Moab Canyons Endurance Ride Day 2: Just Magnificent

Tuesday October 29 2013

More photos of the spectacular trails, on Day 2 of the Moab Canyons endurance ride.


Jose gawking at the scenery (just like I was doing!) at his favorite place - the highest point.


Leading down a steep hill from one canyon into the next.


Jose ogling the scenery some more - I mean, what else can you do in country like this?!


See how high we are on this mesa on loop 1? On loop 2 we will be on a trail in that valley directly below us (Jose spotted the horses), going all the way around that massive Lost World Butte on the left.


Coming into the vet check below The Needles


Just - beauty. Gasp!


Weathered, rippled slickrock sandstone. We're headed for a shelf right alongside the cliffs ahead.


Lots of sand, from all the sandstone cliffs: white sand, pink sand, red sand, deep sand. Climbing out of the Lost World Butte valley.


Jose and The Raven had an awesome ride!

Steph had an excellent camera and got some rare photos of me!


Stunning cottonwoods along the Bartlett Wash


Climbing above yet another canyon on slickrock - easy going in the horses' rubber easyboots!


Pausing to let Jose gape. With his elf eyes, he spotted horses far in the distance.


I. Love. This. Country. I could ride among its mysteries forever. (Well... in fall and winter, when it's coolest!)


Possibly my favorite photo of me and Jose, anywhere, ever.


Climbing red slickrock beneath a gargantuan mesa.

More photos and a recap of the ride! at:
http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2013Moab/

Moab Canyons Endurance Ride Day 1: Grandeur

Sunday October 27 2013

It was a sad thing for John, who at the last minute could not make it, but a serendipitous thing for me, because Steph asked me to go to the Moab Canyons 3-day endurance ride in his place, and ride Jose Viola, no less.

There's something about this part of the country that grips me fiercely, and gloms on at the cellular level (see Beneath the Red). I've spent far too little time hiking and camping here, and always when I drive through the country, the question consumes me: What is it like out there, beyond the roads?

Now I know. We rode in it, for 105 miles.

There isn't really a single word in the English language that captures the spectacular magnificence (see? I tried it - that's two words that don't come close!) this country wears and the near-spiritual worship it incites in me. We rode days 1 and 2 (then had to leave), and my jaw muscles ache because for 105 miles, my mouth hung open in awe-struck disbelief.

Here are a few pictures from day 1:


We rode up to the base of, and all the way around this table mesa, which was some 7 miles or so long. You can't tell from the photo how tall, massive, and imposing it was. In some places on this mesa and many others, you could see the many different layers of sandstone. The rounded tan domes on top which you can't see in this photo is Navajo Sandstone. The red here is several different layers, probably Kayenta and Wingate. But don't quote me!


Just look at this staggering country we got to ride through!


Steph and Batman riding over slickrock by some of the pillars. (It's called 'slickrock' but with the Easyboot glue-ons and gloves our horses wore, they had great traction.)


The weathered sandstone came in many shapes and sizes. Steph called these knobby things 'dumplings'.


Loop 2 was total Outlaw Country. If you look really really closely, you'll see Kerry Redente on her horse in the middle of the picture. See? Total Outlaw country. She blended right in with the landscape. (Well, except for her yellow shirt).


Jose could see outlaws from the past. I saw many, many, many places to hide, if I were an outlaw. But of course I'm not.


Moab outlaws. (Me and Jose!) (photo by Steph!)


And back at camp, a good roll was had by all. Batman and Jose could hardly wait for their saddles to be stripped so they could plunge into the red dirt and roll and scratch and wiggle and itch.


(My point n shoot camera was low on battery first thing in the morning of day 1 (!! - some photographer I am, and what bad timing!) so I was conservative on the photos. I also wore a go pro helmet camera, and I'll put together videos of the ride later. More spectacular photos from Moab at: http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2013Moab/, and Day 2 coming next!)

Five Feet and Six Inches

The creek is dry and the pathway inviting.

