Desert Destination: Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to celebrate the 50th birthday of Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, located about 140 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. I really like this area and have visited before, but this was the first time I got to spend more than a few hours. For the birthday celebration, the wildlife refuge invited people to come for the weekend and take free classes and camp out.

There is a pay phone at the refuge--one of the very few concessions to modernization. It is very primitive and far out in the middle of nowhere, so travelers should go prepared.

I got there Friday night in time to witness the full moon rising. It looked particularly beautiful coming up over the desert mountains, lighting up Fish Springs Flat.

The Pony Express marker reminds us that this area has been important for a long time. I bet the Pony Express riders enjoyed full moons--it made their gallops across the desert so much easier.

Usually the refuge is closed to camping, but on this weekend it was allowed. I took my bike, and when I got up in the morning went for a lovely ride along the impoundments.

I got an excellent view of this American Pelican, complete with its breeding bump on its bill. Both males and females grow this bump to show their interest in breeding, but at the end of the breeding season, it is shed. Talk about taking dressing up to a new extreme!

These heavy birds, 10-17 pounds each, were often seen soaring overhead, their nine foot wingspans making them conspicuous.

On Saturday morning, refuge manager Jay Banta welcomed everyone and introduced the instructors.

People had come from many different areas, and we were all eager to learn. I chose the aquatic birds class, and there was also land birds, history, and botany classes. Notice the coats--it was cold! A north breeze kept us shivering--but it also kept the bugs away. When the breeze slowed down, I got bitten to pieces.

There were quite a few Red-necked Phalaropes bopping in the water. They have reversed sexual dimorphism, meaning that the females are larger and more brightly colored than the males. The males are a duller color because they are the ones who incubate the eggs and care for the chicks.

 The Long-billed Dowitchers were busy probing for insects.

Our group spent a lot of time like this, looking through binoculars and spotting scopes to see what was out on the marshes.

We found a little bird island, where cormorants were sitting on nests and a pelican was coming in for a landing.

It was windy and chilly, so the pelicans hunkered down.

Except this one. She was a bit of a showoff.

The American Avocets were busy searching for invertebrates to eat.

One of the best parts of the trip was that we got to go into areas of the Refuge that are often closed. Although we saw some really dry desert, like these alkaline flats, it was impressive how much of the nearly 18,000 acres were covered with water. It was obvious why this refuge is such an important stopover for migratory birds--it really is the only sizable water body in over 50 miles. Many birds also breed here.

The geology tour not only looked at rocks, but also examined where Fish Springs water comes from. The Utah Geologic Survey has recently drilled monitoring wells and done extensive water quality sampling. They believe that most of the water comes from nearby Snake Valley, as refuge manager Jay Banta explains in this post.

Many of the groups got to see this rattlesnake, curled up under a bush right next to the refuge headquarters.

Lizards abounded, including this baby horned lizard.

And everyone who went out to the marsh could see plenty of bullfrogs sunning themselves. They were huge and disgusting. They are nonnative, brought in prior to the refuge for a bullfrog farm. Frog legs, anyone?

In the afternoon there were more classes: archeology with a trip to one of the refuge's caves, geology, history, and botany. I chose the botany class and learned five new families of aquatic plants. It's a rare day when you can learn one new family, so five made it quite a treat!

One of the plants we looked at was this spiny naiad (Najas marina), which is common in some of the springs. We also looked at a variety of terrestrial plants, some of which were blooming.

In the evening we had a potluck dinner and then some of the people who had previously worked at Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge spoke, including the first refuge manager. He and his wife had come out when there was no indoor plumbing, in fact there wasn't even an outhouse. There was no water supply except the springs themselves, and of course there was no electricity. They came in November with a one-year old and another baby on the way, and somehow managed to survive and even come to love the place. This refuge manager, Lynn Greenwalt, not only got the refuge off to its start, but eventually became Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service from 1974-1981. 

Another speaker was Bob, who has been retired for 20 years but was better at finding birds than any of the rest of us despite wearing hearing aids. Bob and his wife didn't stay at the refuge for long because his wife disliked it so much, but he found the place so enticing that he drove from Arizona in his new hybrid car to attend and reminisce about his short stay. 

