Owyhee's On Fire

Wednesday August 12 2015

First a flash flood; now a fire.

Those aren't pretty fluffy clouds that turn into dragons or pigs or wizards.

Those are smoke clouds, bubbling up from the Soda fire raging in Owyhee County, the closest edge of the fire being 20-25 miles away from us as the Raven flies.


Lightning is expected to have ignited the fire on Monday along the Oregon/Owyhee county Idaho border, and in the last 24 hours, with gnarly winds buffeting the fire across drought-dry, cheatgrass-rich desert and grazing lands, the fire has quickly exploded in all directions, covering over 200,000 acres now (it was 100,000 yesterday!). At one point it grew 1.5 miles in 8 minutes.

As anxious Owyhee-uns (and Oregoni-uns) are keeping an eye on its progress, social media is buzzing and chattering with offers of horse trailers, and places to evacuate horses if necessary.

We are directly east of the lower edge of the fire (in fact slightly to the south), and with hot temperatures and wind forecast for the next couple of days (which is what helped the fire explode rapidly), I'm watching that forecast every hour. For the fire to spread here though, wind would have to come from the north at some point; but so far, winds are predicted to shift between southeast and southwest, up to 15 mph. Lucky for us, but not so much for those to the north, east and west of the fire.

Owyhee Flash Flood!

Wednesday August 5 2015

I did not like the looks of the glowering dark blue storm cloud that was headed this way. It had to be heavy with lightning, and if it was, I prayed it would also drop some rain.

As it moved closer, menacing thunder rumbled - loud enough for me to hear. I saw a ground bolt or two over the ridge, saw sheet flashes and whirling sky bolts. And then began the lovely sound of raindrops. Which became a steady drum, and quickly a pounding rain - faster and harder, the wild torrent plummeted until a level of awe was reached and surpassed. It thundered raindrops, a curtain of water, a cataract from the heavens. The clouds turned from a deep blue to white, as the water roared down from the sky. And when it could not have possibly rained any heavier - it did rain harder!

The only other time I have witnessed such an astonishingly hard downpour was in Malaysia, but I was indoors for that one. I had to get out in this desert monsoonal rainstorm. So I did. Cold, pounding, amazing, gorgeous desert rain! I was soaked in a second, cold in two. I splashed through the downpour, sloshed through the new river flowing down the driveway over the creek - then jumped up on the house porch when lightning and thunder cracked pretty closely, and I stood dripping and shivering, gaping in utter amazement from the porch as the rain continued thundering down. The mountains had disappeared behind a curtain of water. The arena was under water. Everything was under water.


still pouring, even as the sun is chasing the rainstorm away

For some thirty minutes, the battering rain hurtled downward and flooded, then it finally eased off as the cloud moved northward. I squelched out into the arena, which was running off heavily into Pickett Crick - which had been completely dry for the last week. Turbulent water and silt gushed into it from both sides, and the crick churned and boiled brown as it rowdily cascaded downstream.

The sun came out, and the horses started to do what they usually do after a rain - they started to paw and then roll. But they were a little uneasy. Only one horse at a time would roll, then he'd stand and stare up Pickett Crick canyon. A great deal of water was rushing noisily down, making noises the horses hadn't heard before.

Batman is on alert, looking up the canyon. That's the receding rainstorm behind him

Jose is looking up-canyon, on high alert!

But there was something else. They started milling together in a tight circle, turning and stopping to stare up-canyon. One or two of them would give the big loud Deer Snort Warning, then whirl around to bolt away, sending the herd in a tight flight up a hill then spinning back together in a tight uneasy circle, charging back down the hill, swirling and stopping, staring with heads high, ears pricked forward.

spinning


bolting away


sprinting back


staring, snorting, agitated!

And then it came: rumbling, crackling, a slow-moving thing making its way down Bates Crick behind the horses, shoving everything not anchored deep out of its way: a flash flood! It arrived 30 minutes after the downpour had stopped. The horses ran away in terror to the far end of the pasture. I didn't run away from the flash flood, I ran towards it, a must-see magnificent spectacle.

Tree branches and debris shoved up against the driveway and the two drainage pipes were quickly overwhelmed, and the water shoved up and over the driveway. (Steph got this awesome video of it! - posted here on Facebook)

I was in utter awe, sloshing through very cold water (at safe spots), taking pictures and videos. The water rolled over the driveway like a wave; and a spilling roar of white-water (brown, actually) followed, cascading like class five rapids back down into the creek. It tore out a chunk of the driveway, and took part of a pipe fencing down as easily if it had been string.

Bates Crick was just 12 inches wide an hour earlier

It roared along, joining high-flowing Pickett Crick, and continued tearing on down-canyon. Bates Crick, which just had a light flow that you could step over an hour earlier, was now 4 feet deep, 15 feet wide at places, scouring everything in its way - Mother Nature's way of cleaning out her plumbing system.

