Moab Trip--Day 1: Elk, San Rafael Swell, & Goblin Valley

Last weekend we took a three-day trip, with Moab as our main destination. I had signed up for a 5k Adventure Race, part of the Moab Trail Marathon race. My husband agreed to take three whole days off. That might not sound like much to some; I work with a bunch of people who regularly have three days off each week. But for us, three whole days together is quite an occasion. So I started planning early, bound and determined to make the best of those three days. I looked through guidebooks and trolled the Internet looking for the best things to do and places to go.

Not far out of town, we came across something I hadn't planned for. We saw a big bunch of beasts out in the distance. Were they wild horses? No, that didn't seem right. They were elk. Totally unexpected, as we had never seen them there before. Fortunately I had my camera handy, and we pulled over to the side of the road to watch them.

The elk started running. Where were they going?

Towards a herd of pronghorn. Oh my goodness, it was like Wild America right in our backyard. Wow!
We passed several more herds of pronghorn--probably 40 to 50 in total. My husband reminisced about how few pronghorn he saw as a little boy. The population sure has increased since then.

The first hour and a half of driving we were with my brother and his friend. She was having some car troubles and we wanted to make sure they made it okay. It was a good thing we did, as her car broke down and we had to give it a jump. Fortunately that allowed them to get to a bigger town where they could get replacement parts. We bid adieu and headed our different directions. Soon we were on I-70, heading across the middle of Utah. We needed a stretch break at one point, so we pulled off at one of the many rest stops along the scenic San Rafael Swell.

It was hard not to take off hiking down in the beautiful country! The agreeable temperatures made it even more appealing. Desert Boy was full of energy, so we climbed around a bit.

Don't fall!

It made me want to climb so much! But I had decided climbing wasn't on the agenda for this trip, at least not technical climbing. We had other things to do and places to go. The next was Goblin Valley State Park, about 40 minutes off the Interstate. I had seen the signs several times, but never had taken the time to visit. This time we were going.

Here's the view from the parking lot. It looks like a lot of little gnomes. If it looks slightly familiar, it might be because a scene from the movie Galaxy Quest was filmed here.

I told Desert Boy we could play Hide-n-Seek, and he took off running.

Where are you, Desert Boy?
It was a good game, and as we were visiting off season, we had it nearly to ourselves. Plus we were perfectly comfortable in jeans and shirts.

Desert Boy took a photo of us. We are trying to be better about getting family shots, and I realized we should try for a few couple shots, too.

Amid all the dry, desolate goblins we found one little muddy pool. The kids wanted to know how deep it was. I told them they could, but they weren't allowed to fall in.

This was their solution. It fit with the little chant they say frequently: "What's going to work? Teamwork. What's going to work? Teamwork." It is always music to my ears.

Goblin Valley State Park has three fairly short trails. I think we were on part of one for a little while. I would love to go back and do more. We drove through their campground and found that the campsites are not only located in a great location, but the campground has showers! That made us want to go back even more. A few amenities while camping are highly desirable to this family! Plus I would love to go hiking around the goblins under a full moon.

Our day wasn't finished--my Internet research had revealed a nearby slot canyon...to be continued...

Finding Snake Skins

 I was ready to do some desert exploring one morning, so I headed to an area I hadn't visited in years.

This Hole-in-the-Ground Sinkhole. It's quite stunning, especially since you don't know it's there until you're at the edge. One side has really steep cliffs. Since I had never walked completely around it, I decided to give it a go. The views were great. While I walked, I kept an eye out for rattlesnakes. I thought that they might have gone into their dens for the winter, but I wasn't sure. I've hardly seen any rattlesnakes this last summer, but I know some people who saw more than usual. I like seeing them, I just don't want them to surprise me--or me to surprise them!

 Then I saw something that made me do a double take--a snake skin. As snakes grow, they shed their skins. They leave them behind, and if you find them before the elements cause them to disintegrate, they make for an interesting show-and-tell item for a little kindergarten student.

 Can you spot the shed in the photo above?

 When a snake is ready to shed its skin, it rubs its nose on something rough, like a rock, to tear the skin. Then it starts to wriggle out of the skin. Then--here's a cool part I just learned--as the skin is pulled off, it is turned out inside out.

