A Little After School Exploration

 The kids are almost done with school, which means we'll have time for lengthier adventures soon! Right now we have to be content with shorter ones, so after school we went to explore this gully. It has lots of side canyons that are lots of fun. I told the kids to watch out for snakes, and we happened upon this nice gopher snake. I really like these snakes, they eat lots of rodents.

The canyon walls are very crumbly, but they also contain some pretty cool patterns.

It was cloudy, and at one point the sun emerged to light up the mountain tops. They are still covered with snow, so it made them glow.

On our return wander, we saw this eared grebe. It dove under the water a couple times and disappeared, then would pop back up.

Down the way we saw a brown blob on the shore. Upon closer inspection, we found it was a muskrat.

It took to the water when we got a little too close.

Next we went down the road a little ways to a place where we found lots of arches. This was a tiny one, about the size of the nearby globemallow.

The distant Wheeler and Jeff Davis Peaks looked rugged from our vantage point.

Desert Boy climbed up to explore an opening.

Desert Girl was busy taking photos on the other side of another arch.

We had fun taking photos.

Desert Girl wants to enter photos in this year's County Fair, so she's getting an early start!

Wildlife at the Watering Hole

 The days are getting warmer, so the kids asked the other day if they could go to the swimming hole with their friends. Sure, why not?

A little garter snake was hanging out there.

Desert Boy asked if he could catch it, and I said yes. He quickly captured it.

 It wasn't very big.

Desert Girl came over to check it out. Do you notice what she's wearing? It looks like she wants to go swimming.

Ava gave it a try, but it was cold!

Desert Girl's expression is what mine would be if I got in the water! Needless to say, there was a lot more time on the beach than in the water. We're approaching high water now, so the streams are up and dirty. That should give us a nice sandy bottom in part of our swimming hole. We like the sand a lot better than the silt when we're walking in the pond!

Announcing a New Book--A Mystery Novel!

I've been working on publishing my first fiction novel. And after so much editing that I think my eyes might be permanently crossed, it's ready! Hip, hip, hooray!

The caving mystery is set at the National Speleological Society Convention in Ely, Nevada. The NSS Convention really will be held in Ely this July, so it was good to have a deadline to make me finish the book!

The premise of the book is that Dr. Elena Jackson, a cave biologist, finds a body at the Convention. Her twin sister Maribel is accused of the murder, and Elena works to clear her sister's name. Along the way she goes caving with her son, hangs out with interesting cavers, and sees sights in and around Ely. She only has a week to solve the murder before the suspects return to their homes in far-flung places.

I wrote the first version of the book during the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2011. I set it aside and never got back to it because it needed too much work. Two years, I wrote a new version during another NaNoWriMo. Then I set it aside. I sent out queries to some agents, but getting no bites decided I was going to self-publish. That involved reading and editing it, finding beta-readers to give me comments on what would improve the book, hiring a copy editor, hiring a graphic designer to make the cover, editing some more, proofreading it, formatting it for the paperback version, and formatting it for the electronic version.

Now the book is out and it's time for the promotional time! Visit my Facebook Author C. A. Cox page, like, comment, and share the post, and you'll be entered into a drawing for a free autographed copy. :)

You can find the paperback version of the book at CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com. The electronic version is also at Amazon.com.

I've written this book under the pen name C. A. Cox. Why? Well, I thought it might be good to separate my fiction and non-fiction writing. The pen name also has a special relation to caving. And that's all I'll say on that matter; you can figure it out!
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If you missed my other books, here they are! And as a special thank you for being blog readers, I'm having a Kindle Countdown discount on The Great Basin for Kids. Usually the Kindle version is $6.95, but starting May 16 at 8 a.m., the Kindle version of the book will be just $.99 for 53 hours. Then the price will bump up to $1.99 for another 53 hours (5/18 at 1 p.m. PST to 5/20 at 6 p.m.). Then the price will go to $2.99 until midnight on May 22.

