Parowan Gap Dinosaur Track Site

We recently took the road through Parowan Gap, which is north of Cedar City and west of the town of Parowan, Utah. The paved road has a sign pointing out the Parowan Gap Dinosaur Track Site. I was so excited to see that, as years ago I had found information on the Internet about the dinosaur tracks, but hadn't been able to locate them. 

A short road led to a parking area and an informational kiosk. Unfortunately most of the posters in the kiosk were so faded by the sun we couldn't read them. One was about Discover Dinosaur Tracks and Preservation, another about Birds of Prey and Climbing. I had no idea that there was rock climbing nearby, that's something we'll have to go check out sometime.

The BLM has a little information about the dinosaur tracks on their website.  The tracks were made by ornithopods, ceratopsians, and theropods in sandstone of the Iron Springs Formation. The most obvious ones are in large fallen boulders on the valley bottom. You can find a lot more info about the tracks in the Milner et al. 2006 paper.

We followed the trail and found that some of the tracks were quite obvious, jutting out of the boulders.

Soon it was a race to the next track.

The metal track markers were very helpful.

It was chilly and late afternoon, so our visit was quite brief, but we look forward to returning. There is a lot to see in this small canyon. Up next: recent improvements at the Parowan Petroglyph Site.

2016 Fish Springs Christmas Bird Count

 The first Saturday after Christmas is the traditional day for the Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge Christmas Bird Count. I've done it a couple times before and really enjoyed it, so when our schedule allowed us to return this year, I did a little happy dance. Then the day before, we drove two hours on gravel roads to get there. It's a beautiful drive, but pretty isolated.

Fish Springs has a wonderful bunkhouse, and when we arrived we found the current refuge manager, the past refuge manager, and a very nice couple from Salt Lake City. We settled in and had dinner. Then the kids wondered if they could eat the gingerbread house. They eventually worked up the nerve to ask and were delighted to hear they could.


The next morning we split up and went to different areas of the count circle. Desert Boy ventured out with me along one slough, despite the very cold temperatures.

We could tell where the water was because the frozen vegetation stuck up around it. From a distance we could see a little water and birds on it. The American coots are easy to identify, with their all black bodies and white bills. The duck was a harder--I'm no duck expert. I think it's a wigeon (if not, please let me know!)

I paused a bit to admire the beautiful ice crystals.

Even the coyote tracks had ice crystals!

Birds were frequently taking flight, this is hunting season after all, and they see humans as predators. Below are northern pintails and mallards.

One of the most common birds were green-winged teals. When I got a close enough look, their colors were magnificent. They are a smaller duck, so that makes it easier to distinguish them when they fly.

Mixed in with the coots were pied-billed grebes, a smaller bird that dives frequently.

We all gathered for lunch and then afterwards it was time for the big refuge-wide count. That involved the refuge manager trying to get all the birds up in the air, driving from one spring to the next and honking his horn, while the rest of us sat at designated locations and tried to count and identify.

It's not just a few birds. More like hundreds. In fact, our total was about one thousand. That's very low, but it still seemed like a lot of birds to me.

At the spring where I was hanging out I got to see some Greater Yellowlegs.

I also enjoyed the ducks, first going opposite directions...

...then they figured out where they were going.

My most exciting bird was an American bittern.

The kids were good sports. Birding isn't their favorite activity, but Desert Boy said he liked the great blue heron and many northern harriers we saw. He also brought up our backyard bird list and has been enthusiastically adding species to that. So far we're a little ahead from last year.

But probably what the kids liked best was making new friends at the bunkhouse, playing hide'n seek, and devouring the gingerbread house.

 It was a fun weekend, and I hope to do it again!

Little Sahara Recreation Area, Juab County, Utah

 About 30 miles north of Delta, Utah and 22 miles west of Nephi, Utah, lie some enormous sand dunes in Little Sahara Recreation Area. I've driven past many times and admired the dunes from a distance, but finally I was able to go visit them up close and see what they were all about.

Since it was December, the place was nearly deserted. No one was parked in the huge parking lot, the visitor center was closed, and we saw only a handful of vehicles.

It also worked out that we had wanted to go sledding and actually had sleds in the back of the van. There was just enough snow on the dunes, so we pulled out the sleds and started hiking.

The quartz sand, blown into the dunes from the prevailing southwestern winds and the preponderance of sand left behind from the Sevier River flowing into Lake Bonneville, was moist, which made it easier to walk on.

We heard a few ATVs and motorcycles, so we tried to make ourselves obvious. There were a number of tracks through the snow.

Finally we came to a big hill, and Desert Boy was delighted to give it a go. One of the best things about sledding on sand dunes--no fear of big rocks!

He slowed down a bit when he got to the sand, but still slid a ways.

Next it was time for Desert Girl and my husband.

