Artist-in-Residence Presentation of Bristlecone Pine Painting

Recently Great Basin National Park 2013 Artist-in-Residence Bain Butcher returned to the park to unveil his work of art inspired by his stay last fall in the park. He did a beautiful oil painting of old-growth bristlecone pines on a limestone terrain with storm clouds in the background.

As part of his presentation, he shared how he had come upon deciding what to paint based on his trip to the park. Previously he had done many portraits, so I was curious how he would make the transition to landscapes. 

Bain said that when he walked among the grove of bristlecones on the northeast flank of Mt. Washington (a place he backpacked to), he found that the grove was alive. Bain is also a medical doctor, and I liked how he found an analogy between a twisted bristlecone pine and a human heart.

His artwork was well received and is displayed at a park visitor center.

During his presentations, young artists worked on honing their skills. Maybe someday they can become the Darwin Lambert Artist/Writer in Residence at Great Basin National Park!

I Found It--the Bristlecone Quarter Tree

 I've been spending a lot of time with bristlecones lately, and it's been wonderful. There is something so magical about these jewels of the high country, and in fact they have inspired a new writing project (to be revealed at a future date).

When I saw the bristlecone in the photo above, I had to keep coming back to photograph it. I walked around it several times, took photos from many angles, slept under it for part of the night, and took night-time photos of it under the Milky Way. There was something just so special about it.

As I reflected on that particular tree, I felt like I knew it, in a famous sort of way, like when you see a person and you feel that you know them even though it's the first time you've ever seen them.

Slowly it came to me. This bristlecone was famous. I had seen it before. Many times before. This was the bristlecone featured on the Great Basin quarter!

What a brush with celebrity!

Pyramid Peak Hike, Great Basin National Park, Nevada

To recap from a previous post, my husband and I climbed Pyramid Peak in Great Basin National Park last weekend. We started about 8,100 ft to reach the 11,926 foot summit. We chose to gain that 3,800 ft (more than climbing Wheeler Peak) by hiking near Dead Lake, which I covered in this last post.

Then we wanted to head over to the main Johnson Lake trail. On the topo map it looks quite easy, and the terrain wasn't too hard, with Engelmann spruce trees and patches of manzanita, but it sure felt long.

Eventually we reached the trail, where the going was a little easier. The trail must have had quite a rainstorm recently, because quite a few sections had sizeable gullies in them.

I was so happy to reach the Johnson Mill Historic Site, where we took a welcome break.

Then it was the very steep section up to the historic cabins near Johnson Lake. Imagining what it was like to be a miner is always fun--and intimidating. That could not have been an easy life.

After a quick snack and swimming break at the lake (it was warmer than expected), we took the steep trail up to the ridge.

This is a trail bighorn sheep would like--very steep and rocky!

As we reached the ridge, Pyramid Peak didn't look so far away.

There's no trail up to the top of Pyramid Peak, so we just made our way up the talus slope. As it got steeper, the peak looked farther away.

We kept hiking and hiking.

Johnson Lake looked very small below, so we knew we were making progress.

I busied my mind by searching for the beautiful alpine wildflowers, like these alpine fleabane (Erigeron leiomerus) and Holmgren's buckwheat (Eriogonum holmgrenii). I especially like the buckwheat, which only grows on the Snake Range.

Finally we made it to the top and got a photo to prove it (there's no register like in past years). In the background is the backside of Wheeler and Jeff Davis peaks. This view makes it a little more understandable why some of the early explorers thought the peak was volcanic, since it does somewhat resemble a crater. However, the rock is in fact quartzite. (Nevertheless, over 20% of the Great Basin is volcanic, a fun fact you can learn about more in my new book The Great Basin for Kids, available in the sidebar.)

From the top of Pyramid Peak you can see a bit of Baker Lake. It looks very small and by late summer a lot of the water has evaporated from it.

 We saw bird on the peak that still stumps me. If you know it, please leave a note in the comments!

We also saw white butterflies chasing each other. They never landed so I couldn't get a photo of them, but this butterfly, I think a Great Basin Fritillary, did stop nearby.

I was also excited to see this Anise Swallowtail, my first viewing of this species.

Instead of going back the southwest ridge and retracing our steps by Johnson Lake, we decided to take the eastern ridge down, join the Shoshone Trail that goes over South Fork Baker Creek to the Johnson Lake trail, and then loop around. From the top it didn't look too bad (it never does, right?).