 One of the snake sheds I found was in really good condition, with the whole head clearly identifiable. I was really excited and showed quite a few people. My husband thinks I'm overreacting a little, so I'll just throw the question out there: Have you ever seen a snake skin with the head still in good shape?

p.s. For more info about the sinkhole, see my book, pages 236-37.

Life on the Playa

 I wasn't feeling the energy for my weekly Black Rock run while Desert Girl was in preschool. So instead I decided to do a little exploring. Since I had playas on my mind (see this earlier post if you haven't already), I went to a nearby playa.

 As I approached, I spooked some of the wildlife. Several pronghorn took off, as well as horned larks, a raptor, and probably more. I parked on the edge of the playa and got out to start walking around.

 A lone pronghorn, probably hoping I would just go away, bounded past. Fortunately I had my camera ready.

 I've never been able to see how a pronghorn runs, so I was fascinated with the photo results. Pronghorn are the fastest land animals in the Western Hemisphere, with speeds exceeding 40 mph. Worldwide they are second only to cheetahs. Pronghorn have 13 distinct gaits. I have to say I don't know what this one is.

 One of the cool things about pronghorn (cool enough to make me put it as my Favicon (the little icon that shows up next to the name of my blog) is that they are endemic to western and central North America. They have been around much longer than deer or elk, and they have evolved with the ubiquitous sagebrush and are able to use it much more efficiently than other ungulates. There used to be 12 species of pronghorn (Antilocaprids) here in the Pleistocene, but today only one still exists, Antilocapra americana.

Although pronghorn can run fast, they can't jump well. Instead of jumping over fences, they usually crawl underneath them. It looks as awkward as it sounds. Someday I might get lucky and get a photo.

I could see the pronghorn off a ways in the desert, watching the playa. I wouldn't have seen them, though, if I didn't know to look for them, as they blend in really well.

 The bone on the playa showed that not all animals are able to escape their predators.

 I found these nice pronghorn tracks.

 The tracks were near this puddle. Flocks of horned larks kept flying around. I'm sure this water is a major attractor. Playas are often dry, but when they have water, they are a hotspot of diversity.

 One of the things that attracts me most about playas is all the patterns that can be found on them. Near the edges I found small black gravel on the playa. It had filled in many of the mud cracks, accenting the dessicated pattern.

 The tree-like drainage pattern caught my eye. Even on a small scale, the patterns are fantastic.

 When you get out to the middle of the playa, it's hard to imagine what could possibly live on it. It seems so desolate and forlorn, so hard to make a living.

 The playa attracted some short-termers for a party.

 An elevation change of a few millimeters permitted a bush to grow out on the playa.

 And then I found this beetle out near the middle. What are you doing out here, little beetle?
 

 The beetle is in the lower middle of the photo--look for its shadow. It's really far from anything!

 It was moving quickly, perhaps realizing that it was more-than-a-little exposed to birds and other predators.

 These tracks that start and stop abruptly made me think of alien life. Perhaps that's due to so many alien movies being filmed out in the desert!

I was surprised by all the life I saw out on the playa. There was sign of lots more--plenty of scat from pronghorn and wild horses, burrows, bird scat, and more. At first it might appear as such a bleak place, but once you look a little closer, you can see that the playa is an important place for many animals.

Now I'm ready to go explore a few more playas!

Playas

I've been trying to read more books about the Great Basin and just finished William L. Fox's Playa Works: The Myth of the Empty. Some of it was fascinating. Some of it I skipped over. Anyway, if you are interested in playas, it's worth a read.

I wanted to share some of the cool things I learned. After all, I feel like at least once in awhile I need to be true to the name of this blog and talk about the desert and what's in it. Plus, the more I learned about playas, the more I kept wanting to learn about playas. I've spent quite a bit of time doing some Internet searches the last few days. They are cool places, even though they are basically barren and hard to comprehend.