I really wanted to climb to the top of Sand Mountain, so I left them sledding and headed up higher, admiring the variety of textures in the sand and the trails left through both snow and sand.

A couple motorcycle riders got to the top a lot faster than me!

There were lots of animal tracks--fox, deer, rodent. These rodent tracks were a little different than I had seen before, and they led to this little hole, about one-inch across.

The late afternoon winter sun made for some great lighting.

When I reached the top of the ridge, I was a bit surprised by the clear division between rock and sand.

As I climbed along the ridge, I admired the lengths that some plants went to in order to survive. The root system on this shrub was amazing.

At the top of the ridge I found this flag. Looking to the northwest I could see the White Sand Dunes, a section of dunes shorter than the 700-foot tall Sand Mountain.

Looking to the south, I had a gorgeous view of the smaller dunes on the backside of Sand Mountain.

I could see that my husband and the kids had finished sledding, so I ran down the big sand dunes, pausing a couple times to take photos (of course!).

 You can find more info about Little Sahara on the BLM website, along with a nice brochure to download that has a map of the area. With over 250 campsites plus primitive camping, this place can get really crowded. I'm not big into crowds, so I'm really glad that we got to experience during a quiet period, and the snow was an added bonus.

The sun was setting as we left, casting its last rays over the nearby railroad tracks.

The light show wasn't quite over. As we headed south, the sky turned pink, and the snow-covered mountains to the southeast reflected their glow. I couldn't resist, I had to pull over to the side of the road and take a photo! Again I am reminded of the beauty of this world.

Thanks for taking a look.

Taking Kids up Wheeler Peak

A few of us moms decided we wanted to hike Wheeler Peak and in the course of discussion we decided to take some kids with us. So we chose a date, packed up, and hit the trail. It's about 3,000 foot elevation gain and 4.3 miles to the summit of Wheeler Peak.

We're all smiles as we cruise the nearly flat trail through the aspens.

I had my good camera and couldn't help but take a lot of photos. The curve of the aspens mesmerized me. They bend like this because winter snows weigh down their trunks.

A bit farther on we tried for a group photo, although the timer barely gave us enough time to get into position! The 13,063 foot peak still looks far away.

As we cruised up to treeline, we paused to take a look at Stella Lake. By this point it was already looking pretty small.

We hit patches of snow and had some snow ball fights.

Soon we were above treeline and seeing more snow on the edge of the ridge.

The forecast was for a windy day, and as we hiked up the ridge, we felt it. We promised the kids that once we got to the big flattish ridge we would stop for lunch.

We found a huge wind shelter and plopped down. It took us about 2.5 hours to get here, and I remembered that this spot was about half-way time-wise to the top.

We put on extra layers as it was getting colder. We knew it was 90 degrees down in the valley, so it was nice to be somewhere cool.

After lunch the trail got much steeper as we started gaining elevation faster.

Desert Boy had been whining quite a lot on the hike, so finally I asked him about his video games. Wow, what a switch! He suddenly was full of all sorts of information about them and kept talking and talking while he was climbing and climbing, and then all of a sudden we were at the western summit. The last part of the trail was covered in snow, so we had to just scramble up the ridge.

We carefully made our way along the snow and enjoyed the views to the south.

The kids signed us into the trail register.

Hurray for moms! One hiker (in shorts and Chacos) had turned back because of all the snow and high winds, but we persisted and made it. The wind wasn't particularly strong at the summit, but I got knocked down a couple times on the ridge right before it. The weather forecast was calling for afternoon gusts of 50 mph.

We decided to savor the top and take some photos. Here I am with Desert Boy. He kept saying he was never going to climb the peak again. (Now he says he will, but in a few years.)

Can you spot the three lakes? Stella and Teresa are blue, but Brown Lake is, well, brown. It's not a cirque lake, but in the moraine and very shallow.

We left the kids by the mailbox and hiked down the summit ridge towards Jeff Davis Peak. Here's Jenny hanging out over the edge.

 Here's the view to the southeast, looking at False Pyramid Peak, Pyramid Peak, and Baker Peak.

Down below to the north we could see the rock glacier.

When we got back to the kids, Desert Boy was feeling some altitude sickness. So we started descending right away. Next time it would be better if we camped the night before at Wheeler Peak campground (about 10,000 ft) so he would have more time to acclimatize.

We couldn't hear each other talk on the way down because the wind was so strong. So we kept going with very short breaks for the next hour and a half. Finally we reached treeline and Desert Boy felt better.

He started talking up a storm.

As we were back in the meadows, we looked at the faraway peak. Had we really climbed it?

For those hiking with kids and planning a trip, it took us 5.5 hours to get up, we spent 0.5 hours at the top, and it took 3 hours to get back to the trailhead. We could probably have done it a little faster if it wasn't so windy, as we took a break at nearly every wind shelter on the way up.