The Great Basin for Kids is also available in paperback from Western National Parks Association bookstores at Great Basin National Park; the Border Inn in Baker, NV; the Art Bank in Ely; Economy Drug in Ely; the California Interpretive Center in Elko, NV; Indie book stores, Barnes and Noble,  and Amazon.com.

My first published book is Great Basin National Park: A Guide to the Park and Surrounding Area. It was published by Utah State University Press in 2012. It took two years to write and five years to publish! Since I'm not the publisher, I have no say in the book cost. The book's gotten great reviews, and I'm glad it's helped so many people find their way around this beautiful area better.

It's available in paperback from USU Press, Western National Parks Association bookstores at Great Basin National Park; the Border Inn in Baker, NV; Economy Drug in Ely, NV; Indie Bookstores; Barnes and Noble; and Amazon.com.

Affiliate links are present in this post--they don't increase your cost, but they help support this blog. Thank you!

Hendry's Creek Pronghorn Trap

After we looked at the burned area in Hampton Creek, we drove across the bench to Henry's Creek.  We didn't have a specific destination, and while my husband and I were talking, the subject of the Henry's Creek pronghorn trap came up. I had found some information about it for my guidebook of the area, but never had had the chance to investigate it.

According to pioneers, the Shoshone Indians built a V-shaped trap between a couple ridges and would herd pronghorn into it. About fifty Indians were needed to make this work, and they would smoke themselves with sagebrush to hide their scent.

We decided to hike over to the trap, as my husband knew where it was. I looked it up on Google Earth later so I could see it better. I outlined the trap with the red line below--look just inside it and you might be able to see the rock wall.

The boulders were still in place, but the willow branches my husband remembered seeing in his youth were no longer there.

The bottom didn't look much like a V to me, more like a U. I'm guessing the boulders used to be higher, or at least the branches, because they aren't very high walls now.

 

It was pretty cool seeing this remnant of a different culture out on the landscape.

Wildflowers and Burned Trees up Hampton Creek

 One Sunday we went up Hampton Creek in the North Snake Range for my husband to check on water. I suggested we look at wildflowers too. We used to go up Hampton Creek to look for garnets or to hike on the trail, but a huge wildfire and subsequent floods have washed out the road. We were (barely) able to cross the creek, but then soon had to stop, with the view above as we looked back into Snake Valley.

The wildflowers were out in abundance, including lots of milkvetch (Astragalus sp.).

Storm clouds were building to the west. We could see snow on the mountains, and it was obvious some runoff had started with the muddy stream water.

I liked this Cryptantha, nestled in its hairy leaves.

I find the burned trees very scenic. They will come back again. The stream bed has been altered a lot, widened many times its former size and greatly deepened. Hampton Creek used to look like just a small mountain creek and sported Bonneville cutthroat trout. Now it looks like a place you really need to avoid on rainy days in case of flash floods.

The spiders have certainly made their home there. We found many like this one, with a white round body that blends in with the gravel.  They moved quickly.


I liked this yellow flower. It had leaves like the Carrot family (Apiaceae) and a flower like the Pea family (Fabaceae). What could it be? I knew I had seen one before, but it took me awhile to find it in a flower book. It's in the Fumariaceae family, and the Flora for the area only has one species listed for the whole family, Corydalis aurea, Golden Corydalis, sometimes called Scrambled eggs. It is rare, found below 9,900 feet on spring moist soil, burns, along streams and in openings in brush. The leaves don't look quite right to me, so this may be a different species.

This beautiful purple flower is in the Mustard Family (Brassicaceae), its four petals giving a strong clue. It's one of the many Arabis. I really liked this view of it looking straight down.

We also saw some ladybird beetle. This one looks like it only has five spots, but we also saw some seven-spotted ladybird beetles (Coccinella septempunctata), which have cover over from Europe and are very widespread.

This dainty yellow flower caught my eye. I don't know the name, I just know that it's pretty!

We tried walking up the road, but what wasn't washed away was heavily overgrown with willow, roses, and weeds (unfortunately some that should be treated or they will take over). This canyon has certainly gotten a lot more wild, and it will take some considerable effort to get up to the old garnet mine and trailhead.