2018 Resurvey of Great Basin National Park GLORIA Peaks

 In mid-July, I was part of the GLORIA crew at Great Basin National Park. GLORIA stands for
Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments and is a worldwide protocol to study climate change on mountain tops. It was developed in Austria and came to the U.S. in 2004. Great Basin National Park became part of the GLORIA network in 2008.

The basic idea is that as climate warms, plants will move uphill to seek cooler places to grow. So if we study what lives on mountaintops, we'll see what's moving up to the highest elevations. Or in some cases, maybe the mountains aren't tall enough, so the plants will disappear. Identifying plants is key, and here master botanist Jan Nachlinger helps get everyone on the same page.

The methodology is repeated every five years, so 2018 was Great Basin's second resurvey. Four peaks are studied: Bald (pictured below), Buck, Wheeler (in the background below), and Pyramid. It takes about a day to survey each peak.

Wheeler Peak involved a 4.1-mile hike gaining 3,000 feet elevation. We passed some plants we had seen on the lower elevation Buck and Bald mountains.

A golden-mantled ground squirrel was hanging out on some rocks while I passed.

One of my favorite alpine plants--moss campion (Silene acaulis). Timing the surveys so that the majority of the plants are in bloom is one challenge. We held this survey in mid-July, which was good, because due to the very dry June, some plants were fading fast.  

It's a long way up Wheeler Peak! On this particular day, we had a lot of wind on this ridge, but as we proceeded higher, the wind diminished. That's not usual, but we welcomed it. There are numerous wind breaks along the way for those who need shelter.

Once we were on the top, it was time to set up the plots on each side of the peak. There are multiple protocols to both identify and quantify plant species present. In addition, data loggers are buried on each side of the peak and record temperature every two hours so that a five-year record can be captured and analyzed.

One of our challenges (besides long hikes and elevation sickness) was afternoon monsoons. Here the clouds are forming and getting lower. Our time on the peak was limited.

I really liked this cushion phlox (Phlox pulvinata). It grows in clumps, and this ring of flowers looks a little like a tiara.

Oh no, the clouds are erupting. We heard thunder and started down off the peak. It was weird seeing the rain come out of clouds below us. Fortunately it passed north of us.

We kept heading down, and the sun came out, lighting up the Parry's primrose (Primula parryi). This is usually a riparian plant, but it seems to like the upper slopes of Wheeler Peak too.

With three peaks done, we only had one left: Pyramid Peak. Pyramid is in the middle of the park, and there's no short way to get up it. We chose to move our camp over to Snake Creek and start early the next morning to hike up past Johnson Lake to get to the peak.

It is such a beautiful hike that the miles flew by. And on the slopes of Pyramid, we saw beautiful alpine gardens. The pink and red flowers in the photo below are Holmgren's buckwheat (Eriogonum holmgrenii), an endemic plant to this range. Fortunately it's not hard to find on Pyramid Peak and Mt. Washington.

 What a great office!

The clouds came in again, and we eventually made a retreat down to Johnson Lake. Fortunately the only part we didn't finish was counting rocks in the 3x3m grids. Seriously, there was no vegetation in any of them. It will be interesting to see if in 10 or 20 years there is some! What do botanists do while regrouping? Look for plants of course! And we saw some tiny Botrychium species that I would never have spotted on my own.

On the way down, a few of us took a look at the restored cook cabin. The restoration work had been done very nicely.

At this new trail junction, we took the trail to Dead Lake, just completed in 2017.

Dead Lake isn't much of a lake, but it had some fun plants. And in the fall, the yellow aspen surrounding the lake make for some great reflections.

And with Pyramid Peak done, the GLORIA season was over. We were happy to have successfully completed the surveys. We found a few new plants in our plots, perhaps because of climate change and perhaps because they didn't flower in the other years. We feel like we have a good baseline now with three surveys completed, and over the next decades will be looking for trends. This is definitely not a project where you get quick answers! If you'd like to learn more about the GLORIA Great Basin project, check out their friendly website. And here you can see the global distribution of the GLORIA network. Maybe someday I can participate in a GLORIA survey on a different mountain range, and maybe even a different country!

2018 Ely Air Races

The Inaugural Ely Air Races were held in June 2018. I didn't want to miss an historic event, so we went. I had never been to air races before, so I didn't know what to expect. And since I wasn't sure that we would like them, I wasn't too keen on paying the $50 family fee and $15 parking fee (which they ended up not charging), so I signed us up as volunteers. The organizers said they needed lots of volunteers, so we were happy to help out.

 We signed up to help pick up trash on Saturday morning from 8 am to 10 am. I figured an early morning shift would be cooler, plus then we'd have the rest of the day to observe. 

