Field Work

As I mentioned last week, I've had a Douglas fir stand on the forest picked out for a while, but have been waiting for the snow to go.  It remains a bit wet and mucky out there, but the lower part of the stand is open enough to start work.  EDO was with me yesterday, so it meant that she did most of the work:  She carried the saw, ran the saw, and drove the increment borer.  I made pictures.

It is going to be an interesting stand.  I expected to find older live trees and some relict dead Doug fir in the understory, similar to what I have been finding in the Book Cliffs.  But, it is completely the opposite:  The live trees are merely 100 years old and the relicts are Gambel oak, aspen, and Rocky Mountain maple.  This was, apparently, a shrub field circa 1910.  At any rate, we have eleven new samples to process and should know more when that is done.

On the Ledge

Yesterday, I was able to scramble to this small ledge half-way up from Alrad Canyon.  From there I made my way along the ledge to a point where I could drop back to the valley and down a washed-out road to the Chev, turning the scramble into a loop.  Along with the good views, there was a lot of nice old wood.

Moving to the Forest

Last week, I was in the Book Cliffs looking for dead wood.  This week, I want to move my work to the National Forest.  Thus far, the snow has been too deep, but, after a few 70F degree days, things are starting to open up.  I'm interested in this north-facing Douglas fir stand overlooking Bob Wright Canyon.  As the pictures show, the south-facing slopes are snow free, but my area of interest still requires a little post-holing:  My boots were wet when I got back to the Chev.  At any rate, I sampled one tree with the increment borer and, barring a late season blizzard, I should be able to start working out there later this week or next.

Dead Wood

In the winter, I was collecting live tree cores in a mixed Douglas fir and pinyon pine stand in the Book Cliffs.  The longest cores that I brought back to the lab were about 350 to 370 years old:  Germinating in say, 1650.  To go beyond that, I have begun experimenting with dead wood.  The stand has been disturbed by fire, insects, and tree cutting over the past several hundred years.  Trees have died, but the wood remains.  So far, I have a piece of Douglas fir for which I was able to determine a germination date of 1303, about 720 years ago.  Yesterday, I was out looking for more.  I got another good sample of Douglas fir (above), but the real revelation was three separate Rocky Mountain juniper trees (below).

Homestead Show

I thought we had shown there since, but the only record I could find was from spring of 2021, so maybe it has been three years.  At any rate, yesterday we went to the Frontier Homestead to hang a show.  It is a good venue.  Unfortunately, it is now about a four hour drive from the house.  We were on the road from 8:30a to 5:30p.  Help us pay for gas:  Take your checkbook to Cedar City and take home some fine art!

View from the Office

This week we had a meeting in the conference room above the gift shop at the visitor center in Dead Horse Point State Park.  Not only is it a nice place for a meeting, but the second day of spring was so clear and sunny that we had views to the Abajos, the Henrys, and, of course, the La Sals.  It was nearly enough to make you forget you were in a meeting.

Non-scenic Dry Washes

There are some non-scenic dry washes south of the railroad that I have looked at on the map.  Yesterday, I went down there with EDO to look around.  It is kind of nice:  Quiet, easy walking, interesting rock formations.  Worth another trip.

Snow at the Basin

The forecast called for an inch or two, but it pretty much snowed all day at Snowbasin.  It made for soft conditions and low visibility.  There were times when we found our way through the pillows of snow by listening for the rattle of a ski lift or the sound of voices.

PCMR

We started at the Canyons (where the 'dola was broke), but wanted to ski with Saurer in Jupe.  By the time we traversed from the Orange Bubble to Timberline to Iron Mountain to Quicksilver to Silverload, the day was getting on.  We hustled down to Thanes, out the access road, and up the Jupiter chair, but by the time we got there he was gone.  They both were:  Kristi had been with him all morning, but they were headed out to west Scotts and we didn't catch them there.  I talked to Mark on the phone, but by then Kristi had gone home and he was at the summit.  Dammit.  In the end we got a single lap on Crescent (above) but then it was time for us to begin the reverse traverse, starting with Quicksilver.  Through it all there wasn't as much skiing as we could have liked, but Benson did put on a clinic in the deep crud at Scotts, skiing well despite the many hours of travel.

ALTA!

It has been two years since our last Alta day.  We had four hours on the mountain today and the conditions were outstanding.  Benson skied like an Olympian.

Rural Ways skied, too.

