Great Basin National Park 2013 Astronomy Festival

Last weekend was Great Basin National Park's Astronomy Festival. I was really looking forward to it (and it was a self-imposed deadline to get up some astronomy-related road art). 

On Thursday night we attended the ranger talent show. The ranger acts all had an astronomy theme.

Some kids I know opened the show with their rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. 

 
It was just a little bit cute. Okay, maybe a lot. Desert Girl made sure she was holding her star!

 Other talents showcased included beautiful singing, violin, guitars, trumpet, a reading, and a Star Wars skit with awesome costumes. It was a really enjoyable evening. (I had the wrong lens and no tripod so stopped trying to take photos as the sky got darker and darker.)

Then we headed over to the picnic area and looked through a variety of telescopes at the amazing night sky. It was a cloudless night and quite warm, ideal conditions. It was nice having the Astronomy Festival in the fall so we didn't have to stay up so late to see the night sky.

Desert Boy really wanted to get his Dark Sky Certificate because the prize was a Milky Way candy bar. In order to earn it, he had to look through telescopes and spot a binary star,  a galaxy, a star cluster, and a planetary nebula.

For the binary star, we looked to the oldest known one, in the handle of the Big Dipper. This has been a test for good eyesight for ages--can you see that the second star in the handle is not one star, but two? These are Mizar and Alcor (and recently discovered several more stars).

The galaxy we looked at was our nearest spiral galaxy neighbor: the Andromeda Galaxy. When you think about how big the Milky Way galaxy is and that we just see a portion of it, it's pretty amazing that we can see a whole other galaxy out there with its billions of stars. When I think of geologic time as being overwhelming, I just remind myself that it has nothing on astronomy, where a distance of 2.5 million light years to the Andromeda Galaxy is considered close. It certainly helps me put life in perspective--we really are little specks, and we might as well get along!

A star cluster is a bunch of stars close together, but much, much smaller in number than a galaxy. To put this in perspective, a star cluster may "only" have hundreds of thousands of stars in it. Or perhaps several million. But it's still not anywhere close to a galaxy. Oh, my. We looked at the best known star cluster in the northern hemisphere, M13, in the constellation Hercules.

Finally we looked at a planetary nebula. I thought it was rather difficult to be able to spot planets outside our solar system, so I asked what a planetary nebula was. The astronomer explained that the old-time astronomers, who didn't have such good telescopes, thought they were seeing planets forming. In fact, they were seeing dying stars. One day our sun will become a planetary nebula. These are relatively rare, with only 1500 known. And the one we saw, the Dumbbell Nebula, was gorgeous, my favorite sight of the night. In fact, it inspired me so much that I went home and looked up more information about planetary nebulas, started watching a BBC shown on astronomy called The Planets, and made me go back to the Astronomy Festival to learn even more.

 Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate. It was cloudy and stormy Friday night. And much of Saturday. But we decided to head to the ranger programs in the afternoon and learned about telescopes and how to use a planisphere. The kids' favorite activity was making a solar bracelet.

Ranger Aileen explained how the sun emits lots of different colors, and the kids identified the colors. She then told them how below the violet light is another kind of light, one we can't see, called ultra violet. It's the one that can make our skin tan (or sunburned).

She had some special beads that would turn color only in ultraviolet light. So inside a building the beads would be clear, but outside they would magically transform in color.

The kids loved the hands on activity. Even Desert Girl was able to make her own bracelet.

We had to wait a bit to get some good sunlight to make the beads their brightest. We sure were impressed with how much they changed color!

The astronomy festival was lots of fun despite some not-so-ideal weather conditions. One other thing I should mention is that Wally Pacholka was the keynote speaker. He gave up his day job as an accountant to take photos of the night skies. He had some photographs for sale, and I couldn't resist--they are stunning. Check out his website to see his remarkable work.

Great Basin National Park also released its Astronomy Ranger Minute, which has some amazing videography.

We're already looking forward to next year's Astronomy Festival! The date has been set for September 19-21, 2014.

