Miscellaneous June 2017

 I guess I'm not too far behind if I'm wrapping up June! Here are a few photos that didn't make it into previous posts. We enjoyed eating at the new Kerouac's Cafe in Baker, Nevada. The food is delicious and service is great! We've returned several times!

For work, I went up high in the mountains to protect some limber pines from mountain pine beetles. They are part of a proactive white pine blister rust program. Several trees (both bristlecone and limber pines) have been selected and pinecones harvested. The US Forest Service is propagating the pine seeds and then testing them for white pine blister rust, a non-native pathogen that can kill whole forests. The idea is that some resistant trees might be found, then their pine seeds can be stored and grown and resistant trees planted to help when the rust eventually arrives. In the meantime, we have to protect those trees from mountain pine beetle, so we apply verbenone, a natural pheromone that the  beetles excrete to say that the tree is full of beetles and the incoming beetles should select a different tree. So cool! (Bristlecone pines don't seem to be affected by mountain pine beetles, so we don't need to put verbenone on them.)

The bristlecone in this study isn't part of the study, but it looks cool.

We had been having some warm temps, but on this particular day it was really cold. And there were still snow drifts. Bruce and Becca helped us get up the road, moving trees and digging through snow/ice drifts. It was an adventure!

To my surprise, Nevada primrose was already blooming.

The views from Mt. Washington were amazing.

I spent a week near Redmond, Oregon teaching cave rescue. We had a fun day on the cliffs. This was a different type of rock than what we used for the rest of the week.

That's because there are lots of lava tubes around Redmond.


We didn't actually go in many, but we played at the entrances of several, including doing a highline across this one.


We also had some zen time in the gym/exhibition hall, floating students across.


Back at home, we tried out a new (used) sailboat that my husband purchased. It's lots of fun, but also a little scary when the wind gets going.

I enjoyed a trip to an ice cave that has part of its entrance blocked by snow.

It had never been entered this time of year before, so we didn't know what to expect. We couldn't use the bolts at the entrance, so tied off to a tree and went over the snow.

The transition to snow to ice was abrupt. It was an interesting cave, but very difficult to get to. We installed a wildlife camera at the entrance, so we'll learn what else is using the cave.

We've also been spending time with the lambs. We figure if they get used to chaos here, they'll do better at the fair. So we invite friends over to play!

Desert Boy got some lessons on showmanship, but needs a few more! It will be fun to watch him at the fair. He's definitely gotten a lot more confident, and I can see why it's good to start with animals that weigh about 100 pounds instead of those that weigh much more (like steers).

Exploring Central Nevada-Part 1: Hot Springs

 In mid-June I got a hankering to go exploring. I took some time off off work, and we loaded up, the kids, the au pair, the dog, and me. We headed west on U.S. 50, lunched in Ely, and then took a quick stop at Illipah Reservoir, where the wind was fierce.

Just a little bit further on, we stopped on the side of the road to let these huge oversize loads go by. They definitely take up more than one lane! Being in a mining state, this is a fairly frequent sight on the highways.

After a swim in Eureka's pool, we continued on and exited the highway to head to Potts' Hot Springs, also called Monitor Hot Springs. We found the old Potts ranch and stopped to enjoy the view.

It was still nice and green out in the meadows, and the late afternoon sunlight was gorgeous.

The road to Potts' Hot Springs was marked as 'No Public Access,' so we respected that and continued on to Diana's Punch Bowl, which was about 30 minutes away. I had previously visited this spectacular site, and was eager to return. The sun had already set by the time we arrived, so we set up camp at the base and then wandered up to observe the hot spring under the full moon. Diana's Punch Bowl is a 30-foot deep cauldron that's about 50 feet in diameter. It rises off the valley floor, seemingly without rhyme or reason. The evening primrose was blooming right on the edge. The water in it is reportedly very hot, about 170 degrees F, so we didn't want to go in.

Our camp was simple, and I love primitive camping in the middle of nowhere. We heard some coyotes howl in the night, but no sounds of civilization. It was wonderful.

I awoke early and got some sunrise photos of Diana's Punchbowl.

It was just cool enough that steam was rising. And the full moon was setting.