We saw some different plants on the eastern side, including this Purple-flowered Stonecrop (Rhodiola integrifolium). It contrasted nicely with the Erigeron.

 As we descended, I really liked the view of Wheeler and Jeff Davis Peaks with their cloud shadows through the saddle of Pyramid and False Pyramid Peaks. I've hiked that saddle once, a pleasant hike. But then we decided to go down and meet up with the Baker Lake trail--not a good idea, the slopes are so steep that when you set a rock rolling, it just keeps rolling and rolling.

The clouds were building, so we were going down as fast as we could, but the descent was hard on our knees (mine still hurt a week later). We are definitely in monsoon season, with frequent afternoon thunderstorms.

A rock wren flitted on the rock in front of us.

Eventually we entered the trees, and before long the forest was so overgrown we could no longer follow the ridge. We dropped down on the Snake Creek side, bushwhacking through all sorts of vegetation. My favorite were the aspen groves, as they provided some shade and were a little easier to travel through.

Finally we made it back to camp, about seven hours after taking off. It was eight miles in total, but with our heavy packs, I don't think we could have gone much faster. We soaked our sore feet in the cold creek.

We packed up our camp before it started raining hard and paused to take a slightly blurry family photo. Thanks so much to our family and friends who watched the kids while we did the training hike. The kids certainly had a lot more fun with their cousins than they would have on that hike!

So in summary, Pyramid Peak is a beautiful peak to climb. If you climb it from the ridge between Johnson and Baker peaks, it's not too hard, but it still is a lot of elevation gain. Bushwhacking, as usual, makes a hike more difficult. But it's kind of fun seeing the less-traveled parts of the world! So I guess even though I was sore and tired after the hike, I will be doing more hikes.

Dead Lake, Great Basin National Park, Nevada

This last weekend my husband and I continued our training to hike Mount Rainier this fall with a hike up Pyramid Peak. (Many thanks to family and friends who watched the kids at camp!) We decided to take the scenic route and check out Dead Lake on the way. Dead Lake is the lowest elevation of the six sub-alpine lakes in Great Basin National Park. It is formed in a moraine and lies about 9570 ft elevation.

An old road goes most of the way to the lake, and starting on the turnoff from the main Snake Creek Road (see map at bottom; near the Shoshone trail at the road junction), we began hiking at an elevation of about 8200 ft. The road is easy to follow, traversing mixed conifer, then meadow, and aspen stands.

Although the road is easy to follow, it is steep! I was happy to pause to take a photo of this majestic ponderosa pine surrounded by green leaf manzanita (Arctostaphylos patula). Photo stops = catching my breath!

As you progress along, it's easy to miss the turnoff to the lake, seen below. Look carefully for the rock cairns. (A better trail to Dead Lake is in the works and may happen as early as next summer.)

Following the rock cairns, you arrive at this luscious meadow. A small creek (South Fork of Snake Creek) meanders through the meadow. It's one of the prettiest spots in the park. If you'd like a detour, follow the creek up to its source--several scenic springs surrounded by conifers. If you want to get to Dead Lake, cross the meadow and keep heading north. We lost the rock cairns and wandered a bit.

Of course wandering can lead to some beautiful sights, like these pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea). they used to belong to the Monotrapaceae (Pinedrop) Family but have been reassigned to the Ericaceae (Heath) Family, the same family that manzanita belongs to.

What color are the pinedrops? Where's the green, the chlorophyll necessary to absorb energy from light? Well, they don't have any chlorophyll. The pinedrops are parasites that rely on mycorrhizal fungi that are themselves parasites on conifer roots. For more, see this Southwest Colorado Wildflowers page.  For parasites, they're quite pretty!

Eventually we spotted a bare spot among the dense trees and found a big opening. But we didn't see a lot of water. Or even a lake. We found a puddle.


Dead Lake frequently is very low like this in the summer and fall. Researchers from the Ohio State University have done a sediment core on the lake and found that the lake has gone dry in the past. One recent year it was only about 5 feet across, so the puddle we saw on this day was actually quite a bit larger.

I walked around the lake, checking it out. A PVC pipe on a post was sticking above the water. This is part of a National Park Service project to monitor lake water levels and temperatures. Right now the lake is about eight inches below the lowest hole in the PVC pipe. Despite the low water level, the reflections are gorgeous, and in the fall, when the surrounding aspens turn color, this is a beautiful spot to visit.