Destination: Angel Lake near Wells, Nevada

 One of Nevada's many mountain ranges is the East Humboldt Range, a 30-mile long range in the northeastern part of the state near Wells, Nevada. We decided to make it part of our July trip, largely because the 12-mile Angel Lake Scenic Byway (Nevada Highway 231, seasonally open) goes right up to Angel Lake in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

 The stormy weather didn't deter us as we climbed several thousand feet from the valley to the 8,379-foot elevation lake. Before the road gets really steep and windy is the Angel Creek Campground, which would be a good destination for those with bigger vehicles (like RVs). The Angel Lake Campground awaits those with smaller vehicles at the end of the road. There's a $5 parking fee at the end of the road for those who want to get out of their vehicles and check out the lake and/or picnic.

Lake Dimensions. The road takes you to within fifty feet of Angel Lake, named for Warren M. Angel of nearby Clover Valley. The lake covers 13 acres with a maximum depth of about 35 feet. A dam was added to the lake by early settlers to increase its capacity for irrigation.

Fish. The lake contains brook trout, rainbow trout, tiger trout, and speckled dace. According to the Nevada Department of Wildlife website about Angel Lake, about 4,800 rainbow trout are stocked during the summer. Creel surveys show anglers catch about 1 to 2 trout per hour, with a limit of five per day. Fish size is generally 8.5 to 11 inches.

My husband and kids decided to try their luck fishing, which is one of the most popular activities at the lake. I was ready to stretch my legs after the long car ride and set out for a hike around the lake.

Glaciology. Angel Lake is a tarn, otherwise known as a mountain lake formed in a cirque. A glacier once stood hundreds of feet high here, flowing down towards the valley below. (On the day we visited, the sky was hazy and the storms made it gray, so it was hard to see down to the desert below.)

One of the coolest things about visiting Angel Lake was thinking about the glaciers. The last glaciation in the Great Basin was called the Angel Lake glaciation, with the type locality being right where we were standing. Researchers Ben Laabs, Jeff Munroe, and others have conducted cosmogenic ¹⁰Be surface-exposure dating of boulders in the area. By studying the dates of how long boulders in moraines have been exposed, they've concluded that the end of the Angel Lake glaciation was 19,300 years ago, give or take 1,000 years. This was the same time that the Laurentide Ice Sheet was retreating. This was also before glaciers in the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch mountains retreated, and before the huge pleistocene Lakes Bonneville and Lahontan had reached their zenith. What does this timing mean? The researchers say that more research is needed.

Wildflowers. What comes after the glaciers leave? Pioneering plants like the bright fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium),  one of my favorite flowers. Fireweed likes to grow in areas that have been disturbed by  fires, avalanches, glacial retreats, and more. It likes lots of sun and can grow quickly.

Many other wildflowers were in abundance. The flora in the East Humboldts and nearby Ruby Mountains are similar to that in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.

 And with plants come animals, like this beautiful blue butterfly.

 Wildlife. A couple rock wrens hung out with me as I took photos.

Probably the best-known birds on the mountain range are introduced Himalayan Snowcocks. They apparently are most-often found around Hole-in-the-Mountain peak, the highest peak of the range at 11,306 ft. The range also has bighorn sheep (with 20 reintroduced in February 2013), introduced mountain goats, mountain lions, mule deer, bobcat, coyote, and more.

Lakes and Hiking. Although Angel Lake is the most easily accessed lake in the East Humboldts, it's not the only lake. I was a bit surprised to find that the range has many more lakes, including Smith Lake, Greys Lake, Winchell Lake, Boulder Lakes, Lizzie's Basin, and Steele Lake. You can access some of them on the two main hiking trails: a four-mile hike to Winchell Lake that begins at a trailhead below Angel Lake on the paved road; and a 25-mile hike that begins at Angel Lake, goes around the north end of the range to Greys Lake 5 miles away on the west side, and then continues along the west side to Ackler Creek (11 miles) and Boulder Lake (18 miles).

To find out more about hiking to some of the other lakes, check out the details on this informative website about hiking in East Humboldts (and Rubies).

As often happens in the mountains, the storms passed and the sun came out, brightening the carpet of wildflowers. I was particularly impressed by the display of wildflowers, even though we were just at 8300 feet. The latitude and higher precipitation allows for a lower timberline and overall lower elevation for wildflowers that I expected to see at higher elevations.

Wilderness.  A quick note on wilderness: although you can drive to Angel Lake, most of the rest of the East Humboldt Range is accessible only by foot or horseback. In 1989, 36,000 acres were designated as the East Humboldt Wilderness.

