– Load your go-kit into your vehicle.

– Park facing out for a quicker departure.

– Follow updates from official fire and emergency channels.

– Review your evacuation routes and know where you’ll go.

– Get pets and livestock ready to leave with you.

Being SET doesn’t mean you need to leave yet.

Total acreage: 25,814 Total personnel: 282

Today [yesterday, July 1], the Arroyo Grande Hotshots continued to dig containment line on the northeast corner of the fire nearest to private lands. An additional dozer and hotshot crew will be in place tomorrow to continue this mission. Favorable weather conditions will allow overnight burnout operations to continue this evening.

Dozer work on the southwest corner of the fire was completed. Firefighters will continue improving and developing containment line in this area.

The west side of the fire, closest to the Dolores River Canyon, continues to present challenges for direct engagement. Additional divisions were added to respond to this expected growth.

Susan Perney • Coverage Reporter

About 4 hours ago • Jul 1 at 5:42 PM

Three Type 1’s and one smaller helicopter are working the various hotspots around the fire. Air tankers have also been dropping retardant to slow the fire’s growth on the southern end where Doe Canyon meets the Dolores River Canyon.

A second interagency Hotshot Crew (IHC) will be arriving later today. Current plans call for them to assist with creating fire line in rugged terrain on the fire’s northeast corner near the lookout. The goal is to prevent the fire from reaching and threatening homes and private property in the Glade Ranch Subdivision and to protect the lookout itself. Despite several large fires in Colorado and surrounding states we are continuing to get more resources to support the crews on the ground and in the air. 280 firefighters and support personnel are now assigned to the fire.

**********

That Montana-shaped smoke is from the Ferris Fire, which has moved north and northwest and is overlapping the western-horizon smoke from Southwest Colorado and Utah fires.

Smoke in the pic is NOT as close as it seems, nor as awful as it looks. I mean, it IS awful where it is, but it is not super close to Spring Creek Basin. I actually debated showing this pic, and I decided to do it, not for drama factor, which I’m aware that it has, but because that was the scene toward sunset looking south/southeast, and I think it helps tell the story. A recovering journalist, still, I am.

We remain incredibly grateful to all the firefighters and folks supporting the crews working on the Ferris Fire *AND* all the other fires burning near and not-so-near. I particularly value my partnership with my local BLM folks, which includes this challenging time, during which they are, as you might guess, super busy. Thanks (again!) to Ryan for taking the time to keep me updated about goings-on; you can’t imagine how grateful I am.

And thank you also to everyone who has messaged me asking about the safety of the mustangs; I appreciate that immensely.

They’re OK. We’re OK. 🙂


Comments : 13 Comments »

Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, The Glade, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Windy again; more and less smoke

1 07 2026

After a pretty smoky early morning, the wind blew it east and away again most of the rest of the day. The wind still is switching between southwest and southeast and south. Cassidy Rain and her band were just leaving water; you can see the mud on her right front leg.

This is a very wide view (cell phone) from the main/original water catchment looking south/southeast. The source (ish?) of the Ferris Fire is at far right. I think it might have been the wind that had the smoke so ragged; clouds were actually visible low to the horizon, through the smoke. (Is that weird? It seems weird; the smoke on the horizon(s) has been so dense that it seems unusual to see anything beyond it, whether that’s the far ridges or even clouds.) You can see how clear it is between here and there. Fortunately for the mustangs, they’re not dealing with a lot of smoke.

From near the western boundary of Spring Creek Basin, looking west/northwest as the sun drops into a bank of smoke drifting from the Utah fires and maybe some farther southwest of Disappointment Valley in Colorado. Earlier in the day, the mountains were fully visible and the smoke was behind (west) of them. Then there was a period during the day when the mountains were fully obscured by smoke again. And here, at the end of the day, they were visible below the band of smoke. I think that great band of smoke was from the southern fires and joining smoke from the northern fires (like the Snyder Mesa Fire).

This last image is from about the same place as the one above, but now we’re looking nearly directly north. See the painterly smoke from left that fingers to the right, right of center? That’s from the western fires. See the greyer smoke at right? That’s from the Ferris Fire. Straight south and to the southwest, we’ve had a clear sky, and straight-ish north, we’ve had a clear sky. Tonight, the smokes from west and east have joined in the north. Wild, right? (If you look closely, those white dots at center left, on the sloping edge of the northern Spring Creek canyon side, are mustangs. :))

We continue to be very lucky in location, and the mustangs are doing very well.


Comments : 10 Comments »

Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Between the smokes

30 06 2026

Gratefully, while the Ferris Fire burns 20,560 acres to the southeast and the McCloud Fire and Horse Head Fire burn 113 and 530 acres, respectively, to the southwest (and that smoke is joined from the Snyder Mesa Fire (30,163 acres) to our north/northwest, drifting southish), Spring Creek Basin and lower Disappointment Valley were mostly smoke-free yesterday.

In the pic above, Tenaz and Skywalker, grazing with their band almost at the western boundary of the basin, are highlighted by that drifting smoke to the west. It’s fairly far away, but I haven’t seen Utah’s La Sal Mountains for at least a few days now as the smoke obscures any sight of them.

