A Visit to Rock Corral Recreation Area, Milford, Utah

The kids and I wanted to go to Cedar City, so we left the afternoon before so we could go camp someplace interesting. I wasn't exactly sure where we were going to camp, but as we approached Milford with the beautiful sunlight on the granite rock of the Mineral Mountain Range, I decided that would be the place.

I had been wanting to check out The Rock Corral Recreation Area for many years, but had always just gone by this sign along Utah Highway 21 on the south side of Milford.

It was a Friday night, so we were expecting to see lots of people up there. But it turned out we didn't see anyone else! We found a nice place to camp that even included a bathroom.


The moon was rising early, so I tried to get a photo of an awesome tree in the camping area with some of the stars showing.

The next morning I woke up early and wandered around. Even though I was in flip flops, I couldn't resist scampering to the top of a ridge for this view.

We left our camping area and headed to the day-use area.

We found more amazing rocks--and no one else!

The end of the road has a nice picnic shelter. 

We took a social trail from there and went by some maple trees.


And some oaks! We don't have oaks by us, so I'm always excited to see them.


We wandered for a bit, admiring the rugged scenery.


Then we headed out and actually saw one other person! We also took a short walk out a ridge, and down in the ravine next to a spring saw a deer.


We also stumbled across a Utah Life Elevated Geocache.


There are lots of opportunities for rock climbing and rock hounding in the Mineral Mountains. We didn't come prepared, so we headed on to Cedar City, taking the scenic way across the mountains. Some cows joined us on the road.


We didn't know where we would end up, but eventually we got to a tiny town with some interesting ruins.

Our morning explorations got us to Cedar City about lunch time, where we ate at the Hong Kong Buffet, which has really good sushi. Yum, yum.

Our next stop was to the Mastermind Room Escape. Desert Boy had gone for his birthday with my husband and Desert Girl, and with some hints, they had made it out of the Ski Lodge in 65 minutes. I had made a snafu ordering the tickets, so had the ones that I had gotten on Groupon that were only valid during the open hours (meaning you might be paired with another group). The snafu meant that I had the opportunity to go too, so we signed up for the Detective's Room.


While waiting, we worked on some other puzzles.

Well, I'd like to say we were awesome detectives and got out in 39 minutes, but we didn't. We didn't get out at all. But it was fun (for the first half hour) and then a little frustrating (when we couldn't figure out clues).  Overall it was a good experience, and we learned some things about ourselves (like we need to be a lot more thorough searching).

On the way home, I snapped a photo of this wildfire that had burned right across the highway near Minersville. The retardant drops were really obvious.

It was a fun short trip, and I always enjoy checking out new things!

Trip to the "Magic Grove"

 In June I took the Nevada Conservation Corps crew I had been working with on thinning projects plus some Rangercorps interns up Mt. Washington to apply verbenone to limber pine seed trees. Seeds were collected several years ago to test for resistance to white pine blister rust. In case these trees are resistant, we want to keep them safe from mountain pine beetles. When mountain pine beetles enter a tree, they send out a pheromone called verbenone to signify when the tree is full of pine beetles. So if we apply a synthetic verbenone, then the beetles are fooled and go to other trees.

The first obstacle getting up Mt. Washington is a very steep and curvy road. We also came across a log down, but fortunately the NCC crew had a saw and was able to take care of that.

The views are marvelous! This is looking into Spring Valley and the Schell Creek Range.

We summited Mt. Washington and then went down the other side.

It's kind of steep. Steep enough there are very few plants.

But there were a few of these gorgeous Nevada primrose (Primula nevadensis).

Then we got down to the "Magic Grove" of bristlecones. These tortured trees live with extreme winds, few nutrients, and a short growing season. Despite that adversity, or maybe because of it, they manage to live for millennia.

This natural area is delicate and not visited by many. Those who do visit are reminded to be gentle.

We posed by the "Quarter Tree," which is featured on the Great Basin quarter.


There are a lot of other cool trees up there too.

After applying verbenone to the selected trees,


it was time to climb up Mt. Washington from the other side.

This little tree is raising the treeline on the mountain.

You can actually find pieces of old bristlecone wood even higher, indicating that when the climate was warmer, the forest moved up the mountain. Dendrochronologists have taken sections and tagged these pieces of wood to find out exactly when the trees lived. There's lots more info stored on these mountains than might appear at first glance. That's also why campfires above 10,000 feet aren't allowed in the park--these wood fragments are too valuable to be burned up.

And before we left the mountain, I had to get a photo of the highest elevation cave in Nevada--that slit on the mountain. It just goes down to some snow, there's not much to it. But the scenery is spectacular!


And what better way to end a gorgeous day than at Kerouac's, listening to the Front Porch Pickers.

Regrowth in Strawberry--2 Years after the Fire

I had a couple opportunities to go up Strawberry Creek, which burned in 2018 in a lightning-caused wildfire that burned over 4,000 acres. (Here's a detailed post about the Strawberry Fire.) Elk are often present early in the morning.

Restoration specialists from both the BLM and NPS have worked to reseed the burned area, including aerial reseeding. That work, plus the benefit of three inches of rain in May, has led to some great results, as you can see below.

There was lots of Palmer's penstemon (the pink flower-Penstemon palmeri) and firecracker penstemon (Penstemon eatonii) along the road.

The gate is currently closed at the park boundary, but hopefully park management will choose to open the road again to the public. However, the bridges were taken out, so even though I had permission to go down the road, I couldn't drive past the creek crossing.

I walked up the road to the trailhead, which showed signs of some overland flows.

A closer look at the entry point showed a few inches of new debris.

After I jumped over the creek, I went to the interpretive sign about the Mountain Shrub Community. You can see how the mountains line up and changes in the illustration to what I photographed.

Up higher I found some beautiful penstemon.

I conducted a bird survey up Windy Canyon and then headed down a different way. I eventually had to traverse this mess of downfall. Too much of the park's forests are like this, meaning more huge fires in the future.

I also found some fun aspen carvings. Many were in Spanish from the Peruvian sheepherders. I guess H2O is universal.

Coming back down I saw more beautiful flowers.

Near the creek, the aspens are resprouting quickly.

It will be interesting to see how this watershed recovers from this wildfire. There is such an opportunity to interpret the changes that occur after fire here.

The Great Pumpkin Growing Contest

I saw these giant pumpkin seeds in the store and couldn't resist. Wouldn't it be fun to try and grow huge pumpkins? I posed the challenge to our local 4-H club. Who would like to participate in a pumpkin growing contest?

Desert Girl eagerly accepted. Perhaps it was because we had just listened to an audiobook, Sweet Home Alaska, that included a pumpkin-growing contest. She named her two pumpkins Laura and Almonzo, the same as the heroine in the story. Almonzo was also the name of the pumpkin in Farmer Boy.

 It didn't take long for the pumpkins to sprout. And a volunteer bean plant, too.


Then it came time to move them to the garden.


Unfortunately the insects haven't been kind. Would the pumpkin plants even make it? We weren't sure.

Fast forward a week or so, and they are growing well. We're looking forward to flowers next!