Geology. The mountains rising above Angel Lake look beautiful, with Greys Peak at the top of the photo above at 10, 674 ft. The East Humboldt Range is a metamorphic core complex, meaning that the older rocks have been pushed up and are exposed instead of being overlain by younger rock layers. This allows you to look up from Angel Lake and see some of the oldest rocks in Nevada: 2.5 billion year old gneiss. How cool is that to see rocks so old from a lake that is not so old (at least geologically speaking!).

Lake core. The sun also beckoned an angler to go out in his float tube. That would be a really fun way to visit the lake! Researchers have taken a raft out on the lake to retrieve a sample of the bottom (a sediment core) to study the past climate of the area over the last 7,000 years. They were able to see ash from the Mount Mazama explosion (the one that created Crater Lake in Oregon). They also learned quite a bit more, which you can read about here.

 When I got back to the dam (probably a leisurely 45-60 minutes after I had set out around the lake), I found the angling success wasn't so good for my family.

 But the kids sure did have fun getting in the chilly water!

I'd like to go back to Angel Lake and the East Humboldts and check out more of the beautiful scenery.

 And if we time it right, we may make it again for the drag races in Wells.

Ah, you've got to love the desert!

I couldn't find much information about Angel Lake when we set out to go there. Hopefully this compilation will help those who desire to know more. And if you know of other websites about Angel Lake, please leave a comment! Thanks!

Eating My Way up Right Fork Canyon, Ruby Mountains, Nevada

 Back in July (it sounds so long ago now!) we took a family trip to the Ruby Mountains near Elko, Nevada for some camping and mountain country. The Ruby Mountains receive the most precipitation of all the interior Great Basin ranges, about 40 inches a year at the higher elevations. That's quite a change from the six to seven inches we get on our desert ranch!

I'm a little behind blogging about the trip, but am finally getting to it. I'm going to start with the last day first--I got up and went for an early morning trail run. Of course I had managed to forget my running shoes, but I had some trusty sandals. I put some bandaids in my pocket (it's not the first time I've forgotten my running shoes, and I didn't want to get a blister!), and grabbed my camera and a water bottle. Then I was off.

The trail for the Right Fork Canyon (a tributary to the majestic Lamoille Canyon) starts at a cattleguard and sign by what is now called the Lions Camp (previously Boy Scout Camp and Lamoille Camp). I followed the road to its end, passing a lodge with the smell of bacon coming out of it, some tents, and some cabins. Then I followed a little marked trail to the edge of a slow-moving creek due to the presence of some beaver dams.

The trail was narrow but easily followable, and I made good time. It had rained the night before and some parts were quite muddy, and the vegetation was damp. I was glad I had on running shorts. Before long, the trail entered thicker brush. It was still easy to follow, but I got wetter.

I wasn't sure how far I was going to go, but planned a turnaround time in about 30 minutes. I figured that would give me enough time to see some of the canyon, but not too long to leave my family.

As I was closing in on that 30 minutes, I came out of the brush onto some wonderful rock. Hurray! The canyon beckoned me ahead. I so much wanted to see what else was up there. I decided to go just five minutes more.

 Except the trail got really narrow and eventually disappeared in an aspen grove! I didn't have the time to thoroughly scout it out, so I decided that was a good sign that it was time to turn around. And once I got back out to the big, flat rock place, I again had to stop to take some photos.

 I wandered over to the stream to look at a little waterfall. Then I decided I had better get going, so I took off running fast across the rock, and the next thing I knew I had landed hard on my side and ankle. Dang it. After a quick assessment I decided I was okay to continue. I was bleeding and bruised, but I could still move. Plus, I hadn't seen anyone else on the trail and I didn't know how I would get word to anyone if I was injured. (Note to self: maybe it would be a good idea to carry matches for a trail run in order to make a signal and/or warming fire if needed.) I wasn't all that far up the canyon and in fact could see the camp buildings, but I knew no one could see me.

So I gingerly started making my way back down the trail. And that's when I saw something that made me forget all my aches and pains:

 Thimbleberries! On the way up I had only seen the white ones, but on the way down I found luscious red ones, ripe and wonderful. They are related to raspberries, but even larger and sweeter.

