Snowy Ascent of Wheeler Peak, June 2017

I wanted to climb Wheeler Peak while it still had snow, but I didn't want it to take all day. My solution? Get up at 4 a.m. and start! I was at Stella Lake for a beautiful sunrise, and have to admit that I spent more than a few minutes taking photos.

Then I went around the lake and crossed this snow slope with crampons on. Except they weren't adjusted quite right, so I had some problems, and was slow.

When I got to a melted out patch, I found these interesting flowers. (And still haven't had time to look them up!)

Then it was on to more snow. The top of the couloir doesn't look that far, right?

Getting closer! I kept switchbacking up that gully for what seemed like a very, very long time. It was over 1,000 feet elevation gain.

The lake kept getting smaller and smaller. And I reminded myself that I would have a very fun time going down all this snow.

At the top of the couloir, it was time for rocks. The wind had blown most of the snow away. So I switched from my mountaineering boots to my approach shoes, which made it easy to go up the rest of the way.

I did find more snow at the very top.

But even there I found bare ground. I took a couple selfies to prove I was there.

Then I walked the ridge so I could enjoy the views. Here's looking south towards Baker Peak and Mount Washington.

And coming back, this is the ridge between Wheeler and Baker peaks.

I found the mailbox had been kind of crushed by falling rocks. I forced the door open and left my name in a little notebook.

Then it was time to head down. It was getting windier, and I even got blown down once.

The best part was the 1,000 foot glissade down the couloir. I kept my camera in my pack, though, as I wasn't sure how fast I would go and was holding on tight to my ice axe. It was so much fun going down.

I got down to the lake in good time and in great spirits. The early morning hike up the mountain was just what I needed. And hopefully that has helped acclimatize me for the season! It usually seems that the first mountain climb of the year is the hardest. It's now possible to climb the mountain with hardly any snow on the trail. Before long more flowers will be blooming, making the hike more colorful.

First 2017 Hike to Stella Lake, Great Basin National Park

 June rolled around, which meant that the temperatures were warming up and the kids didn't have school, so we could go on a fun hike. Jenny and I joined forces and took the kids up the Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive. We had heard that there wasn't much snow on the Summit Trail, which goes by Stella Lake, whereas the other high trails had lots of snow on them.

As we walked, I noticed the horizontal lines on this limber pine. What created them?

 If you guessed sapsucker, you're right. The woodpecker is looking for insects.

We still found some snow on the trail, along with aspen trees with teeny tiny leaves.

This is one of my favorite parts of the trail, it's like we're going through an aspen tunnel. The trees have bent trunks because of the weight of the snow pushing them down.

We emerged from the aspens to a meadow filled with snow buttercups.

One last snow drift to hike over...

...and then we were at the historic dam at Stella Lake. The dam was built back when the Osceola Ditch was being built (about 1890s) to increase the capacity of the lake and thus the ditch. I don't think it worked too well.

On the other side of the lake we saw where snow banks were collapsing into the lake.

Desert Boy wanted to make a raft out of logs.

Before long this progressed into Desert Girl testing out how waterproof her snow boots were.

She wasn't being the best role model for Willow.

But I don't think Willow cared.

The boys were trying out a potential boat. They all said that the water wasn't that cold. We reminded them that there was snow on the other side, but that didn't dissuade them.

Since it was a warm day, they kept playing in the water.

Even Ava, who wasn't feeling that great, got in on the action.

Desert Boy tried rowing his log. It didn't work out well.

Charlie was building a dock and the kids decided to bring some more logs over.

It was fun watching everyone just playing.

Although I was getting cold just watching Desert Boy!

Then he fell off.

The kids finally got cold on the hike back. Maybe the snow drifts finally made them realize that it's not quite summer at 10,400 feet?

Jenny asked for this photo in the meadow with Wheeler Peak in the background. Nice. I think it's going to be a summer with lots more hikes! Hurray!

Checking out the Baker Creek Marmots

Hello, yellow-bellied marmot (Marmota flaventris)! I was hoping this species, so I piled some kids in the van and we headed up the Baker Creek road. Even though it was an overcast afternoon, we easily found a marmot in the middle of the road.

He lifted his head to sniff, but then went back to digging his hole in the road.

We kept going closer in the vehicle, and eventually he decided he should depart. He waddled over a few feet to the side of the road. They can weigh up to 11 pounds, and this one has certainly been eating well. The most amazing thing (to me) is that marmots hibernate for eight months of the year. He's only been out a month or two and has already found enough greens, insects, and eggs to eat to pork him up.

They burrow in colonies, with a dominant male for the group. They live in the western U.S. and Canada.