Now looking east/southeast, that’s the smoke from the Ferris Fire (the Doe Canyon, Far Draw and Ferris fires all have merged and are now being collectively called the Ferris Fire). But see how clear it is between here and there? Not great for folks and critters in that direction … but (again, gratefully), a huge relief for my beloved center-of-the-world Spring Creek Basin.

Huge thanks to sheriff’s deputies from both Dolores and San Miguel counties (Disappointment Valley spans both counties, and Disappointment Road runs from Colorado Highway 141 at the lower north end to the Dolores-Norwood Road at the upper southeast end) who have been diligent in keeping an eye on the fire’s approach: Branson, Todd, Derek, Jeremy and Nick. Also to my BLM folks, especially Ryan and Laura, for keeping an eye on the situation and updating me with information. Anton was on one of the fire crews pulled back Saturday for safety on the Doe Canyon Fire, and he might still be on a fire crew on the merged fire.

To all the firefighters out there, heartfelt thanks and prayers for your hard work and continued safety. The firefighters killed while fighting the Snyder Mesa Fire have been identified. There are really no words to describe the heartbreaking loss of those young lives.


Comments : 5 Comments »

Categories : Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

Close to home

28 06 2026

This won’t be an easy post to either read or view.

*THE MUSTANGS ARE SAFE*

That’s the important thing (as far as the main topic of this blog, anyway).

Yesterday, Saturday, June 27, at least three wildfires of significance roared to life directly south of Disappointment Valley: Ferris Fire (4,777 acres as of Saturday evening), Far Draw Fire (651 acres) and Doe Canyon Fire (385 acres). There’s also the Horse Head Fire (200 acres) burning to the southwest, in Utah, and the Snyder Fire (28,264 acres) burning north-northwest of here, almost directly west of Grand Junction and just inside Utah.

Red-flag warnings; check.

Wind advisories; check.

Bad air quality; check.

Critical fire weather; check.

Stage 2 fire restrictions in San Miguel and Montrose counties; check (these might extend to other nearby counties, but these are the ones I know about, and most of Spring Creek Basin is in San Miguel County, with the southern/southeastern portion in Dolores County).

Kentucky is flooded, and the West is on fire. Friday night, we had a swift little storm pass through Disappointment Valley – 0.04 inch from four minutes of rain. My guess (guess only; I don’t know yet the cause of these fires) is that they started from lightning strikes. It is one giant tinder box out there. Until the little bit of rain Wednesday, it hadn’t rained here for more than a month.

If images of wildfire smoke bother you (it bothers me), the rest of this post isn’t for you … and the pictures, as usual, don’t convey the bad-ness of the beast. … Again, please know that the mustangs are SAFE. I can’t say what the fires will or will not do, but for now, the horses are OK and not in danger.

I spent most of Saturday in Ridgway with mustang friends, and this is what greeted me and Kat Wilder upon our return to Disappointment Valley. This is from the northern part of the valley, a few miles south of Colorado Highway 141, looking southeast.

Looking west at sunset; this smoke is from the Utah fires.

The majority of the smoke seems to be passing east of the eastern side of Spring Creek Basin; McKenna Peak, Temple Butte and Brumley Point are all visible. … The smoke ain’t great up-valley; it smells like you’re in the middle of a campfire (and by the way, campfires and any other kind of fires are strictly verboten (that means forbidden!), not to mention dumb as hell).

Stage 2 fire restrictions in San Miguel County, Colorado:

Stage II Restrictions

The following are prohibited under Stage II restrictions:

  1. Open Fires
    1. No campfires, charcoal grills, wood-burning stoves, chimineas, tiki torches, or any open flames, even at private homes or campgrounds.
    2. Gas grills or propane stoves are allowed if they can be turned on and off, and only in areas cleared of flammable materials.
  2. Smoking except within an enclosed vehicle or building
  3. Chainsaws or other equipment powered by an internal combustion engine, unless it has a working spark arresting device
  4. Outdoor welding or acetylene torches unless in a cleared area at least 10 feet wide and a pressurized fire extinguisher must be on hand
  5. Off-road driving or parking: vehicles must stay on established roads, trails, or parking areas. No parking over dry grass.
  6. Explosives and fireworks

Post-sunset looking west again. … This is NOT the “red glare” we like to see. 😦

Please, please be careful out there.


Comments : 15 Comments »

Categories : Benchmark Lookout, Brumley Point, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, McKenna Peak, Moon, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte, Utah, Wildfire, Wildfire smoke

When it was clear

16 03 2026

Going back a couple of days, to the time before the wind when the mountains were still clear on the northwestern horizon.

I read an article recently about how lack of dust on the snow of the mountains is a good thing. … And it is (dust causes the snow to melt more rapidly). … But I imagine that those same researchers will find a pretty “good” layer of dust after this weekend, and that just joins the bad news of “skimpy snow” (according to the article) to begin with.

Still, we have to admire the positive, and that’s Flash and all our other wild ones in that magnificent landscape. … And pray for a wet(ter???) spring.


Comments : 6 Comments »

Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Spring Creek canyon, Utah

Off he goes

14 03 2026

Corazon’s band was in the same area that evening, and even though you can’t see his face and eyes, I liked this pic as he led his band away toward water.


Comments : 7 Comments »

Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Utah

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