 Then I saw what looked like blueberries. These aren't the sweet kind found in the Midwest and Alaska (and I'm sure other locales), this is a western version that grows on alkaline soil called Serviceberry. I picked some and ate them. They aren't very sweet, but they're okay.

 I saw these white berries, but they looked suspicious, and I wasn't sure what they were, so I didn't touch them.

 I also saw these alluring red berries, but they're baneberry and very poisonous. You really do need to know your berries before you eat them or you could be in a lot of trouble!

Not all red berries are bad. These currants were prime for the picking and delicious! I spent so much time eating my way back down the trail that my downhill return trip was only one minute faster than my uphill jog. It was worth it though, and I look forward to returning again. If you'd like to eat your way along the trail, late July is an ideal time.

A Trip up Mount Washington

Ready for a road trip? We're going to head up the west side of the South Snake Range to Mt. Washington in Great Basin National Park. It's a long trip (and a long post), but it's worth it! The road goes nearly to the top of the mountain, but the road is not the easiest to drive. Think switchbacks that are so steep you have to do three-point turns to go up some of them. This is a section my dad would rather get out and walk. (Dad, you have to come visit sometime in summer so you can see for yourself!) 

The trip starts from Nevada Highway 894 (a spur off US Highway 93 in Spring Valley),  opposite from the Pickering Ranch. The unmarked gravel road goes up the bench (in other places it would be called the alluvial fan), crossing from sagebrush to pinyon and juniper. Up in the pinyon-juniper, the road starts switchbacking, but is still passable to passenger cars up to the Pole Canyon adit of the Mount Wheeler mine at 7850 feet. The adit is over a mile long. Water flows out from the entrance (see photo above), but I've heard that it contains heavy metals so isn't recommended for drinking.

This beautiful swallowtail was enjoying the coolness of the water.

Several structures still stand from when this mine was in action, in the late 1940s and 1950s. Beryllium and tungsten were the primary targets. (You can find more information in Chapter 20 of Great Basin National Park: A Guide to the Park and Surrounding Area--link in the sidebar to the right).

From the adit, the road becomes much more of an adventure. It was made as a jeep road in 1948. High clearance and four wheel drive are required. A chainsaw wouldn't be a bad idea, as we didn't get too far up the road until we found this:

We didn't have a chainsaw. Or a handsaw. Or a hatchet. But fortunately there were three of us, and through brute strength we were able to roll that tree off to the side of the road.

Then came the numerous switchbacks. I was busy driving so didn't manage to get any photos of them. I don't know if you could capture them well on photo--they are definitely an experience!

A bit further on we reached the small sign informing us that we were entering Great Basin National Park. The road crosses the park part of the time. The other time it's on private land owned by LongNow, a foundation interested in the very long perspective. (See their website for more.)

From up on the cliff we had super views of the switchbacks we had just traversed, Spring Valley, and the Schell Range.

Located along the cliff edge were bristlecone pines. Bristlecone pines are a great way to think of a longer perspective. Needles stay on the trees for 40 years. The harsher the climatic conditions, the longer the tree grows--one was found nearby that was about 5,000 years old (and then it was cut down, but that's a story for another day).

There's a lot of concern about bristlecone pines and other five-needle pines due to the combination of mountain pine beetle (MPB) and white pine blister rust.  MPB is a native beetle that has benefited from climate change. In some areas, instead of completing one life cycle in two years, it may do it in just a year. That means lots more beetles, and all those beetles need something to eat. As they eat the trees, the trees die. In normal years, a few trees die every year from MPB. When epidemics occur, and MPB beetle populations are especially high, nearly entire forests can die, although MPB generally just attacks trees greater than six inches diameter, so at least the young trees are spared.

However, the non-native white pine blister rust is spreading. It can attack trees of any age and kill them. Some trees are naturally resistant, but those trees may still be susceptible to MPB. It's a nasty one-two punch that has nearly wiped out whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), the predominant tree near treeline in the northern Rockies. In some areas, more than 90% of the population has been decimated, and the tree was petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it warranted but precluded in 2011, meaning that it deserves protection but that the staff and money don't exist to do that. In Canada, it's been listed as endangered.