Although some marmots whistle to warn each other of predators, I've never heard them whistle in Great Basin National Park.

They can live up to fifteen years, although the ones that dig holes in the road usually get hit by cars.

Marmots spend about 80% of their life in their burrow. Look at the dirt on this one's nose!

I did manage to photograph more than marmots. Here's a snow buttercup, one of the first flowers to appear after the snow melts.

I enticed the kids for a short walk. Just to the second bridge! Then the boys turned back.

But Desert Girl was ready for more, so we went on to the fifth bridge.

It started raining and even hailing. We enjoyed it.

It's so nice to be exploring further up the mountain! The snow is rapidly melting now.

Visiting Pattern's Spring Valley Wind Farm

The local schools went on a field trip to Pattern Energy's Spring Valley Wind Farm. I had wanted to learn more about it, so I arranged to take most of the day off work so I could attend. 

The school bus pulled up to a tan-colored building in the middle of the wind farm that is easy to miss from Highway 6 and 50.

We went inside and they had chairs arranged for us in their big open part.

But before we listened to a presentation, we did the morning stretching. That was a nice way to get started!

Then we learned a lot of interesting things about the wind farm. There are 66 turbines, each with a turbine size of 2.3 MW for a total project capacity of 152 MW. The blade length is 49m/161 ft. The project area covers 7,673 acres, and during operations 77 acres are being used. They have a 20-year contract and are in year 5 now. The project generates energy equal to the needs of about 40,000 homes.

The turbines were manufactured by Siemens, and they have a 10-year contract to do the maintenance. One of the maintenance workers showed us his industrial harness and all the attachments and explained what it was like to climb up inside one of the wind turbines.

Then we went into the work room and saw the monitor that showed nearby lightning strikes. They stop operations if lightning strikes are within 30 miles.

The turbines are also monitored by Pattern's home office in Houston, Texas, and by Siemens' home office in Denmark.

They had this really cool poster on the wall. There are blinking red lights on top of some of the turbines  at night for air traffic, but they try to keep all other lights really low so as to not disturb the night skies.

I like how the poster features bats. This project was quite controversial because it is located near Rose Guano Cave, a migratory stop for more than three million Mexican free-tailed bats each summer and fall. When they started in 2012, they were getting over 500 mortalities in a year (mainly due to bats getting close to the turbines and the change in barometric pressure causing their insides to rupture). Fortunately this story has a mostly good ending. Pattern Energy agreed to installing an infrared beam across the entrance of the cave to count how many bats are exiting. As many as 2,000 bats per minute can leave at a time. When the counts are high, the turbines don't start at 7 mph, but at 11 mph instead. Bats fly more at the lower wind speeds, and Pattern isn't losing as much revenue at that lower wind speed. The result has been a decrease in bat deaths, to about 100 per year. Bird deaths have always been lower than permitted, although about one golden eagle per year is killed. (This LVRJ article has more info.)

We saw a screen showing the status of each wind turbine.

While we were loading the bus, I got a photo of the substation. A big reason this wind farm was located here is that there are major transmission lines that pass through from Delta, Utah to Los Angeles, California. Pattern Energy sells all the energy they produce to Nevada Energy.

 It was a stormy day, with lots of passing clouds. The turbines were turning. They can turn up to wind speeds of 56 mph, then they are turned off to prevent damage.

We got off the bus at the last wind turbine before getting back on the highway. A few lucky kids got to wear helmets and get a little closer. Notice the snow on the ground, it was a cold day for late April!

Everyone else stayed by the bus.

We craned our necks up to look at the very tall wind turbine. Each turbine is taller than a football field--about 426 feet high!

Here's a truck for scale, but it still is hard to process how big these are. The blades at the ends can go up to 200 mph.

We watched, mesmerized.

Overall, it was a super interesting field trip, and I was glad to learn more about the wind farm. The employees there seemed very concerned about being good stewards of the land while they extracted energy from the wind.

Our day wasn't over, though. We headed further north to Cleveland Ranch, a ranch started in the mid-1860s by Abner C. Cleveland. This became the largest fenced ranch in Nevada for a time. Cleveland was a Nevada State Senator. You can read more about the history here , or for the definitive history, check out this free 440-page PDF by Lenora Healy (paperback version costs $18). The LDS church now owns this ranch.

The kids were treated to a hay ride.

The ranch is beautiful, but it was cold that day, as evidenced by these icicles.

We also went on a walking tour of the historic structures, including Cleveland's original log cabin and some of the storage sheds.

The kids were fascinated by the animals, and in the words of Desert Boy, "how cool all the old things were."