Fossil Mountain and Ibex Playa, Utah

 It was the day after Thanksgiving, and my brother Ed was visiting from Flagstaff. We knew we wanted to be outside, so I gave the kids some choices, and they decided on Fossil Mountain and Ibex Playa. Our basic plan was to drive south through Blind Valley, climb Fossil Mountain, then go to Ibex Playa for some bike riding and the nearby cliffs for a rock climb.

Here's a Google Earth view of the 30-mile loop.

We drove roughly 13 miles down the Blind Valley Road and then took a road to the west towards the north side of Fossil Mountain. We had to use 4WD to get to the last part of the side road due to big rocks, but otherwise everything else on the drive was passable to passenger cars.

We parked in a wash and started hiking (first photo). We started seeing fossils. We knew this would be a fun hike!

We had seen a big sandy hillside before our turnoff, and from my friend Jenny's blog, I knew this was a fun spot. Plus one of Desert Girl's goals for the day was to play in sand dunes.  We hiked up, but found that there was a big ravine between where we were and the sand dune. Should we just climb the mountain first? The kids voted yes.

I led the way for quite awhile, but the kids were right on my heels, so I let Desert Girl lead awhile so she could practice reading the terrain and route finding. The views were amazing.

And before long, we were at the top! Fossil Mountain isn't the tallest mountain around, but the views are great. We also found no fossils at the top (or most of the way up). 

It turns out the top is Eureka Quartzite, which explains the lack of fossils.

Our next stop was the sand dune. And now that I know about the quartzite, which is metamorphosed sandstone, the sand dune makes more sense. But it was facing to the northeast, which I don't quite understand. We kept wondering how the sand got there.


After a lot of steep down climbing, we finally reached the ravine and started up the sand.

The sand is shifting, burying some trees.

I really enjoyed the ripple marks.

Desert Girl was digging to see how deep the sand was. She never got to a different layer.

This tiny plant looked so delicate on the shifting sands.

Still barefoot, Desert Girl poses next to an amazing juniper root.

When we got down to the wash, we spent more time looking for fossils. Within the Ordovician Upper Pogonip Group,  the Kanosh Shale was very easy to find. The dark olive color was easy to spot from a distance. Hintze and Davis call it "abundantly fossiliferous" in their Geology of Millard County, Utah (2003).

 We had climbed above it to reach the summit, passing through the Lehman Formation, Watson Ranch Formation, and Crystal Peak Dolomite to the Eureka Quartzite at the top. Supposedly there are some fossils in some of these layers, but we didn't find them.

Desert Girl had come prepared with a rock hammer and a magnifying glass. She showed quite a bit of patience combing through the layers for fossils.








 

Here's a map of how we hiked. The more traditional approach is from the southeast side instead of the northwest side we took. I think our approach was steeper but more direct. We probably didn't see as many fossils as the other side, but we did have fun in the sand.
 
 We had worked up quite an appetite on our hike, so we ate lunch as we drove (leftover turkey sandwiches, yum!).

We drove around the south end of the mountains and then north up to Ibex playa. We passed Ibex well and a couple ponds, then got to what I call a good bike loop. There's sort of a racetrack that is lots of fun.


Then we decided to just ride where ever we wanted on the playa.  It is such a cool feeling to be able to go any which way we want.

The lighting and clouds was quite dramatic.

We followed Desert Boy around "the island," a big rock outcropping in the middle of the playa. On the way back the wind became a lot more obvious, along with the lenticular clouds.

Our dog Maggie was so happy to run and run.

So much fun!

 

 Here's a closer look at Ibex Playa. We went bike riding at the southern end and then around the Island. Then we headed to the cliffs at the northern end.

 

It was time to try some rock climbing! It had been awhile since I had lost rock climbed, so I was happy to find a place we could top rope.  It was a big boulder to the north of the corral, and we could walk around the backside to the bolts on top.

We took turns climbing. The kids managed in their gym shoes, but my brother and I gave our old climbing shoes a go. We climbed a couple times and then it was getting late and colder, so it was time to head home. 

We were so glad to be outside, enjoying the fresh air. We saw two other vehicles on our loop that day, but the occupants stayed inside. So we just about had it all to ourselves. Hopefully we'll be back for more fun!

Ice Skating at Stella Lake

 My friend Jenny and I had been watching the weather carefully. It hadn't snowed in awhile, and the temperatures were getting colder and colder. The Wheeler Peak Snotel site showed night temps in the teens. That meant it was time to do some high elevation ice skating! Jenny had discovered this last year when we had another dry winter, and it was amazingly fun. This time we combined forces on November 10 to ice skate at Stella Lake in Great Basin National Park.

The Wheeler Peak Scenic Drive was open up to the Summit Trailhead. The trail was so inviting and had very little snow.

