Debris Flow

On my way to Ogden the other day, I noticed where a debris flow from one of our burned areas had crossed the freeway.  On the way back, I stopped to look.  Just north of the first Holden exit, a cloud-burst in the headwaters of Ebbs Canyon had sent a muddy flash flood, full of downed logs, into the northbound lane of I-15.  I-freaking-15.  The speed limit at that location is 90 MPH (well, it says 80 on the sign).  When you get in your car in San Berdue headed for Yellowstone, do you expect to be slaloming through uprooted pinyon pines at 90 MPH in central Utah?  Isn't the natural world amazing?

Carvings

Last week, I talked about an 1898 carving.  Here it is (above).  When I mentioned it to someone else, that person said something like, "So you think."  Well.  It is true that the date might be false.  Which is to say that a) the carver was mistaken; or, b) that the carver was lying.  But why?  W.B. Mecham was probably not lying about wandering around the Markagunt 120 years ago, and I doubt he was illiterate.  You can judge for yourself, I guess.  Directly across from the Mecham carving was this figure (below).  Often old carvings like this are of females—and they are sometimes somewhat crude.  It is difficult to tell in this case, but it could be.

Mount Houston

We were driving around in the rain yesterday looking for Houston Mountain.  Finally we parked and began walking through the woods.  There it was.  A stubby ridge of basalt.  When we got to the top EDO found that it was raspberry season at 10,000 feet.  With the rain and the lichen, the descent was slippery.  It required hands, feet, and backsides.  On the way out we found a carving from August 1898—one of the older ones we've seen.

Picturing Blue Spring

VSO took a bit of a sabbatical this summer.  She accepted a few commissions, but otherwise tried to lay low.  Some of it may have been writer's block, but she also wanted to spend time riding the bikes with EDO.  (It is, as McMurtry put it, a damn short movie.)  Today, though, I rode the bike while VSO drove shuttle.  It gave her the opportunity to block-in a few towering clouds above Blue Spring.  A damn good picture.