A Walk in the Desert

Last weekend my husband wanted to go wandering around the desert looking for mines. There are certainly lots of old mines around, and I can just imagine those prospectors in the early days on their mules searching up and down every canyon trying to find the right piece of rock that would make them rich. Some got rich, but most only got rich for a couple days and then they were back to searching for more mineral-laden rock. 

I wasn't too interested in the mines, but because my husband had been so nice accompanying me to the cave and watching Desert Boy the previous weekend, I agreed to go. I had my camera and wandered around the desert looking for interesting things. As you can see in the photo above, wandering is fairly easy, with large gaps between the shadscale and four-winged saltbush. Once in awhile I would find a flower or some scat.

This little hole caught my eye, with the rim of little gravel around it. I think it's an ant hole, but as I didn't see any ants it's possible that some other insect made it.

I saw exactly two cacti in my hour of wandering. Here's one, with particularly long spines.

Desert Boy and Henry also enjoyed wandering around and seeing what they could find. It was rough terrain for Desert Boy to navigate, but I figure his balance should be improving a lot. 

The Hawaiian outfit doesn't quite go with the desert landscape, but obviously he doesn't care. The cloud cover made for cool temperatures and a perfect day to enjoy the subtle beauties of the desert.

Did my husband find a gold mine? I've been sworn to secrecy!

Greeting from a Great Horned Owl

After a couple evening walks, we've returned to the house to hear a cacophony of birds. The Western Kingbirds are flying around squawking, American Kestrels are diving in the treetops, European Starlings are flapping away. Why so much noise? Because a Great Horned Owl likes to hang out in our yard. So whenever I hear the birds, I start looking around until I spot the owl. The owl knows us fairly well, so it lets me get close to get a photo. We've actually had a family of Great Horned Owls around, but they seem to have dispersed and now I only see one owl at a time.
We sleep with the windows open and quite often at night we can hear the owl hooting away. I'm always thankful that the owl is helping to keep our yard free of gophers and mice. Our puppy Henry was quite scared of the owls when he was smaller, but now he's gotten so big that he just ignores them.  I try to hoot to the owls to encourage a conversation, but they just ignore me. I wonder why.

Crossing the Cattle Guard

Cattle guards are very common in the west, and we have to cross two to leave the ranch. In case you're not familiar with cattle guards, they are not people who stand around and guard the cattle (despite what one Washington DC official thought when he said that to help improve the budget they should just get rid of  a bunch of those cattle guards). Rather, they are metal slats that are supposed to intimidate the cattle and sheep from crossing because their feet could slip through the slats. Vehicles can cross easily though. Cattle guards are found where important roads cross fence lines and they are in lieu of a gate that would need to be opened and closed.

One of the cattle guards is at the end of the driveway. It's a bit smaller than standard and has filled in quite a bit, as you can see from the small apricot tree growing between the bars. As a result, it's not much a deterrent to cattle getting into our yard, and I've watched many a cow jump across it. It's kind of a funny sight to watch a cow jump, which is good because I'm usually chasing it out of the yard after it's eaten my tulips and am in need of a laugh. In this photo I can get a laugh from those sexy white legs in the background (don't tell my husband!).

Desert Boy has been getting braver and more agile, so he decided to see if he could get across the cattle guard. He had to balance carefully so that his little feet wouldn't slip through the slats.

Oops, one spill. He doesn't seem fazed though and doesn't even make a peep.

He gets back up and heads towards the water on the other side. Water is always something that attracts him.

Henry decides to get in on the action. Henry may think he's helping, but usually he gets right in Desert Boy's way.

He made it across and now can sit in the water and play!

Or start eating dirt and grin when Mom and Dad tell him to stop. He's still getting his daily dose of dirt despite our best efforts.

Where are the Deserts of the World?

Non-polar arid regions of the world. USGS Image. Click on image to enlarge it.

Did you ever wonder how many deserts are in the world? I did a little research and was astonished at how many deserts exist. Deserts are found on every continent, and each one is a little different. I'm thinking it would be an interesting goal to visit each desert, and I wonder if anyone ever has. 

Keep in mind that a desert is not necessarily hot, it just doesn't get much precipitation. If you missed the post about what is a desert, click here.

The following list of deserts comes from Wikipedia:

Africa
Sahara – the world's largest hot desert 
Kalahari – southern Africa
Namib – Southern Africa
Antarctica
Antarctica – the interior of the continent is the world's largest desert
Asia
Gobi – a desert in Mongolia
Taklamakan – a desert located in China
Ordos – a desert in northern China
Kara Kum – a large Central Asian desert
Kyzyl Kum – a desert located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
Thar- Cholistan – a desert in India and Pakistan
Dasht-e Lut - a large salt desert in southeastern Iran ,and the hottest place on earth.
Dasht-e Kavir – a desert in center of Iran
Australia
Gibson Desert – a central Australian desert
Great Sandy Desert – a northwestern Australian desert
Great Victoria Desert
Simpson Desert – a central Australian desert
Little Sandy Desert – a western Australian desert
Strzelecki Desert – a south-central Australian desert
Tanami Desert – a northern Australian desert
New Zealand
Rangipo Desert – a barren high altitude desert on the North Island Volcanic Plateau in New Zealand
Europe
Accona Desert - a desert in Tuscany, Italy
Bardenas Reales - a desert in Navarra, Spain
Błędowska Desert – a desert located in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Poland
Deliblatska Peščara - a desert located in Vojvodina, Serbia
Hálendi – a region of Iceland and Europe's largest desert
Oltenian Sahara – a desert spanning approximately 80.000 hectares or 800 km² in the Romanian historical province of Oltenia
Tabernas Desert – a desert in Almería, Spain.
Middle East
Arabian Desert – a vast desert complex on the Arabian Peninsula comprising the Al-Dahna Desert, Empty Quarter, Nefud Desert and other deserts
Dasht-e Kavir – a desert in central Iran
Dasht-e Lut – a large salt desert in southeastern Iran
Judean Desert – a desert in eastern Israel and in the West Bank
Negev – a desert located in southern Israel
Desert of Sin / Zin Desert (Bible usage) – a desert located on the Sinai Peninsula
North America
Great Basin Desert – the largest desert in North America, located in the western United States
Mojave Desert – a desert located primarily in southeastern California
Chihuahuan Desert – the second largest desert in North America, in the United States and Mexico
Sonoran Desert – a desert located in the United States and Mexico
South America
Patagonian Desert – the largest desert by area in the Americas, located in Argentina
La Guajira Desert – a desert in northern Colombia
Atacama – a desert in Chile, the driest place on Earth
Sechura Desert – a desert located along a portion of the northwestern coast of South America
Monte Desert – in Argentina, a smaller desert above the Patagonian

So which desert would you like to visit next?

Desert Destination: Wheeler and Jeff Davis Peaks

Towering over the Great Basin Desert is Wheeler Peak at 13,063 feet, the peak slightly right of center in the above photo. The trailhead begins at about 10,000 feet, with a well-marked trail weaving through groves of aspen, sub-alpine meadows, patches of Engelmann spruce and limber pine, erratic groupings of stunted trees called krummholtz, and finally large amounts of big boulders called talus. The 3,000 foot hike up the mountain is not easy, but someone in relatively good shape can make it in half a day. I've climbed Wheeler Peak several times, but I've never climbed its sister peak, Jeff Davis, on the left side of the above photo. Jeff Davis has no trail to it, is about 12,770 feet high, and it's been on my to do list for a few years. So today's destination involves these two peaks in one massive hike.

So the plan was to climb Wheeler Peak, and then go across the ridge to Jeff Davis. Sounds simple, right? We started up Wheeler at a nice steady pace. The spectacular views of the valleys on either side, other mountain ranges, and flowers like this Parry's primrose (Primula parryi) kept our minds off the steadily decreasing oxygen.

About half way up the trail becomes a little harder to find as it enters a talus field. The trail ascends the steep ridge right up to the top of the peak. Some rain moved in, and because we had gotten a late start, we were passed by people who had already summited and now were on their way back down with big smiles on their faces.

It was amazing how many tiny wildflowers were nestled among the rocks. This is an alpine paintbrush (Castilleja nana). Close to most of the flowers were an array of pollinators, including flies, bees, and butterflies. We also saw some birds like rosy-finches and rock wrens.

After about three hours we made it to the top and were rewarded with this view looking south. The South Snake Range has many peaks over 11,000 feet. The snow covered area in the foreground is part of a glacial cirque, with a rock glacier at the bottom of it. A rock glacier is basically a piece of ice that has a layer of crumbled rock over it that acts as an insulating blanket, protecting the ice from warm temperatures and solar radiation.

A really spectacular view of a rock glacier came after we had a snack and started over on the ridge to Jeff Davis. This rock glacier is quite long and near the end of it a grove of bristlecone pines can be found. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you may be able to see a couple pools of turquoise water about halfway down the rock glacier. I've never seen them before, and am very curious about why they are there and how they formed.

Here's a photo of the cliff side face of Wheeler Peak. The rock is very loose Prospect Mountain Quartzite, a metamorphic rock. Incredibly, some people have climbed this face, despite the huge amount of crumbly rock. There's a good reason that a rock glacier exists below--plenty of rock is added by the mountain each year.

Here's a view of one of my hiking partners working her way up Jeff Davis, with Wheeler Peak in the background. The ridge between the two was longer than I had expected, and I started getting a bad headache. That's a classic sign of elevation sickness (or as one person put it, altitude poisoning). I had never really had elevation sickness before, and I wasn't liking it. The best thing to do is go down, but one side was a cliff face; behind us was Wheeler Peak, even higher; and to the other side was a steep talus slope that led to a long hike out. So we kept heading ahead to Jeff Davis Peak.

I wasn't enjoying the view that much because I felt icky, but I managed to snap a couple photos, and I'm glad I did, because the scenery was spectacular and I can enjoy it now. Clouds and a sporadic light rain kept the temperatures wonderful, and we lucked out and didn't have much wind. When we got to the top of Jeff Davis I laid down and took a quick nap and that made me feel a little better and ready to start down.

This was the way down, over 2,000 foot descent on talus. That green patch at the bottom is trees, but the trees are so far away you can't even make out individual ones. I got dizzy looking at the whole slope, so I just focused on where to put my feet. And foot by foot, we made our way down.

As the oxygen thickened I felt better and even took time to stop and admire this blue columbine (Aquilegia scopulorum), with some daisies (Erigeron species) in the background. At one point on the talus we could hear water moving underneath, but we couldn't see any. 

After about 10 hours of hiking we finally made it back to the vehicle. We all decided that we never again wanted to descend Jeff Davis down the steep talus slope, it was too steep and unsteady. But overall it was a beautiful hike, and a good warmup to another 10 hour hike a couple days later that included four mountain peaks. I'll save that story for another day!