Kim was acting refuge manager in the 1980s while the Fish and Wildlife Service searched for a manager. At one point she was the only employee left out at Fish Springs, which she said was one of the best times in her life. 

Listening to the stories made me realize how much special places like Fish Springs means to people. So many of the fish and wildlife refuges are located out in the boonies and require a special type of person to live out far from civilization and protect what's out there. They also require special groups of friends who are willing to come out and visit and educate people about why those places should be protected.

Sunday morning I woke up early and took another bike ride to enjoy the morning sights and sounds. I disrupted a group of snowy egrets and a black-crowned night heron.

There were more classes offered Sunday morning, and my only regret was that I didn't have time to take more classes, because they were all excellent. It was great getting to meet the variety of people who had traveled to the middle of the desert for a fun and educational weekend.

Happy Birthday, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge. I hope the next 50 years are just as good, if not better, than the first 50.

Desert Destination: Baker Hot Springs, Utah

Every Monday we visit a desert destination.

This past weekend I had a chance to visit a place I've wanted to go to for a long time: Baker Hot Springs, about 20 miles northwest of Delta, Utah. I had read in the very informative Millard County Tourism Guide about this hot spring, which they called a Mini-Yellowstone. I scoffed. Surely there couldn't be something that cool around. 

But I was wrong. 

As it turned out, I was really impressed with the hot spring for a number of reasons. 

It was hot. Very hot. Scalding hot. 

It smelled like sulfur, a smell that immediately transports me to Yellowstone.

And it was beautiful. 

And best of all...it had soaking pools nearby!

The reason that there is a hot spring in existence is due to the nearby Fumarole Butte, a large volcanic area that's only about 6  million years old. Apparently that is very young by geologic standards, and there is still some active magma not too far below the surface that is heating this water.

From the excellent USGS site that has lots of information about geologic features in Utah: 

Fumarole Butte is a Quaternary basaltic andesite shield volcano. It overlies minor outcrops of Tertiary basalt and rhyolite erupted 6.1 million years ago, contemporaneously with rhyolite of the Keg and Thomas range 10-30 kilometers to the north and west. Fumarole Butte has normal magnetic polarity indicating eruption during the Jaramillor event. The volcanic neck which provides the name Fumarole Butte is at the center of the volcano and rises approximately 30 meters above the gentle slope of the shield. The volcano was inundated briefly by Lake Bonneville, and there are scattered remnants of lacustrine deposits. Benches developed at the Provo level (1,463 meters). Crater Springs (also known as Baker Hot Springs and Abraham Hot Springs), on the eastern margin, produced thermal water (87-90 degrees C) at an estimated discharge rate of about 17 liters per second in the summer of 1967. 

The soaking pools consist of three small pools, each of which can hold about two people stretching out or more if you don't mind sharing. Apparently at one time someone wanted to make a little resort out this way, but I guess it was just too desolate to make a go of it.

Here you can see the pools with Fumarole Butte in the background. When we arrived, a local was there to explain the heating and cooling system for the pools. We were lucky to have him help us, because even though it sounds simple, it would have taken us awhile to figure out. 

The water from the natural hot pool runs down a little creek and is diverted into a channel on the north side of the pools. This water is extremely hot, so hot that if you fell into just that water you would need to take a trip to the hospital. In fact, the local said there can be problems with people coming out to party and drinking too much and falling into this extremely hot water.

Amazingly, there is a cool-water spring that emerges just a little to the west of the hot spring (between the spring and the butte). This cool-water spring is smaller, but it provides enough water that with a little plumbing, the perfect temperature can be achieved in the soaking pools. The local told us that it takes about 20 minutes to cool down a pool that is too hot, but only about 15 seconds to heat it up, so we kept that in mind as we experimented. 

There are short pieces of PVC pipe that can channel the cool water over the hot water ditch and into the soaking pools, and pieces of discarded clothing and towels to act as dams to keep the hot water from entering the soaking pools. 

Surrounding the area is a variety of vegetation and wildlife, including this kingbird. I saw my first kingbird of the season last week and am glad to welcome this noisy species back.

Surrounding the big hot spring is a lot of knee-high vegetation, and the day was just cool enough that the steam rising off the water provided a nice contrast.