When we got there, the tethered hot air balloons were still up in the air. They had started at 5 am the last three mornings. Folks could pay a fee and go up in the hot air balloons.


This is something I still haven't tried and would like to someday.

Hot air balloons do best early in the morning with a big temperature difference and slight winds, so a little after 8 am, it was time to deflate them.

It was interesting watching the process of getting all the air out of a big balloon.

Here are the stickers on the bottom of the basket.

Then the balloon is strapped in place and put away.

Soon after we watched this old Russian (or Chinese) trainer aircraft arrive. (I didn't remember the details, but Desert Boy remembered more than me.)

The National Anthem was sung.

And it was time to look at planes! Desert Boy went for a closer look.

So did Desert Girl.

Then the planes for the first race were towed to the starting line.

And they were off!

I don't know how they decided who was taking off first.

It was fun seeing the different colors of planes.

The planes flew around a circuit, so it was sort of like a race track in the air.

It was a little noisy, but not overwhelming.

It was really fun when a plane chased another one.

 How fast can you go? These races were touted as the highest elevation air races in the world.

The crowd kept increasing on the Saturday morning. There really wasn't much litter to pick up, so we could watch quite a bit of the races. It was about half an hour in between races.

Time to fly again!

The yellow plane is ahead...

...but not for long!

Now the white one is trying to pass! (Sorry, my plane knowledge isn't too extensive, so the colors were my best way of telling them apart.)

 At one point the AirMed plane took a patient to Salt Lake City. That's a fairly frequent occurrence, as Ely has a simple hospital and more complicated cases go to the big city.

A number of booths were set up. I was interested to see that Southern Utah University has a bit aviation program, with both fixed wing (plane) and helicopter programs.

Desert Boy enjoyed asking some questions at this booth.

Overall, we enjoyed our time, and we hope to attend next year. Kudos to everyone who helped put it on, it's not easy to get a new event going. Here's more info on the Ely Air Races, and an article from Air Race 1. 

Floating the Sevier River-Leamington Canyon Utah

One day in June, our friends Andy and Bonny asked if we'd like to go kayaking the Sevier River through Lemington Canyon with them. That had been on our bucket list and we had nothing going on that Sunday, so we said yes! Then we had to figure out what we were getting into! It turns out there isn't much information about floating/rafting/kayaking the Sevier River. We were able to find a little information, and it suggested that the river, at 385 cfs, might be a little low, since the website recommended a minimum of 500 cfs for kayaking. I checked with someone from Leamington, and he said that locals usually tube the river on Fourth of July and he thought we'd be okay, so off we went. We met our friends at the put-in, near the railroad tracks in Leamington Canyon, and stationed another vehicle in the town of Leamington.

The river started off mellow. Andy and Bonny had nice inflatable kayaks.

Meanwhile, we brought a menagerie of boats. A kids' hard-sided kayak, an inflatable kayak, a SUP, and an inner tube for just-in-case. We figured that since a highway was nearby, if we ran into trouble we could always get out and hike over to the highway.

We quickly figured out that the inner tube was very hard to steer, so we ended up dragging that along. That meant one person (usually Desert Girl) doubled up either on the paddle board or inflatable kayak.

Eventually the mellow section ended. We pulled over to shore to investigate the loud, roaring noise ahead of us.

This was the first diversion dam. It was quite impressive.

Downstream was quite rocky, beyond our family's ability, but Andy and Bonny were able to negotiate it just fine.

Here was our portage, with a couple trips for my husband and me. It wasn't too long.

Then we were back into the water, this time moving faster.

Eventually we came to another dam, this one made of boulders. Here's Bonny easily negotiating it. (Our family also portaged this one!)

Downstream was quite exciting, with lots of white water. Desert Boy loved it.

But you couldn't go too fast, as a barbed wire fence crossed the river! Andy stopped and held it up for us. This was just the first of many more (I think about eight). We never knew when they'd be coming.

Once in awhile we could see more from the river, like the Leamington Canyon cement facility.

At a third diversion dam, a rancher warned us about the upcoming barbed wire under a trestle. It turned out to be at the second trestle down, and it was easy to miss, just out of the water a couple inches.

Navigating yet another barbed wire fence. I'm not sure how the kayakers do this at higher flows--some of the places it was hard to go under or over and if the water was moving faster, you might have a hard time getting out if needed.

Can you spot this one?

The river mellowed out and had lots more big turns. Still plenty of barbed wire fences.

It took us about 6.5 hours to negotiate 10 miles of river. It was a fun trip, and I'd do it again. (My husband probably wouldn't, he found it got a bit tedious after awhile--maybe partly because Desert Girl took a two-hour nap slumped against him in the kayak!)

Here's a view from Google Earth of our route. I couldn't find all the fences on Google Earth--there are many more than shown!