What about the bristlecone pine? Could it suffer such a fate? That's not known. For now, some proactive measures are being taken. A number of seeds were collected several years ago and are being tested for white pine blister rust resistance at the Dorena Genetic Resource Center. The main test takes seven years. If the tree shows resistance, more seeds can be collected to protect the genetic material, and if needed, help restore populations. But what happens if mountain pine beetle attacks the tree during those seven years, and the tree's not around to produce more resistant seeds? That's where our trip came in. We were putting pheromone pouches containing the chemical verbenone on the selected trees. Verbenone is what the mountain pine beetles send out to tell other beetles that the tree is full. It basically is the "Stay out, we're full," signal. If MPB populations aren't too high, the beetles are tricked and stay away. If they are high, nothing can really be done. But we do what we can, in the hopes that we can help this majestic species.

The trees we were visiting were scattered, which meant we had more higher up the mountain.

Further up the road, we took a side trip to some historic cabins. These were made by miners. Guess what trees they used. If you guessed bristlecones, you're right! These bristlecones are taller than the really old ones, mostly due to a gentler climate--not as much wind.

You can tell that the cabins are really old by the construction style. They didn't use nails to put these logs together--they built these cabins lincoln-log style.

Oops, I got distracted by a pretty penstemon with a pollinator in it.

Did the miners get distracted by the flowers? It must have been quite a hard life to get up there and then mine at such a high elevation. Then they had to get the ore off the mountain. One account says that they waited for winter and used toboggans to get the ore down.


Near the cabins is a thick metal cable. It goes down into the canyon. I decided to see what it was connected to up on the mountain.

First I found a huge pulley, probably ten inches in diameter, up high in a bristlecone. The chain holding the pulley in place is starting to get overgrown in the tree. This pulley appeared to help get the cable up high in the air.

Further uphill was the attachment point, the cable running around the base of a bristlecone. It's been there so long the cable is part of the tree now. I feel a little bad for the tree.

We got back in the truck and headed up higher.

Our next stop was to look at the Nevada Climate-Ecohydrological Assesment Network (NevCAN) weather station. This is a network that goes across the Snake Range and up one side of the Sheep Range in Nevada. You can look at real-time data and photos from the cameras at the link above.

The views kept getting better and better as we ascended. Finally we reached the end of the road and had to travel the last part of the way up to the summit of Mount Washington on foot. It was good going on foot, we had time to absorb the beauty around us.

These dainty Erigeron looked bright and cheerful with their yellow and white coloring.

A knob of wind-eroded wood made me consider the bristlecones that used to grow at this elevation, which is now above treelike.

The Colorado Columbine (Aquilegia caerulea) made a striking appearance.

I wasn't the only one being held captive by the diminutive but colorful flowers!

Soon we could see north towards Wheeler Peak. It's so interesting how the colors change. Wheeler , Jeff Davis, and Baker Peaks are all made of metamorphic rock, the Prospect Mountain Quartzite. Closer we start getting into granites, and then closest, with the grey rock is limestone.

We had to pause for a few photos.

Aileen's first visit to the summit of Mt. Washington.

Looking northeast towards Steve, with a view of the Snake Creek drainage and Eagle Peak behind him (another limestone area with bristlecones).

Looking west towards me, with Spring Valley and the Schell Range in the background.

The view to the east takes in the North Fork Big Wash. The day was a bit hazy, so we couldn't see Snake Valley or the next mountain ranges very well.

Then it was time to head down the mountain.

We paused to check out some trees that had burned during the 1999 fire. The fire had burned up into bristlecones. We're not certain what the effect might be to the bristlecone community, but the fire certainly has opened up a lot of habitat to bighorn sheep, which are being tracked periodically with collars.

The afternoon light was magical, and I couldn't help but take a few more photos.

I noticed a younger bristlecone tree. Here's the next generation!

This striking three-foot tall plant with four-petaled green flowers is green gentian or elkweed (Frasera speciosa).

In contrast, here's the tiny dwarf alpine paintbrush (Castilleja nana), with a bee pollinating it. Note the orange pollen on the hind legs of the bee. This has been a busy bee!

The stunning sego lily (Calachortus nuttalli) with a pollinator. 

It's a long drive back down the mountain, but with great views along the way.

It's worth the trip!