In this photo you can see both the steam and the Fumarole Butte in the background. I didn't realize it until I got home and pulled up a Google Earth map that the spring area is much more extensive than can be seen from the parking area.

After an enjoyable soak, I headed up the channel to find the source of the hot water. What I found were several hot springs. One had a lot of algae growing on the top. 

Another was burbling up from a crack in the earth's surface, with an especially strong odor of sulfur.

Another springhead was darker blue. The hotter the water, the darker it is due to the different types of bacteria that live at different temperatures. The cooler water had lots of orange bacteria, but cool is relative--it was still hot enough to burn a person.

And hot enough to kill a sheep. This wool and pile of bones was next to the hot spring channel.

Here's a view of the channel looking south, towards the soaking pools.

There are some salt cedar (Tamarix ramosissima) trees around the area, but they appear to have been treated with the very successful salt cedar leaf beetle (Diorhabda elongata),  which defoliated them. I found one tiny patch of greenery growing back, but it's so nice that the salt cedar haven't grown so thick as to prevent access to the area.

There are a lot of minerals in this hot water, and it appears that they are building some travertine along the hot spring channel. It takes on fascinating forms.

For the most part, the spring was relatively clean, although there was some trash downstream and some beer cans by a firepit that looked like it was from the night before. Occasionally folks clean out the soaking pools, which can get algae-filled and slimy and get a lot of sediment in them. Depending on the last time the pools were cleaned may dictate the conditions--and how much you enjoy your soaking. 

Hopefully people who visit this cool hot spring area respect it--otherwise it won't be worth visiting. 

Pick up a Millard County Tourism Guide and you'll find some photos, a description, and maps of Millard County that will help you get to the hot springs. The basic directions are get on the Brush-Wellman Road, go about 11 or 12 miles west of the power plant, and turn on a good gravel road that is before the huge volcanic plateau (Fumarole Butte). Head north just over seven miles, and the springs are on the east side of the road.

Desert Destination: Black Rock Lava Flow

Every Monday we visit a Desert Destination.
Out in the middle of the three-hour long drive between Ely and Tonopah, with no public bathrooms, no telephones, no gas, and no soda machines, part of US Highway 6 passes through the Lunar Crater Volcanic Field. A BLM sign alerts drivers who are still awake about the nearby Black Rock Lava Flow. You can see it from the highway, but it's much more interesting to take the one-mile detour (the sign says two miles, but it's wrong), and get out and stretch your legs a bit.

A sign gives some information about the lava flow with the unimaginative name. The lava flow is made of basalt. Hot lava swelled up inside the nearby cinder cone and broke through the walls, flowing towards the west. As the lava cooled, it solidified. The Black Rock Lava Flow is the youngest of the lava flows in the lunar volcanic field, and covers about 1,900 acres.

Behind the lava flow are a couple of the many cinder cones in the area. The entire Lunar Crater area in central Nevada encompasses about 100 square miles and includes more than 20 extinct volcanoes and 35 lava flows. You can read a bit more about the geology of the area on this USGS page.

I was a little surprised when I walked up to the lava flow to see that not all of it was solid lava, like I've seen at other lava flows. The south edge of the lava flow has many scattered pieces of basalt.

Among the basalt are bushes and dirt--and probably quite a few wildflowers right about now.

I visited in March, when the temperatures were wonderful for exploring. In the middle of the summer, this area can be scorching, with the black basalt absorbing the hot desert sun. In the winter, it can be covered in snow.

The basalt hosts an interesting array of lichens. Here's an interesting post about lichens in the Salt Lake area. They certainly lend more color to what might be described as a rather stark view.

I should mention that the Black Rock Lava Flow is many hours away from the Black Rock Desert, where the (in)famous Burning Man Festival is held every year. 

Embedded in some of the basalt are rocks and crystals that the magma picked up deep within the earth on its way to the surface.

Lizards love to hang out in the lava field.

The road continues on around the lava field, where it becomes more continuous. I didn't have time to see the entire lava field, so when I got home I took a look at Google Earth and found this image of the lava flow (I added the labels):

As you can see, the lava flow really stands out from the surrounding scenery. Not too far away is Lunar Crater, a maar about 4,000 feet across and 400 feet deep. I hope to get there soon!