It was 1.8 miles to get to Dead Lake, and over 1300 ft elevation gain. With heavy backpacks, it took us 1 hour and 20 minutes to get there. The UTMs for Dead Lake are 11 S 736259 4313177.

Next up: going up Pyramid Peak from Dead Lake and the sights along the way.

Breeding Birds

Wow, summer is going fast! The first part of summer I spent a lot of time looking at birds--it's especially easy when they are making a lot of noise looking for mates and then flying to and from their nests. Some birds are still nesting, but overall they're a bit quieter now. Nevertheless, I feel like I need a post about the wonderful breeding birds as a tribute to them. (You can also see my post about birds in the yard; sometimes it's nice not to have to go far to see amazing birds!)

Above is a Say's Phoebe nest, fairly similar to that of a barn swallow, but not quite as tight construction. Say's Phoebes like to build their nests on buildings. We had quite a kick watching the mom feed the birds.

As I was doing breeding bird surveys, I found that there was usually one dominant species that sang so much that I had to work hard to block out its song (or rather their song, as usually several were singing at the same time) to hear the other birds in the area. Bird surveys usually require more identification by ear than by seeing the bird. To learn and refresh bird songs, the Great Basin Bird Observatory has a super little free program for birds of the Great Basin. 

Here's the dominant bird for upper sagebrush areas. Do you know it?

Brewer's Sparrow

The bird I heard most in riparian areas was the Warbling Vireo. When I came across one in a nest, I understood why, it didn't move at all even though I walked right underneath. It just kept singing its song.

The big mama turkey was easy to spot, but it took me a bit longer to see the grass moving behind her as her little babies followed her around. They couldn't have been able to see much, as the grass was much taller than they were. If turkeys were only native here, I could like them a lot better.

This MacGillivray's Warbler sang his little heart out, and not far from me. These birds like riparian areas.

The song of this bird threw me a few times. Fortunately it's a bird that likes to perch at the top of trees, so I could spot it and get a definitive i.d.  Sometimes I wish a lot more birds would like to perch high!

Lazuli Bunting--one of the most beautiful birds around!

One day I came across this Red-naped Sapsucker on an aspen tree. I watched to see what it would do.

All of a sudden it disappeared into a hole in the tree!

Are you still seeing any breeding birds?

I am still enjoying the birds around me, but have to admit that I've been introduced to the world of butterflies and have now been enthralled photographing and identifying them. Time to get another post ready!

Hampton Fire

In the last post I shared our hike up Mount Moriah. Today we're going to stay with the North Snake Range, where a small lightning-strike caused fire has been blown by strong, gusty winds into a large wildfire.

At first you might say, "Oh no, the poor forest is burning!"

What I'm saying, as an ecologist, is "Hurray, that forest really needs to burn! The aspens might have a chance of surviving if the encroaching conifers are burned back, and the bighorn sheep habitat should be vastly improved."

What my husband, the rancher, says, "Good, those canyons are overgrown with too many trees and fewer trees means more water will be coming out of the canyons."

What is certain is that over one hundred years of fire suppression has caused for some very dense understory. If you've ever tried to hike off-trail in the Snake Range, you know what I mean!

The fire was under a 100 acres for the first few days just in the Hampton watershed. Strong winds blew it over into Little Horse and Horse Canyons. The first night the fire got big, the ridgetop glowed at night.

Last night we took a drive out to see the fire better. (We saw quite a few other people out doing the same thing.)

The fire had been updated in size to 4500 acres, and we wanted to see it from a different angle. We drove up to the road towards Horse Canyon and found smoke emerging from several canyons, but it wasn't coming from the mouth of any of the canyons.

A helicopter flew over. More and more aircraft are involved with fires now. It can make it easier to see what's going on and to respond in some cases, but aircraft really add to the cost of a fire.

As the light faded, we saw headlights approaching from both Horse and Smith canyons. The Gila hotshots had been up there. While the fire was small, a wildfire monitoring crew from Colorado was stationed there. Now there are over 100 personnel on the fire since it covers much more ground. The fire is really cleaning a lot of forest!

This fire will likely be going on for some time, as no rain is in the forecast, and many of the flames are high up on steep hillsides where it's not safe for firefighters to go (plus those areas should burn anyway). The Forest Service supervisor is very happy with the fire, as it is burning in an area that they've wanted to have burn for a long time. The fire doesn't threaten any lives or structures. (It must be rare to have nearly a whole mountain range with no structures on it!)

For the most up-to-date information, check out the Ely Fire Facebook page.