What is a playa? It's basically a dry lake bed. The word playa is Spanish for beach, which can be appropriate in some circumstances. G. K. Gilbert first used the word in a scientific context in 1875, while on a survey west of the 100th meridian. The word had already been in use by then, as Gilbert didn't define it. It's true that playas do get water on them. However, the evaporation rate is usually ten times greater than the evaporation rate. One other important component of playas is that they don't have an outlet. That means that the salts and other minerals that are left behind when the water evaporates are distributed evenly, creating a very flat, homogenous feature.
How many playas are out there? Fox reports that more than 50,000 exist around the world. Most are small, like Yelland Dry Lake, pictured below.

The largest playa in North America isn't far from where I live: the Great Salt Lake Desert. The largest playa in the world is Lake Eyre in Australia, with a surface area of about 3,600 square miles. That size is hard to comprehend!

If you don't have a playa near you, don't worry, as playas are growing in number and size. Okay, maybe that's not such a great thing. The reason they're growing is generally due to groundwater pumping.

The biggest example would be Owens Lake in California, which was a huge lake until the water feeding it was rerouted down a pipeline to Los Angeles. The resulting dry lake bed created some of the worst air pollution in the U.S.

Dust storm on east side of Owens Lake playa. Photo credit: Basin and Range Watch.

If you want to find a sliver of a silver lining, it might be that humans have adapted to live with these playas in many ways. The following list is not in order of importance. At least to me. But perhaps it will be to you. Or maybe this list will give you some ideas about what you might want to do the next time you see a playa either in person or a photo.

1) First, playas are good for setting speed records. This is important to a lot of people as evidenced by the thousands that go to the Bonneville Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City every August.

A Streamliner at the 2009 Bonneville Salt Flat Races. (you can see a fun post I did looking at fast cars and going behind the scenes at the Bonneville Time Trials by clicking here.)

2) Playas have also been used for nuclear testing (the Nevada Test Site). Sometime in the future I'd like to do a post about the Nevada Test Site--I've been reading a lot about it lately and it's weirdly fascinating. They offer public tours--but you have to reserve a spot nearly a year in advance!

Most subsidences leave saucer-shaped craters varying in diameter and depth, depending upon the yield, depth of burial, and geology. This is the north end of Yucca Flat. Most tests have been conducted in this valley. Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office. 3) Playas can be great places to party. The Black Rock Desert, the second largest playa in North America, is home to the annual Burning Man Festival, a week-long event creating the fifth-largest city in Nevada. The Burning Man website describes the event as: "Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance."

Most subsidences leave saucer-shaped craters varying in diameter and depth, depending upon the yield, depth of burial, and geology. This is the north end of Yucca Flat. Most tests have been conducted in this valley. Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration / Nevada Site Office.

3) Playas can be great places to party. The Black Rock Desert, the second largest playa in North America, is home to the annual Burning Man Festival, a week-long event creating the fifth-largest city in Nevada. The Burning Man website describes the event as: "Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance."

From the Google Earth Blog: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2011/09/burning_man_2011.html

 4) Playas were important crossing routes for emigrants.

5) Playas have encouraged art of various types, such as the famous Nazca Lines in a desert in Peru.

From http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/nazca/nazca-lines.htm

6) Playas may have encouraged aliens to visit.

Ibex Hardpan

(All the Groom Lake (Area 51) photos with aliens running around are classified, so I had to use the one above.)

7) Playas have some wonderful geologic mysteries contained in them, like the moving rocks on the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park.

Photo credit: NASA/GSFC/Cynthia Cheung

8) Playas are great places to land airplanes--and for fly ins. Every year the Tule Valley (Ibex) Fly In at the Tule Hardpan/Playa west of Delta, Utah attracts many pilots. Unless, of course, the playa is wet. Then landing on it isn't such a great idea.

Photo credit: Blackrock at Backcountrypilot.org

9) Movie companies like to film on playas. I had heard about one being filmed on the above-mentioned Tule Hardpan and this post made me look it up. Here's a movie filmed out there:

What's your favorite activity on a playa? My husband has wanted to build a sail-contraption, but fortunately hasn't gotten past the dreaming stage. Somehow crashing at high speeds on the high desert floor doesn't sound like much fun to me.

I'm going to try and pay a little more attention to playas.

Like sand dunes, they capture some of the essence of the desert: the dry, desolate, and forbidding places where life is harsh, if it exists at all.