The maw of the red canyon gapes: I enter. How can I not?

It is fall, cool and dry in the Owyhee high desert. I am alert for cougars and snakes… but the beauty of the canyon distracts me. Stuns me to muteness. I've hiked the upper part; I've walked along the rim; years ago I discovered eagles nests on one of the canyon's cliff walls. But I've never hiked through this lower part, with the dragon walls and monster monoliths and cathedral towers.

My sense of wonder is so overwhelmed that my other senses suffer, and when a willow bush explodes beside me, I explode too, in adrenaline. Five feet was all that separated me from a great horned owl, and I hadn't seen it. Good thing it was only an owl! But I am disappointed I didn't get a close-up shot of it.

I vow more alertness, checking ledges and overhanging walls, where cougars might lie observing, or where more owls might be perching, as I creep up the gorge.

The canyon in places squeezes together, twists in mazes, and widens into a massive garden oasis. Pretty autumn-colored poison oak decorates the passages. 

The walls become a funnel in places when water runs swiftly in the spring, carving chutes and caves and leaving miniature sand beaches where detritus washes up.

In a hole in the wall 12 feet above the creek bed, 

I spy feathers. It's an old owl nest! 

But as I approach closer, and climb up to peer in it, I see it's pieces of a whole owl - this is the dining room of an owl-eater. Perhaps one of the golden eagles who rules this territory has ripped this great horned owl apart in this dining cave-with-a-view.

Ahead through the canyon walls, I hear and see an angry swooping and diving prairie falcon. I can't see what she's after but I'll bet it's the great horned owl that I disturbed. I try to tread quietly in the creek bed, (which is impossible for a human), try to creep around the corner to see the owl, when it's suddenly had enough of the falcon, and enough of the approaching crashing thrashing human, and it flies over my head back down the canyon, with the prairie falcon in pursuit. As I turn my gaze back up-canyon, a chimney cleft in the opposite wall catches my eye - and I see another great horned owl, staring down at me. He is perfectly camouflaged - I'm not sure how I even noticed him.

I continue on up the canyon, where it becomes very brushy. I could crawl through a tunnel of brush in the creek bed, but I think better of it. I don't sense the presence of cougars, but - what do I know? An owl almost had me for lunch. I opt to crawl up and around where I'm out in the open. 

I see the eagle nest cliff ahead, and there comes a point where I have to either climb or cross the brushy creek bed - and I'm no climber. I pick my way carefully through the 6-foot-high sagebrush and willows, eyes and ears scanning everywhere. There is a sea of poison oak beneath the cliff, but if I pick my way carefully through, I should emerge the other side of the eagle cliff, and continue up the rest of the canyon that I've traversed before.

Still scanning cliff walls and brush, I study my path, carefully taking one step at a time through the tall and pretty red-leafed poison oak. Nearing the edge I say The Heck With It, and I sort of leap and run the last few steps to get it over with.

My mistake.

My last footfall lands in the golden sea of cheatgrass, six inches from one unsuspecting and suddenly very pissed off six-inch rattlesnake. She is golden, barely visible in the matching golden grass, and soundless, because she is too young to have even one rattle. 

can you see it retreating?? me neither!

 (I read later: "Rattler babies have venom, short fangs and are dangerous from birth. In fact, they are more pugnacious than the adults. Although unable to make a rattling sound, the youngsters throw themselves into a defensive pose and strike repeatedly when disturbed."*)

It is only - what? - fate? luck? - that this newborn rattler has not struck me. Again and again. We both leap back, the rattler rising tall and coiling and writhing and rattling a rattle-less tail, me recoiling and cursing, adrenaline raging, stepping back but not too far back without looking, because where there is one rattlesnake baby there could be more babies ("The female rattler may carry from four to 25 eggs, from which an average of nine or ten young are born live"*), not to mention the big rattlesnakes that created them.

The little rattlesnake slowly retreats - while still coiled and ready to strike - into taller grass, and I realize that with its perfect golden camouflage, I'll likely not see the next one, either.