Bates Crick, scoured clean of underbrush and tree parts! you can see how high the water rose (clear to the right edge of the picture). note how brown the water still is, an hour later!

After another half hour, the rushing water subsided, and some of the flooded areas had drained off back into the creeks, leaving behind a thick slimy muddy clay that sucked your shoes off. Sand-foam was left behind in places, such as where high water got caught and churned around in sagebrush before finding its way downhill.


Quail were out soon after, happily chirping away, in search of newly stunned and exposed bugs and worms.


The horses, meanwhile, were still on higher ground at a safe corner of the fence - and there they stayed until the next morning. Days later, the herd still doesn't want anything to do with Pickett Crick, even though it didn't get the flash flood, only high water. They probably won't cross it on their own for another 3 months!

on high ground, not budging for the next 12 hours!

It was a treat and a blessing to witness this rare, violent, awesome act of nature. As a neighbor Matt aptly said, "I love it when nature grabs us and gives us a shake - as long as we're safe!"


*This was particularly thrilling to be a part of, since I missed out on the last flash flood 3 years ago. I saw the cloud that hit, but I was on my way to City of Rocks!
Here are five videos I posted on Youtube of the flash flood:
https://www.youtube.com/user/equestrianvagabond

A Tease

Tuesday September 3 2013

It was so deliciously auspicious: 60% chance of heavy rain, and a Flash Flood Warning.

And it started out so promising. The skies dimmed; a light rain began falling in the morning. It lasted an hour… the mountains disappeared, the horses got wet…


Finneas even rolled and covered himself in mud, something he rarely does (he rather likes to stay clean and shiny, because he's a grandson of the Black Stallion).




It lasted another hour…

and fizzled. Sun came out and dried the ground in shorter time than it took to get wet.

Showers and thunderstorms are still likely through tomorrow night, but the sun is gaily shining and I don't hold out much hope. I'll believe it when I can dance in it.

The Owl Grotto

Wednesday October 19 2011

I hike back to the Wind Caves today to finish marking the Birch Creek trail for the Owyhee Hallowed Weenies endurance ride over Halloween.The big advantage of doing it on foot and not horseback is, I can explore the nooks and crannies of Wind Cave Canyon.

Jose would have loved it, but he wouldn't have fit. I climb over and under and in and around the twisting labyrinthine canyon, squeezing between boulders, ducking under overhangs, skirting caves, scrambling up the smooth sandstone (? In one of my next lives I'm going to come back as a geologist), sliding down walls into deeper chambers - and hoping I can get out the other side, because I can't crawl up and over the walls.

It must be spectacular in here in a heavy rainfall. I can imagine it, watching sheltered in one of the little caves above, as the water, racing the miles downhill from the Owyhee mountains, gathering speed and power and purpose, finds this wash and slams into this canyon, raging and squeezing through the narrowing rock walls in a violent clash, funneling roaring waterfalls, sluicing up sand and heaving it downstream, shoving boulders, swirling up the canyon walls, gouging out more hollows, caving in more of the walls, all of it whirling into the downward-racing maelstrom.


There are myriad caves in the canyon walls of this Wind Cave Canyon, from mouse-size (you can see their tracks and poo), to rat-size (you can see their artistic nests),

to owl-size (I find one probable Great Horned nest),

to hobbit-size,

to human party-size.

It's not nesting season, but naturally I want to get a better look into the raptor nest tucked into this fine hidden grotto barred by big fallen monster boulders. If I scramble out one canyon entrance, I can crawl under another one and get in on the backside of the boulders, crawl up onto them and stand on my tiptoes and look in.

This area is accessible by ATV, and there are numerous campfire rings in the canyon (fortunately, not too much trash!) - one in an overhang at the mouth of this canyon entrance - it's rather surprising a raptor uses that nest.

I stand on my tiptoes and I stare at the nest at eye-level from 30 feet away. I turn back around and look down at the boulder I am standing on, and find part of a pellet, and a little rodent skull - raptor food.


And suddenly, I feel it - I lift up my eyes and am looking straight into the golden eyes of a Great Horned Owl, staring at me camouflaged from a dark notch back in the canyon wall. Unperturbed by my presence, she sits motionless and relaxed, blinking unconcernedly at her unexpected visitor.


In fact, when I look on the entire sand floor of the grotto below my feet, it is littered with months - years - decades - of tiny bird and rodent bones, and a few feathers, including this Great Horned Owl feather.


And that's the thing about the hidden Owl Grotto in the hidden Wind Caves in the vast Owyhee desert.

Few people know the Wind Caves are hidden in there, fewer people know the Owl Grotto is hidden inside the Wind Caves, and even fewer people who make it into the Owl Grotto know they're being watched. Fine by me and the owls.

I nod my respectful thanks for the unexpected encounter, and say goodbye, and slip out, leaving her to her secret Owl Grotto.

[slide show here]