We weren't sure what the lake would be like. Last year the ice was only thick enough on the eastern lobe and we had open water on most of the lake. But this year, when we got our first view of Stella Lake, our jaws dropped. It was totally frozen! We gingerly stepped out on the ice to test it. It seemed good.

We found that the ice was good on most of the lake. The place it cracked the most was the cove where we had skated last winter. Most of the ice was quite smooth, with some bumpy spots. And the surrounding scenery? Marvelous.


Jenny was all smiles and quick to get out on the ice. We could see right through some of the ice to the bottom. It wasn't deeper than two feet anywhere in the lake.

 

This strange looking item is a buoy covered with a dark sock. Attached to it is a line with dataloggers to measure the water (ice) temperature at different depths. 

 Last year I had bought adjustable ice skates for Desert Boy and Desert Girl. That turned out to be a good choice, as both of them had fast-growing feet this last year. Desert Boy ended up not going, but his skates fit Jenny's kids, one the smallest size and the other the largest size. Hurray for adjustable skates!

Jenny is better than me at getting selfies, so thanks to her I'm in a photo! Look at that beautiful ice!

In some places there were really cool bubbles trapped in the ice.

 What!? Another photo of me in the same post!? This time with Desert Girl, who had gotten so warm that she had taken her coat off.

 Desert Girl was so happy.

She and Ava skated and skated.

Meanwhile Jenny and I took lots of photos.

We had the artistic segment.

The speed skating segment.

And even a little ice hockey.


Ice dancing.

Jenny challenged herself to do some artistic movements, which made me try them too. They are harder than they look! 

These girls were so full of energy.

I ended up taking approximately a zillion photos. Who could resist with such a beautiful backdrop?

Finally, the lake started being cast in shadow. Actually the southern end was shaded just after one in the afternoon. Yikes, so early! On the hike back, we took the opportunity to add in a little sledding.

What a great opportunity. If you're interested, keep an eye on the weather. The ice should be good, but if there's any precip, the road will close.

Western Regional Meeting of the NSS at Great Basin National Park

 Every fall, the Western Region of the National Speleological Society (NSS) holds an annual meeting. This year it was held at Great Basin National Park and organized by the Southern Nevada Grotto (caving club). The forecast wasn't great, but that didn't stop about 100 cavers from venturing out. After all, we were planning to spend a good amount underground, with temperatures of about 50 degrees F in the caves.

On Saturday morning, I joined Dave Bunnell's photo shoot in the Talus Room of Lehman Caves. This is a huge room that is off the regular tourist route, and the park wanted some photos to capture just how immense this room is. We found we can't get the whole room in just one photo because the floor fluctuates too much. But the photographers did get a bunch of great photos, including the Rainbow Wall (below).

In the afternoon, a variety of talks were held at Baker Hall (another nice place to get out of the cold and wet weather). 

I had Desert Girl with me and brought some boxes with me so she could make her own cave. She was excited to do that.

But then an opportunity came up to go into Little Muddy Cave with some other girls her age, and we jumped on that. 

Because I had been in the cave before, I led the trip and had the girls follow me and then the adults follow. The young girls were right behind me, loving it!

We eventually made it to the back of the cave and to the "Challenge Hole." Here's a dad giving it a try. He wasn't sure he could make it, but he did.

Leigh is heading down with no hands.

After going feet first, it was time to go head first, which was quite the plunge.

 

The girls kept going, trying it again and again.

Okay, some of the adults did too!

When we got back, we heard part of the business meeting and then it was time for a delicious dinner, catered by Salt & Sucre.

 Even in Baker Hall, coats and hats were being worn! It was about 20 degrees cooler than normal.

But what fun! Beginning cavers to experienced cavers were all intermingled, sharing stories.

The girls got back to making their cardboard cave.

Next was the Western Region auction with a variety of items from t-shirts to new rope.

The next morning I helped put on a mini-small party assisted rescue class. This class only lasted three hours, so we had to figure out what would be best to teach. One station was rigging for contingency, or in other words, how you can rig so if something goes wrong, you can make it right quickly.

Another station was traveling haul, one of my favorite small party techniques. You don't need any extra ropes, and if you have a couple pulleys, you can make quite an efficient system. 

Meanwhile the girls were practicing their knots in the corner.

Our third station was getting over a very difficult edge. If you have an extra ascender (mechanical or prusik) that can help a lot. Another trick is to tie a butterfly in the knot below you and stand up in that.

And back to the traveling haul with some different configurations students wanted to try (hint: a prusik at the top is not the most efficient way to set this up). 

Afterwards some folks did more caving, others started home. We had folks from California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Arizona attend. It was a lot of fun!

If you want to reminisce, here are posts from some other Western Regionals:
Lava Beds (2017), Motherlode/Sonora (2016), Joshua Tree (2015)