I find my that nerve to continue up this canyon has suddenly vanished. I choose to retreat - back through the poison oak and golden grass (very carefully!) through the tall brush (cautiously!) and to climb up out of the canyon, and leave the rest of the canyon for another day. 

Like a cold day in winter when rattlesnakes should be hibernating.

*from Desertusa.com

Owyhee Secrets

Saturday June 9 2012

While out pulling ribbons from the Owyhee Fandango endurance ride, I came across this young gopher snake digging a hole. I didn't want to get too close because while they aren't poisonous, I hear they can give a painful bite, and I didn't want to bother him at the task at which he was very intent, so absorbed that he ignored this beetle who didn't seem to realize he was in mortal danger. (But then, maybe beetles taste bad to snakes.) I couldn't see anything through my camera screen so I was guessing at what I was shooting, and I was holding my arm out as far as possible, but in this video you can still see the excavating skills of this snake.

[video here]

In addition to the Raven cliff nest I stumbled across with 4 noisy fledged Ravens, I discovered a new hidden little canyon and cave as I cut back to my starting point across country. 

Sometimes when you're out in the boonies and you stumble across something really cool, you fantasize that maybe you're the only person to have found it (not counting the Native Americans who lived here before the whites took over, because in 'our discoveries' we never count the Native Americans - but of course they always knew these places first). I'm unlikely to have been the first white person to find this cave, since not far downstream is the Rock Corral and the sentinel caves surrounding it.

But it is likely few modern people have stumbled upon this place, where the cave overlooks an intermittent creek which, by the looks of the thick trees and vines in the middle of it, runs permanently in this little canyon.

I approached the cave somewhat warily (always looking out for cougars!), and while finding it empty of large mammals, found it large and roomy and accommodating - to rats and mice and perhaps bats. The ubiquitous packrat nest occupied the far end of the cave which dissolved up into a notch in the rock wall, and little nests were stuffed in little pockets in the ceiling. 

No old archeological signs, no obsidian, and no mammal footprints or recent bed impressions in the cave, in which I could have comfortably stretched out or sat tall in, but there was a trail (not used recently) which ran from the mouth of the cave down to the creek. Something larger than a rat has used this cave at some point.

The red cliff walls were a miniature rendering of the deep rhyolite canyons that run on this parallel across the base of the mountains - maybe a million years ago it was one of these deep canyons, or more likely, in a million years, it will be one of these deep canyons. And maybe in a million years, some New Age person will stumbled upon this 'Cave Canyon', and wonder who 'discovered' it, long ago.

Eaglets!

Wednesday May 18 2011

I went out with retired bird biologist Karen, to check up on a couple of eagle territories.


The Brown's Creek golden eagles whose territory and nests I found last year, who raised a youngster last year, have two babies in the nest - big babies! (Note the one laying down in the back left of the cavelet.) The adults moved to a different nest this year on the same cliff face - a nice nest with a little cave, plenty of room, a choice between sun and shade, and shelter from rain and snow. You can see the eaglet in the sun panting from the heat. It wasn't hot today, but you can see why heat is a big killer of eaglets.


Karen estimates their age to be 6 weeks.

Mean fledging age is 63 days. A nesting attempt is considered successful when the young is 51 days old.

The golden eagles down the creek on the cottonwood tree nest are still raising their one eaglet! There's a big difference - size, feathering and maturity - between her (I'm just guessing it's a she) and the two cliff nest eaglets. Karen estimates this one to be 4 weeks old.


I checked on another canyon that was known to have historic eagle nests. I sort of 'rediscovered' these nests last year that haven't been monitored for many years. For at least the last two years, the territory has been unoccupied, though the whitewash around two of the cliff nests isn't so very old.

One can see why this nest might be undesirable from the big rock that fell in it...


though this one looks good to me.


But then, I'm not an eagle.

We'll check on these nests one more time - between the 51 and 63 day marks - to see if they can be labeled Successful.