 With one angle, I captured a lot of steam.

Then I wandered down over the other side, and the shooting stars caught my eye.

The hot water in the nearby creek is cool enough to soak in, but it's not very deep. It looks like at one time someone worked to improve it, but now it's in a fairly natural state.

Orange algae dotted one end, and steam rose along the channel.

I went back to camp and everyone got up and ate. Then it was to the top for a group photo.

Our next destination was to the Toquima Campground, which was totally empty. We set off on the quarter-mile trail to Toquima Cave. I admired the buckwheat on the way.

The trail meandered through the pinyon-juniper to some cliffs.

I got distracted again by flowers!

When I caught up to the kids and Charlie, Desert Boy was scaling the huge gate over the entrance. The kids were so happy to climb.

Through the gate we could see some amazing pictographs. Some call these the best pictographs in the Great Basin. It's very unusual to see yellow coloring in pictographs.

We admired them for awhile, speculating on what they mean. Then we headed back to the vehicle and continued over the pass to Big Smoky Valley to Spencer Hot Springs.

After we soaked in the pool for awhile, we wandered around to check out the other hot springs. The trough was too hot for me, but the others could handle it.

After a bit, we had our fill and headed to Austin for a break at the playground. Austin has the best playground I've seen along Highway 50, and as an added bonus, some folks stopped with their dog, and Maggie had the best hour playing.

Next up...on to fossils and ghost towns!

Calaveras Big Trees State Park and Highway 4

After a day of seeing beautiful sites in eastern California and the Sierra, and two days caving, we woke up bright and early and were on the road by 7 am from Murphy, California, with our first stop not far away: Calaveras Big Trees State Park. We went for a hike through the North Grove and had it all to ourselves due to the early hour. This is the place that the giant sequoias were discovered in California, the largest trees in the world.

We were immediately impressed. Desert Girl tried to hug a tree and couldn't get very far around it.

We enjoyed the interpretive booklet pointing out sights along the trail.

And we kept craning our necks to take in the very tall trees overhead. Coastal redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, but their cousins, the sequoias (sometimes called Sierra redwoods), get pretty tall too.

Some of the branches so high up are bigger than most tree trunks. This wouldn't be a good place to go in an extreme wind storm.

Most of the trees grow with a spiral. This one was especially obvious.

The trees were often spaced out, so we could see way up high. I was glad I had my wide-angle lens!

The kids had so much fun walking through this old tree.

And they were happy to check out the inclined bench, made to make tree viewing easier.

This fallen sequoia gives some good scale of how big the trunks are.

We managed a photo of the three of us.

This part with the meandering boardwalk was magical!

So what do the leaves on a sequoia look like? We found some younger trees where we could actually see the needles. They are kind of feathery and reminiscent of some junipers.

Desert Girl could actually hug a young sequoia and get her arms all the way around!

It would be fun to return in 100 or 200 years to see what these young trees look like.

Several plants were in the understory, including dogwood.

What does a sequoia cone look like? It's not super photogenic or impressive. The tiny seeds sure can produce big trees, though!

Some trees (not just sequoias) also had amazing lichens on them.

The kids were eager to spend their money, but the visitor center was closed. So we had to make do with a photo next to this neat sign. There are two campgrounds in the park, and maybe one day we'll get to hang out more with these amazing trees.

On this day, though, we needed to get home, so we continued on Highway 4 over the Sierra Nevada. I was quite surprised when the middle line disappeared and a one-and-a-half lane road appeared, weaving around hairpin turns, with steep dropoffs and no guardrails, next to scenic lakes studded with granite boulders. And there was more traffic than I thought there should be for this type of road on a Monday morning!

We made a quick stop at Ebbetts Pass, elevation 8,730 ft.

Although some thought this pass would become a major one, in reality it's a minor one, closed in the winter.

Nearby is the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). We hiked on it for about a minute. Some day I'd like to come back and spend lots more time on it.

The kids were great travelers and we made it home by dinner time, with a couple stops in Carson City and a stop at the amazing park in Austin (check out the obstacle course on the far side of the softball field!). It was a terrific trip and so nice to connect with friends and see some beautiful sights. I love traveling and learning about new places, it feeds my soul.