View from the Office

This week, Murdock took me on a tour to Gold Basin in the La Sals.  It was a bluebird day and I couldn't think of any better way to spend it.

Red Hole Wash

We almost didn't make it because I too casually allowed myself to become stuck in a muddy ditch.  The four-wheel drive on GC2 doesn't work correctly anymore, so you can do a lot of digging with the rear wheels before the front end catches.  I thought I was about to spend the afternoon digging with the shovel to build a new roadway out of the ditch when the front tires finally got traction and pulled us free.  From there we were able to drive all the way to the hoodoos directly above the Red Hole Wash pictograph panels.  It was so close we barely had to walk.

Ski Three

VSO wants to go rock art hunting tomorrow, so we'll have a break from the incessant ski touring narratives.  But, this was another good day:  A windy snow squall and 22F temps brought fresh snow to the ridge and quiet tracks in the woods.

Snows and Crows

Once again, the amount of new snow in town is miniscule:  Maybe two inches.  But, on the ridges, there is a lot.  I think we're at 110% or 120% of normal at this point.  At any rate, it makes for good ski touring.  And good picture making.

First Ski

It has mostly been dry in town this winter and the mountain snowpack has been below average.  As a result, I have not been thinking about skiing.  We got a good slug of moisture late this week, though, and I thought I'd better get on the skis before the winter gets completely away.  I went to my favorite touring zone above Indian Canyon, but found someone else parked there.  It made me nervous.  I found another trail system nearby, partly on the old highway, but it trended downward.  I skied for a while, maybe an hour, but I didn't want to break the cardinal rule:  Always start by going uphill.

Hard Cores

I've been out a few times in the past weeks trying to collect and cross date pine and juniper cores from the Book Cliffs.  Well.  I've fallen into a pattern of failure.  A couple of times I couldn't get the increment borer into the tree and a couple of other times the borer became so packed with pitchy bark that it was completely plugged.  Finally, when I did get a pair of cores, I couldn't cross date them:  Not even with each other!  So, now I have started from scratch.  After a thorough increment borer cleaning, I selected a discrete stand of relatively small diameter Douglas fir trees and I am working through a complete inventory.  Douglas fir is the classic species for dating and cross dating because it is very sensitive to climate signals.  Plus, I have two local master chronologies from the Book Cliffs to help me get it straight.  I'm just going to keep working on it until the whole hillside is cross dated.  Damnit!

Canyon Hopping

We had Monday off.  VSO needed to visit the Green River Canyon between Swasey's and Nefertiti, so I drove her there.  While she worked, I made pictures of the river.  It was a beautiful day.  After that, we went to Sego Canyon to look at the rock art:  Another nice panel.

One Inch

While the statewide snow totals have bumped up in the past couple of weeks, it has been very dry in Carbon County.  When I went out on Friday afternoon (above) it was snowing lightly and I though it might add up.  But, it didn't.  This morning (Sunday) we awoke to new snow in town.  One inch of snow.  I think it is the deepest single snowfall at the house this winter.

Birthday Wish

You know you are a rock-art-nerd when your birthday wish is to spend the special day rock art hunting.  Yesterday, we went to Ferron Canyon so VSO could search for glyphs.  There are supposed to be some pictographs in the canyon, too, so I suppose we were searching for those, but we found only petroglyphs.  The one below is in the book—I started calling it the "wagon panel"—but we didn't find it until the end of the day.  Once you know where to look it seems obvious, but there are a lot of rocks out there.

Three Days in the Field

We spent the last three days in the backcountry, but I left myself no time for posting each day.  To summarize:  On Friday, we drove out to Bull Point and found our way to the main stem of Robbers Roost Canyon.  There was a huge pictograph panel at that location.  We walked downstream to the confluence with the Dirty Devil River, explored briefly into the South Fork of RRC, and then climbed out (above).

On Saturday, we drove 15 or 20 miles up the Flint Trail and parked along one of the fingers of Rock Canyon.  We tried to hike in the bottom of the canyon, but it was very steep and we finally encountered an insurmountable pour-over.

On Sunday, EDO went out with her friend Max, while VSO and I made it to Cowboy Cave.  The cave is a famous Utah archaeologic site where the late Jesse Jennings excavated through 11,000 years of material that had accumulated on the cave floor.  Along with lots of animal dung, he and his team found Engelmann spruce leaves at the bottom of the dig!  A reason for me to visit.  The last picture (below) was made at the view area overlooking Hite at sunset.